Shadow's Anime Review #1

Apr 15, 2011 to Jun 24, 2011

11 Episodes

Action, Mystery, Super Power, Thriller

(9 out of 10)

The Japanese government was rescued from the brink of financial collapse by the Sovereign Wealth Fund. For its citizens, however, life has not improved and unemployment, crime, suicide, and despair are rampant. Kimimaro, raised by his maternal aunt after the disappearance of his father and the death of his mother, is a scholarship student whose only dream is to live a stable, ordinary life. One day he meets a man who offers him a large sum of money if he will allow his "future" to be held as collateral. From then on his fate is radically altered as he's drawn into a mysterious realm known as the Financial District, where he must compete in weekly tournaments called "deals" in order to keep his money and avoid losing his future.

(Source: Wikipedia)

My initial thoughts on the anime [C] - The Money of Soul and Possibility Control was me assuming that it would be a regular fantasy anime, featuring the drawn out fight scenes where the overpowered hero wins without sweat, flying through the air pulling out some kind of extremely powerful attack and becoming whatever; but I was pretty wrong, he had no aspirations in life and simply wanted money, which was offered in the form of Midas Money by one of the overseers of the Financial District. After watching the fairly nice battle scenes that had enough flair to catch my attention, but not enough to have me focus solely on the effects, I started continuing the series with the mindset "okay, so it's going to be pretty good, but I still think that the protagonist is going to be way too overpowered and not have anyone be able to match him." I was wrong, but not completely, in all the fights he had to try his hardest to get by with minimal loss/win so he wouldn't change the world too much. With every battle that happens, and there will be a battle as they are mandatory, effects the world; whether it be your family disappears, your company bankrupts, etc. there is a reaction. I felt that there was just enough of the romantical/emotional parts to balance out the battle scenes as well as it provided a wonderful backstory that I was really able to connect with. It has a lot of things that will start to get you thinking as well as portrays a pretty good visage to the human soul and how easy money will influence it. All in all, I ended up falling in love with the anime on my first time viewing it.

The thing that sets this anime apart from others for me would be its choice of music. It features some pretty good songs that I actually went and found to listen to on its own and an interesting art style that I found odd at times, how it switches from 2D to 3D. I found that instead of the usual fighting style, it brought something new to the table by having a tier of sorts; Micro being the smallest attack and using the least amount of Midas Money, Mezzo being a medium attack and consuming a fair amount, then Macro being like a finishing move type thihg and consuming a huge chunk of it.