Denno Coil

[Dracos]

Jon recommended this to me recently and with good reason.  Its run apparently finished not too long ago in Japan and it was available for complete watching, which it got over the course of a day.  The art style is reminiscient of Miyazaki, but obviously its own, feeling very appropriate to the kind of story it tells.

  Denno Coil is subtitled, possibly translated as, a circle of children and this is one of many axis through which the story is told.  Sitting on the crossroads of romance, science fiction, mystery, and corporate intrigue, Denno Coil weaves together a series of interlocking themes excellently throughout it as it follows a group of children through their sixth grade year.  It isn't though about them in school, but instead its open face is being about Augmented Reality.

  The children are all users of 'glasses' a form of technology for interacting with a digitally overlaid world.  This world is both fake and surprisingly 'real' to them.  In it, kids work and play, pranking each other with hacks and doing research and things.  Here, a group of hackers and investigators face off against the mysterious Saatchi, an anti-virus program that attacks all bugs...including their less than harmless code items they keep with them.

  There's a high emphasis on symbols and numbers throughout it, programs are manifested as little ofadu while shrines, due to extremely bureaucratic rules, are seen as safety zones which Saatchi cannot enter.  This though is just the show as introduced and it fairly quickly slips in deeper plots.  Ghostlike black viruses  they call 'illegals' which can only survive in obsolete digital areas or inside pets.  A girl who hunts these and can program with her mind using exotic encoder techniques besides, but she does not hunt them to kill them, instead to unlock something within them and steal it.  Saatchi, and the company behind them, getting more and more aggressive as they seek to wipe out any and all traces of the obsolete areas with their formatting beams.  Amnesia to certain events while wearing the glasses.  A constant subtext of "what is real?".

  I won't go into more as really one of the strengths of the show is in its unveiling of the mysteries throughout the show, but I enjoyed it highly and recommend it as well.