Year of Release: 2002
Status: Complete
Story: Kyou Shirodaira
Art: Eita Mizuno
Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning is a murder mystery and detective series that follows Ayumu Narumi, a high school student who is searching for his missing brother, whose disappearance is tied into the elusive Blade Children. Who are the Blade Children? Well... you'll have to watch to find out [because I'm not telling].
ART SECTION: 5/10
General Artwork & Backgrounds 2/4: Unfortunately, this series just doesn't fall into one of my art style preferences for anime. While the artwork is good, I wouldn't go as far as to call it outstanding or exceptional in any way. In fact, the artwork is very, very, very similar to the artwork in Black Cat. There are some interesting animations in the story, but overall, nothing that really caught my eye enough to make me want to watch it again or praise it for being one-of-a-kind, sadly.
Character Figures 2/2: Considering I'm not a big fan of the art style, I will give this a fair 2/2 rating. They did what they could with the drawing style, and the characters followed suit well enough that I have no real complaints about the character animation. While the characters have interesting personalities, this section is specifically designed to address the animation aspect of the characters, which, again, wasn't anything that really stood out from the rest of the series.
Watchability (Flow) 1/4: I kind of lost interest after the first 5 episodes and wanted it to end sooner than it really did. The story is done well enough that you shouldn't have problems following it, and it might even peak your interest, but for me it was a no-go.
STORY SECTION: 6/10
General Scenario 1/2: I honestly felt that the series dragged on a little too long. What they completed in the 25 episode series could easily have been done in 13 episodes or possibly even less had they not tried to incorporate so much needless filler content. Don't misunderstand me, it isn't filler content like in Bleach or DBZ, where the characters spend an entire 3 weeks just to power up before the fight and then another month to actually start fighting. This is boring filler content, which realistically provides you with background information on either the missing brother or activities related to the Blade Children so you can piece together the puzzle rather slowly. Granted, they should have included this information, but they took the scenic route to accomplishing it and it bored me quite a bit.
Pacing 1/2: TOO SLOW. I fell asleep a couple times and had to re-watch a few episodes.
Side Stories/Character Development 2/2: The character development in the series is by far the most captivating part for me. As Ayumu learns more about his brother's involvement with the Blade Children, he learns a little more about himself, too. There are quite a few recurring characters, some good and some bad, and you get a chance to learn more about them, and their motivations, as the series progresses.
Plausibility 0/2: Yeah, no. Totally not believable in a real-life situation.Who would allow a high school student to disarm a fucking bomb in a crowded public place?
Conclusion 2/2: The series wrapped up nicely. There were a couple of concerns about the plot I had that went unaddressed, but otherwise it was tied up nicely when completed. But the ending of the series couldn't have come fast enough for me.
VALUE & ENJOYMENT SECTION: 3/10
I really didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. That'll teach me not to buy it before watching it next time. I'm a sucker for detective and mystery-type shows, so I thought this would work out nicely. Nothing aganst the creators, but I just had a hard time getting into the series because the artwork seemed so... "Plain Jane".
VERDICT: 14/30
Save yourself the trouble and just read the synopsis on Wikipedia or something. This series isn't really something overly constructive, if you value your spare time. You'd be better off playing Professor Layton if you want to actually use your brain.
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