Friday, April 25, 2008

April 2008 New Anime: Toshokan Senso (Library War)


Genres: Modern Fantasy / Political / Thriller / Drama / War
I've watched: 2 episodes
Art style: Common

Summary: Toshokan Senso translates directly to "Library War". In a future where media police goes around censors free speech, library is the last place with freedom of speech because it's protected by more supreme law. However, media police is not going to give up taking over the library. A situation almost like civil war is occurring between the media police and the library.

Rating (of 5) - first impression: 4 ~ So much exaggeration, it's actually fun to watch

Personal comments: Animes are never lack of exaggerations. But this is different. I can't find a word exactly describe the difference, it's just fundamentally different. The background is that in Japan, new media control law has been passed, media police has the supreme power to do almost anything they want. To balance that out, they also passed something called "Library Freedom Act" (I think that's what's it called), where libraries become self-governing entities. So, twenty some years later, all libraries became like almost a military entity. All libraries have their own self defense force and special op force to counter the attack from media police. The weirdest part is everybody, include those special force member are trained as librarian as well. So basically, library is like a special military unit, where all soldiers are also Librarians. The exaggeration got to an extreme level, a level that you really couldn't place it comfortably. Because of that, it's also so damn interesting.

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