LogFAQs > #966538100

In my continuing quest to rewatch my old favorites, I finished rewatching A.I.C.O.: Incarnation. Even years later, I'm still sad that the dub for this was so terrible. The fact that Netflix hired crappy foreign language voice actors to do an English dub wound up being the only thing anyone ever said about this. That controversy obscured just how amazing everything else about AICO is. It has great action scenes against a neat enemy. I love the Burst, it's so alien and cool and all the pseudoscience surrounding it is interesting. The action scenes are strategic rather than just mindless shooting because they need to counter specific mutations. The story is so laser-focused on its goal as they progress up the river, with the dams providing checkpoints even as their gear slowly wears down. Aiko herself is such a great character too. This anime remains one of the most perfect stories I've ever seen, every little thing about it appeals to me so much.

I also rewatched Revue Starlight the other day. It was still really good, but it did fall a little in my ranking. Nothing can ever replicate the magic of watching that first episode thinking it'd be just a cute show about girls doing theater, not knowing what was coming. Hikari annoyed me a lot more on rewatch than she did the first time too. I still love almost everything about this anime though, the Revues are all great, the singing is great, and the animation is great. I also love the endless symbolism about theater that's woven into the story. Every time I think about something I swear I find new ways that it ties into the themes. It's a really impressive, artistic story. I guess there was a Revue Starlight movie last year, but anime movies almost never appear on streaming services for some reason so I guess I'll never see it. Ah well.