Canaan

It would appear that I'm on a bit of an anime binge lately, this week I'll let you know my thoughts about the 13-episode series Canaan.

This one is a bit of an odd duck, far removed from the bouncy boobs and upskirt shots of HOTD.  It's not an odd duck as far as anime go, no I don't mean that type of odd, it just seems to be a bit off-kilter in the storytelling area.

This is possibly due, in part, to the fact that the series is actually a continuation of the Canaan manga, with the background of the characters only being very briefly talked about in some information dumps, and this is possibly the reason why not everyone can identify with any one of them from the get-go. On the other hand this impression is solidified because once the series is over, you don't really feel like it's over, yes some characters' story arcs end and we get a slightly better idea of what it is that was happening, but there's more than a bit of sequel bait at the end to accentuate the feeling that they didn't put everything they could into this one.

Canaan features mainly female characters, who fight each other... with guns, which is very cool indeed, but the entire series has this very heavy underlying theme of relationships and various ways in which people are connected, either by feelings or events in their past, and I think this is the theme that one is meant to take away from the series.

Canaan refers to one of the protagonists; I can't say the main one as there are arguably three of them which hold equal importance as far as the story goes, but not equal screen-time. She is a silver haired teenager with a kick ass military training background supercharged by a type of super-power, one might call it, although inspired by a real-life condition called synesthesia. Suffice to say this got a traditional anime make-over and makes our protagonist pretty much have the equivalent of the Predator mask, but instead of seeing in infra-red, ultra-violet and whatnot, she can see the mood of a person as colors.

That's pretty much all you have no know about that, the details behind the reason for her having this ability will transpire as the story unfolds.

As it is with any super-powered protagonist he or she must have a nemesis, and Canaan is no exception, her nemesis is Alphard, a similarly well trained but a bit older woman. She does not have any special powers, the reason for their enmity being the fact that they both got their military training from the same man, man who was killed by Alphard. Since that moment Canaan has been on a quest for revenge against Alphard and her terrorist organization known as Snake. (Ever since that Bible book came out, snakes have been getting a bad name)

The third female protagonist is Maria, who is a bit of an unknown quantity at the start of the series, she's a reporter with a recent past which involves both Canaan and Alphard in some way, however she cannot remember some details due to the trauma she endured, yes amnesia: a writer's best crutch for not explaining shit from the get-go.

I mentioned earlier that the entire series seems to be lacking something, as if the makers didn't put everything they could've into it, there are several occasions throughout the series when things are simply left unexplained, now maybe the explanation for some or all of these things can be found in the manga, but the fact that they leave holes in the anime isn't very excusable, one major example of this being when Canaan suddenly loses her synesthesia-powers for a while, only for them to pop up again when the plot required it.

The animation is pretty well done, with particular emphasis having been made during the action scenes, and with good reasons, since these are really fluid and well done, imparting to the viewer a very good sense of Canaan's extraordinary physical capabilities and agility.

There are guns, guts, character arcs and the story, while not extremely original, is interesting; the ending has a clear sequel hook in it and I'll be waiting to see the next installment in this series when and if it happens, check it out.