Melody of Oblivion, The 8/10

I had to watch this series twice in order to settle on the score. It was as low as 4 at one point and as high as 9. Let's get to it then.

The Melody of Oblivion is by Gainax, famous for somewhat odd anime and these 24 episodes are certainly odd. Airing back in 2004, I have no real problems with anything technical in this show. The art is terrific and the backgrounds have a cool surreal look to them with odd red shadows and strange lighting. I also really like the character designs (rather busty I must say) and the whole thing is animated really nicely. The OP and ED are both great and I didn't skip them once either time through the series and the score is really good if a little trippy with all the odd violin parts. The VA's were all great as well but that's never a problem in anime.

During the 20th Century, there was a large scale war.
It was a full-force battle between humans and monsters.
After bloodshed so violent no words could ever explain...
it was the monsters who won.
Time went by, and and a new century began.
And then, people started to forget that melody.

This is the current world in which the hero, Bokka, lives. He's a normal high school student and is dissatisfied with his life for some reason, he feels something is wrong with his world. It turns out that every once in awhile one of his fellow students is being sacrificed to the local monster and no one speaks of it though all the adults seem aware it's going on. Bokka meets a Warrior of Melos who is one of the soldiers who battle the secret rule of the monsters against the wishes of the human governments that prefer to live with the monster threat. He decides to become one of them, gets some help starting out, and leaves home.

This is the start of a journey that takes Bokka and his new companion, Sayoko, to several different towns where they battle the resident humans that collaborate with the monsters, the Monster Union. Bokka has the power to fire powerful arrows and has an Aibar machine to help him fight though Sayoko is just along for the ride. They are searching for the Warrior Bokka met earlier since Sayoko is in love with him.

This world is messed up. The members of the Monster Union have crazy set-ups in each town to provide sacrifices to the monsters and they all pilot animal themed mechs to battle the Warriors of Melos. The Melody of Oblivion is a ghostly girl that only the Warriors can see and she seems to be the key to freeing the humans from the oppression of the monsters. Bokka eventually ends up in space with some other Warriors of Melos to thwart a plan to disable all the Aibar machines on Earth and ends up battling the Monster King in the final episode.

I really liked this show at first. The trippy animation and direction reminded me of Utena and I was hoping for another great ending. However the closer I got to the final episode the lower the score got. It's like the creators forgot about the Melody of Oblivion and the monsters and wanted to spend the whole series fighting the Monster Union. I felt obligated to watch the series again to give it another chance and I like it a lot more now that I have a better idea of what the creators were getting at. It's not so much about the defeat of the monsters but about what makes the monsters different from the humans and how the humans who do nothing are no better than the monsters. That and the fan service. Recommended.

P.S. This show DOES contain one of the most disturbing scenes in any non X-rated anime. Let's just say there's this interesting farm near the end of the series. Yikes!