Kekkai Sensen was some of the most fun I had with an anime in 2015. There are a lot of
things to love this series for – great characters, great humor, and batshit crazy action abound
– but for me it was the opening and ending theme songs that stood out.
They were my favourite OP and ED of spring 2015, and the opening, Hello, World!, came
in second on my list of the best OPs of the year. Today, I’ll be examining it in-depth
to pick out all the little details that make it stand out.
That'll involve spoilers, by the way, so consider yourselves warned. Also, if I sound weird, it's because I have a cold.
As Motou Fujiwara sings a ballad about his wicked hangover, we’re treated to a beautiful
shot of the sun rising over New York city the night before the great collapse. Compared
to the rest of the OP this shot is striking in its normalcy, but then that’s the point.
It serves to create a contrast between New York before and after the collapse turned
it upside down. There’s not a lot to say about the establishing
shot other than that it’s gorgeously animated. The way the sun peeks over the horizon, the
way the light catches the buildings, hell even the lens flare – it’s all perfect,
and it builds to this amazing moment where the city is swallowed up by blinding light.
Alluding to the collapse without showing it directly.
This inverted, grainy version of the same shot hints at the injection of something primal
and chaotic into the city, and we’re about to see the full effects of that.
We cut to a close-up on a jumble of photos taken throughout the city – people going
about their everyday lives. Hundreds – thousands of individual stories playing out all at once
– and as we pull further back we see that this messy, chaotic collage forms a picture
of Hell Salem’s lot. This serves a few different purposes. It establishes
that, as a city, Hell Salem’s lot has plenty going on beyond what the protagonists get
up to. This is a living place full of diverse people, and the show wants you to know that.
But this establishing shot is also a lot faster and messier than the last one, and that contrast
again tells us something about how New York has changed since the collapse. And on top
of that, the photos themselves serve as allusion to Leo and White’s penchant for photography.
It’s world and character building all wrapped up in one tight, efficient package, and the
next shot gives us more of the same. We see a busy street full of people milling
about – at first glance a pretty normal scene. But as we get closer in we see a number
of freakish figures in the crowd, and the fact that nobody is freaking out tells us
that this is business as usual for the city – monsters and humans intermingling.
This shot also introduces us to our hero, Leonardo Watch, and the way it does so tells
us a lot about him. He’s very much a normal guy – a face in the crowd. in fact, we can’t
even really see him until the OP points him out for us with this torn screen effect.
With the surface image torn away, we see the world as Leo sees it with his god eyes – important
things are highlighted in oversaturated technicolor, while the rest of the world fades into grainy
monochrome. This is a pretty inventive way of drawing the eye to important characters.
In the space of a few cuts we rotate around Leo, but just as we’re finally facing him
head on our attention shifts to Klaus. Our eyes are drawn to Klaus in a lot of ways beyond
the obvious red highlighting created by the torn screen effect.
Previous shots have drawn our attention to the left side of the screen by placing Leo
there and using the tearing effect to create movement in that direction. Our eyes are naturally
drawn to Leo’s in this shot, so when the cut happens, we’re already looking at Klaus
before the tear even happens. With less careful editing, this scene could be disastrously
hard to follow. Despite not being highlighted, Leo is also
very prominent in this shot by virtue of his face being the only one that’s completely
in-focus and visible to the camera. Their roughly equivalent screen presence and off-kilter
positioning create a solid horizontal and vertical balance – it’s a really good
shot, is what I’m saying. While Leo is walking with the bulk of the
crowd, Klaus is moving in the opposite direction, indicating that he’s an outsider. Similar
choreography has been used to create a similar impression in shows like Kaiji – because
it’s a very effective visual shorthand Continuing the theme of photography, various
members of Libra lean in with Leo to take a goofy selfie. Steven, Gilbert, and Chain
look on while Zapp, Sonic, KK, and Leo make their best funny faces. All of these characters
give us some sort of comedic relief in the show, and they’re doing the same duty here.
In a series of photographs we see Leo wake up and wash his face – then he checks his
eye, giving us our first glimpse at his god’s eye superpower. Another stack of photos shows
him digging into a super messy sloppy joe. The first bit shows us that Leo is a bit of
a worrywart, while the second shows that he doesn’t let that get in the way of enjoying
himself. Zapp and Zed’s reactions tell us a bit about
them as well – Zapp is quick to make fun of Leo, while Zed is just as quick to offer
him a napkin out of concern. Next we see an ant’s eye view of Leo’s
feet while the King of Despair walks off into the crowd behind him. The blue of the king’s
jacket contrasts with the red highlights on Klaus, hinting at their opposition and final
confrontation. Klaus and other members of libra derive their
powers from blood, so the red coloration makes sense for him. Interestingly, when he’s
highlighted Leo has both blue and red elements to his design, which connects him to libra
and hints that the celestial origin of his “all seeing eye” power might have some
connection to the King of Despair. We see a time-lapse shot of penn station,
and the blue effect around the edges tells us we’re looking through Leo’s all-seeing
eyes. Interesting side-note: the Nightow sign on the building, which shows up around the
city, is a reference to Yasuhiro Nightow, the creator of Kekkai Sensen and Trigun.
White and black both flit by briefly, but Leo’s focus gradually settles on the one
person who’s always at the forefront of his mind – his sister Michella.
She sits in her wheelchair next to a serene lake, with flower petals blowing all around
her, and a close up shows us a look of contentment despite the fact that she’s blind. Leo’s
face also calm, but he’s not smiling, and he opens his eyes with a look of resolute
determination. A brief cut shows us that he’s standing
on some sort of carnival stage, surrounded by blinking lights and spinning ferris wheels.
The carnival is a fairly consistent motif throughout the series, and is often shown
in connection with Femt and his cronies to show that the 13 kings see the world as their
playground. As Leo stands center-stage, he is at first
stunned and baffled by the various Libra members’ displays of power, but when white, black,
and his sister come into view he seems to find his equilibrium.
The backgrounds that are displayed are connected to the characters too – all of the libra
members are shown fighting in the middle of time’s square as defenders of the city,
while white is shown in the graveyard where Leo first met her. Black is wandering out
in the city, while Michella is staring down the mysterious entity that stole her eyes
and gave Leo his powers. The visions fall away and Leo find himself
standing – more self-assured – on the carnival stage once more. He stares directly
into the camera as we pull out from the screen to reveal Femt and co watching the show for
their own amusement. This implies that Leo is aware of their eyes on him.
The cut from the 13 kings to the king of despair implies a connection between the villains,
even before we know who they are. Despair is walking through a ruined city bathed in
ethereal blue flames – which happen to allude to his origins. The look of glee amid all
the destruction tells us in no uncertain terms that he’s a villain.
As is fitting the end of performance, the show’s central players take an unconventional
bow – their actions cut together into a single motion. Klaus starts the bow, the king
of despair continues it, and white and black finish it with a flourish.
Interestingly, Michella isn’t there to take her bow – and her absence is emphasized
by the falling petals – a fact which has a devastating effect on Leo. This could be
an allusion to the loss of her sight, or to some awful fate that’s yet to befall her
in the comics, or possibly a parallel to how Leo reacts to White’s death at the end of
the show. Lastly we see Leo standing on the stage with
the lights out and the show presumably over. This is Leo taking in the devastation wrought
by The King of Despair’s games. After some brief hesitation he finds his resolve and
stands heroically alone in the devastated city, with the petals that represent his sister
falling around him, giving him strength. As he stands there, bump of chicken’s singer
finds his own resolve, and proudly asserts “Hello, I am here!” And with one last
refrain we see the title through Leo’s all-seeing eyes. Then we zip through one last shot of
the cast, which is mostly just there to make them look cool and sync up with the last guitar
lick. Although by ending on Leo’s eye looking
back at us, we are reminded that he really does see everything.
With gorgeous animation, solid editing, and great, thematically resonant music, Hello,
World sets itself apart from the crowd. This is, no question, a phenomenal OP. One of the
best I’ve seen in years. There’s something about America that seems
to bring out the best in OP directors. We’ll be exploring that totally unfounded statement
next week when we look into a few of the openings from A1 Pictures’ stellar scifi drama Space
Brothers. Also, just a quick update: the psychonauts
review has been delayed due to me having a cold and other videos taking precedence, but
I’ll get it out as soon as possible. At any rate, if you liked this video and you
want to catch either of those or anything else I put out in the future, be sure to click
subscribe, and follow me on facebook or twitter for regular updates about the channel.
And while you’re waiting for new stuff, why not check out some of the awesome things
already on here? For new years I made a toplist of the best anime openings of 2015 and as
I said before, Kekkai sensen came in pretty near the top. And a few weeks back I did something
a little different and covered the opening to gravity falls. You might enjoy watching
that too. As always, this is Geoff Thew, Professional
shitbag, signing out from my mother’s basement.