Bokurano: Ours Quick Review & Commentary + Q's Wall of Fame Induction

An Interesting, Salacious & Juicy take on a Myriad of Individuals 
Bokurano: Ours (Single Season 24 Episodes) 8.78 out of ten

            Bokurano:Ours Truly just about has a little bit of everything, there's a dash of a darker taboo of romance, has family dynamics, there's a little bit of comedy, it's heavy in drama and insecurity, there's moments of happiness and peace, states of urgency, a little science fiction and a physiologically idiosyncratic premise. In Bokurano we have a full cast of characters that already draws intrigue from the first episode, you'll find yourself asking " who's he/she, there's something interesting going on there, I want to learn his story" etc. Especially since the character designs are great as well as intricate and the setting and environments they're in are well designed as well, this is something that you just look at and accept, and I feel that's a very key component to have. There's no one liner I could give a person to sell them on this series, so I kinda felt bummed.

            From the batting point were introduced to a gorgeously made opening soundtrack, with great lyrics, vocals, percussion, a tickle of synth & some guitar, just a little bit of every thing.

 I stepped back thinking "yes I've heard this somewhere before" such as Neon Geneiss Evangellion's soundtrack, or "Cyber bird" from Yoko Kanno's work on Ghost in the shell SAC. Coincidently, if you've watched both of those series, with both of their heavily sci fi, idiosyncratic and psychological premises, you should absolutely watch Bokurano. 

From the get go you'll also see the great art direction this has, it's tidy, but warm and slightly softer, a cast that has the creators full investment regarding some of the stunning and very interesting character designs as well as a great dub that translates this all really well.

This series gives us a colourfully juicy but grim take on a great variety of 15 children/teens (16 sort of) from a summer nature school deceived into being contracted into being put into a position of being wrested into saving the world in exchange for the high price of giving up their lives. We watch a myriad of characters that are forced into nervously rouletting there lives one at a time disturbing the delicate lives they've walked until now. In Bokurano we get a span of uniquely different individuals and how they are now forced to think and inflect upon, when getting shot up an emotional ether of a myriad of emotions, to think their lives had any significance in the short years they were blessed and if they're ready to exchange their lives for something important in this world. When the time comes, we get a stand alone episode of who they were and their relationships with other people before they found the mech they named Zearth that they now have to pilot with their life force.

              This is a 2007 anime with very good animation for the time & does still stand up to some of our current animation today, though it looks slightly dated, but for me it was homely and easy on the eyes. I Found the character designs to be excellent, the voice actors chosen to portray these characters were carefully chosen, and chosen well indeed. There's only the Japanese dub, and let me tell you it's great. I feel at the time this was a very high quality anime regarding video quality, and you could tell they put top effort and priority into making the character designs, including the environments (which are fantastic), and the general over art style was simply just so well fleshed out.

           So yes 15 children/teens (sort of 16) that have been deceived into being forcibly contracted (later 17 18 people contracted) into saving the world by giving up their lives

..yes..yes.. So this gets pshycological, this gets Idiosyncratic, this gets neurotic..this gets Erotic..(lol)so..uh..Larp/Erp..no I'm joking there's none of that.

Yes this has a full fleshed out cast with variety, which is one of the reasons why this series scores top marks for me, Despite the actual video quality not being all there and being done since and better, but still, you can very much still appreciate this anime and the gorgeous well thought out art style, some good stuff. So yes you'll be able to install this series very deeply into your heart and emotional memory and enjoy. Facial expressions in this anime are quite notable and very good, they all have a story in their eyes, which is very important.

               You have assholes, hot heads,  introverts, subservient and docile characters, shut in's, boyish girls, pushovers, polite girls, jovial personalities, neurotic psychopaths and an asshole floating in the air..yes..I don't want to reveal much about him, so lets just say this asshole fairy like character adds a nice spice to this anime. This anime has pretty much a little bit of everything, and very believable cast, and I'd almost recommend this anime with no hesitation, but yes I understand there's some adult content and very mature themes, so very much PG14+ content here, but even so I really think you should only watch this series if your 16+. I mean, there is indeed some very controversial content so think twice if your not at that mature age yet.

               Speaking of the heavily emotional content and mature themes, yes, this show is re-watchable, but still there's again a lot of heavy emotional weight on this series so this is the perfect anime for you to take time to digest, so don't go binging this, this series takes time to sink in and think about. Also your probably asking yourself "if the the characters die off that quickly why should I watch this" Don't get me wrong some do, but you'll probably won't find them as important and you won't see people dropping like flies since each of them are given a little bit of space and time before the day comes. So yes when their time "comes" they are given there own standalone episode, then we see what their about and their back story and that's the format of this anime for awhile.

                 Something that bothered me with this series, it's when someone dies and gets teleported away, it's truly as if they never existed. They do get soft mentions here and there but no one really seems all too traumatized. I think this is because only a very few of these characters we see regularly actually have meaningful relationships with each other, so when someone passes away we don't have anyone from our main cast mourning their death. Which brings me to another point, in that I wish these characters had more meaningful and robust relationships with each other, I just felt that this is somewhere were this series really missed the mark, I feel that, for the last survivors, it would be extremely interesting for them to truly feel like they are the survivors, that have survived this immense experience and in turn have this worldly feeling and awareness. Also mourning for the ones who gave up their lives for their own individual purpose, and maybe these survivors could draw fortitude and conviction from that. They sort of "touched upon this" but never really invested in this concept. All the stand alone episodes for individuals, when one of them were chosen revolves around only the individual and their inner circle of other friends and family, rarely including the other 15 contracted people.
             
         Talking about the story, there really isn't an emphasized over arching plot line, it only revolves around the fact that 15 were chosen and 15 will die, and let just say that one of them, perhaps may be saved.

But yes again, it focuses on who they were before the fact, why they're important and finally being in the act and finally giving their life for their own individual preconceived version of the world. Of course sometimes they don't want to, that's when they go bat shit crazy, and do some unnecessary, cruel, masochistic and sadistic things.

               You may have mistaken this as akin to Psycho Pass, Ghost in the Shell or Ergo Proxy in terms of the use and presence of the government, and the general consensus and meritocracy of it all, but no, this doesn't emphasize politics too much and is only a small factor in this series despite what you'd might think. It's more about these 15 individuals if anything else, and despite it's rather grim and nihilistic themes, this series does have a kind of dry sweetness to it, as well as jovial moments of happiness that gives us perspective of some of the bad moments and it turn makes this series stronger.

               Despite the many individual back stories were given, I can't really explain them (sadly one's that really interested me as well) without preserving some special moments and surprise for when you watch it, so my apologies for very very briefly talking about the characters back stories.

                This series has a wonderful and fleshed out art style, that's subtly sweet and matured.
A great soundtrack, very well designed and intriguing characters with great voice actors. In addition were given some meaty drama, bright family moments of happiness and jovial friendships. This series captivated me with some very interesting plot lines and characters. Everything from the great art style to the juicy and stylistic soundtrack deserve a hearty recommendation.

Highly recommended and Appreciated (Will Be inducted into Q's Wall of Fame)