Nathan Fillion, Patrick Stewart, Karen Gillan and Kelly Hu at Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2014
Make it a night at the 'Karneval'
By Aly Jordan
I have watched Karneval twice and I have to say that it is my favorite anime show. It came out in the summer of 2013 and is not very popular, but it is put together and animated very well.
Nai, a character in the anime, is searching for a missing friend with a bracelet his only clue. Along the way, he meets Gareki and an organization called Circus, which helps Nai find his friend.
In this anime, everything has a great amount of detail. There are not many instances when I felt unsatisfied by the lack of effort on a piece of animation.
The characters are well-developed, although I thought a couple of them were very annoying, and they did not catch my interest. Every character has different and unique qualities, which provides some comedic moments when they interact.
The voice actors in the subbed version did a thorough job of making sure that their voices lined up with when the character was speaking. It made the anime clean and extremely professional.
The plot line is interesting and keeps moving. There were not many boring scenes. The story does not stray off and have little side stories; everything adds up and leads to the ending in a controlled and well thought out way.
The opening and ending songs are wonderful. I have the tendency to look them up and listen to them without really thinking about it. They are upbeat, and the lyrics have meaning towards the anime rather than just random words put together to make it sound and look pretty. The songs fit in and feel natural.
Overall, Karneval is an anime that pulls viewers in and keeps them interested. Karneval has 13 episodes and each episode lasts between 20 to 25 minutes.