[C]: Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility – First Impressions (Episodes 1-6)

[C]: Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility
~Simulcast~ Episodes 1–6 First Impressions~

Simulcast by: Siren Visual (Australia and New Zealand)
Based On: Original Title
Director: Kenji Nakamura
Written by: Noboru Takagi
Audio: Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Quality: 360p, 480p and 720p (Subscribers Only)
Runtime: Approximately 24 minutes per episode.
Cost: For a higher quality viewing of this series, an ANN Australia subscription is required.
Classification: I have no classification data for this series.
Blurb: “A brand new series from the Noitamina block, known for its showings of rather unique anime comes [C] Control, a show that demonstrates what could happen if money did make the world go round. A parallel world where businessmen and people who want lots and lots of suspicious cash go to fight it out, leading to real world consequences. The storyline is very good, if not a bit depressing and supported by solid graphics and music. An enjoyable series that makes you question how far you would go to make money.“

Recently, when you think of Noitamina, you think of Siren Visual and all the series they have released over the last few months in the set such as Welcome to Irabu’s Office, The Tatami Galaxy and House of Five Leaves. Of course, there wasn’t a Noitamina series released in May was there? However, instead they have been simulcasting one of the two Noitamina series released in Japan last season, this one being C: Control: The Money and Soul of Possibility, which follows the concept of a world where people can make millions in a single summoned being battle, or can go bankrupt and lose their money, and their future from it. Of course, they have added a few tricks to keep it from a normal fighting anime, so read on to find out all about it in my review of Control C. 

The Japanese government was rescued from the brink of financial collapse by the Sovereign Wealth Fund. For its citizens, however, life has not improved, and unemployment, crime, suicide, and despair are rampant. Kimimaro is a scholarship student whose only dream is to avoid all this and live a stable life as a civil servant. One day, however, he meets a man who offers him the chance to make money fast. From then on Kimimaro is drawn into a mysterious realm known as “The Financial District,” where people engage in supernatural battles for the possibility of money.

Enter this series protagonist, Kimimaro Yoga, a young university student who desires to have just enough money to have a normal happy life with a wife and children and wants to be a Civil Servant to make this happen. However, with his father committing suicide and his mother dead, he has had little family life and just has enough money to survive. That is until a mysterious man named Masakaki appears and offers him the chance to make big bucks at the Financial District as an Entres (or Entrepreneur). Whilst hesitant, he eventually tags along and works towards making money. The one little catch is…. the Financial District is an alternate reality where people earn finance by summoning “Assets” which aid them in battle and can be powered up by spending millions of dollars, of which they are initially provided with a substantial sum of.

Of course, this is not a series that is purely about fighting, infact, in the first six episodes there are only a couple of short battles in total. This series so far, focuses on the impact of peoples greed, the desire for money and those that strive to maintain balance of the world so it has minimal impact on the real world and of course, MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!. The fact is, in exchange for getting a chance to amass wealth, they have to sign over their Future, and any loss of money, may cause part or all of their future to be taken as collateral. For example, one of the earlier characters became bankrupt, and due to that, had his two children disappear from existence, and that is just the start. The real world storylines are interesting as it shows each individual characters backstories surrounding money, how they have been shaped by it and more depressingly, the impact it has on those who lose. The storyline also focuses briefly on the importance of present versus future but due to the storyline progression, should be a key focus of later episodes as well.

The battle system observed in this anime is rather complex and would benefit from more explanation at the start, however you should be able to get the gist of things after the first episode or two. The battle system involves two people conducting a “Deal” (Duel) where they fight each other in a time period of 666 seconds to gain money from their opponent. They do this by summoning Assets who fight alongside the Entre’s in battle and at a cost, can perform one of three special skills called Flations (Micro, Mezzo and Macro – Each costing more, up to $10,000,000 to use) while the Entre can summon a blade to attack their opponent of choice. Sadly the issue is, they have not done enough battles to give the deal system a solid observation, with us only getting small glimpses of them.

This series primarily involves two primary human characters and their Assets, alongside some other minor characters that should be recurring throughout. Kimimaro Yoga, the protagonist of the series isn’t a really likable character at the start, and it takes a couple of episodes before he actually becomes interesting, due to his hesitance at everything. His back-story about his father leads onto a small storyline however as of yet he lacks any form of solid character development. Whilst he is slow at the start, it is good to see that they didn’t switch him over to the generic (I am going to battle and win!) type person, keeping his ethical standards intact towards others, primarily thanks to the assistance of the other protagonist, Souichirou Mikuni. Souichirou acts as Kimimaro’s mentor and as is evidenced in the earlier episodes, whilst being at the top of his game, has no desire to cause harm to anyone and will not bankrupt others, and tries to avert real world crises. Souichirou’s character development is progressing a lot faster and I think is more interesting. Other characters include their assets Msyu and Q, a mysterious woman named Jennifer who is investigating the Financial District and Masakaki, the mysterious man who invites people to the district in return for their futures.

Overall, whilst the first few episodes were slow, the storyline kept my interest from episode to episode, and is supported by an interesting concept that is well implemented. Character development is lacking a bit, however considering it was only the first 6 episodes, I am expecting great things from it in the future with an interesting and varied character listing. If I were to compare this to every other Noitamina series I have reviewed… which would consist of Honey and Clover, Welcome to Irabu’s Office, The Tatami Galaxy and House of Five Leaves, this series would easily take the top spot provided it continues at this rate.

The one thing I hate probably the most out of all design techniques in anime is the implementation of 3D CGI. It has always been a personal annoyance of mine and I noticed it was used occasionally during this series, but in comparison to other series, it wasn’t as annoying. That being said, the level of detail might not hit the standards of most anime, but at the same time carries on that unique charm that Noitamina series bring to anime. First looking at the Financial District reality, the environment designs can be described as Bloody and Blocky. I will let the above images do the talking, but almost everything from buildings to chairs are stylized as if they were built from white blocks, which was actually rather interesting and didn’t detract your gaze from other things. In terms of the other components of environmental design, a red motif is used, so the sky is a maroon colour whilst the ground is also the same colour, which represents the appearance of blood (Think, Persona 3 Dark Hour with a red motif instead of green)

Character designs on the other hands range from simplistic to exuberant. The setting is supposed to take place in Modern Day Japan, so most of the human characters wear normal clothes such as hoodies or semi-formal outfits. They all more or less look human with nothing that makes you question otherwise. However, as this is a game played by mostly the working class population, it is actually rather interesting seeing normal people take part in immense battles that usually would be filled by a character wearing heavy armor or robes. Of course, then we have the Assets and other denizens of the Financial District. The two primary Assets are supposed to look like teenage girls and wear more fantasy-styled clothing with the odder coloured hairs whilst Masakaki wears the normal mysterious exuberant costume, in all cases contrasting the difference between the two realities.

Opening Theme
Matoryoshika by NICO Touches the Walls

This song is a fast-ish paced song with an upbeat J-Rock tune and lyrics that are more or less appropriate to the series. The animation features can be described by three words “Money! Money! Money!”. Almost every component of the animation involves money in some way and the animation, whilst consisting of 3D animation, is extremely pleasant to look at. Surprisingly however, it only focuses on the protagonists and their Assets and not of any other character. Definitely interesting.

Ending Theme
RPG by School Food Punishment

I feel that I have always been strict when it comes to ending themes, I am aware that they are for the sole purpose of stating who worked on the series and all that stuff, but I have usually felt the creative potential in both the musical and visual departments are lacking. This is one of the few times that I will say that the ending sequence of a series is brilliant. Whilst the animation sometimes goes overboard with the irrelevant visual effects, it is effective and visually impressive with random things such as QR Codes (Which I tried to scan but due to the credits overlapping, was not possible) and the same blocky style as the Financial District. Also had some English in it stating ‘ED Sequence for Noitamina 26th Episode… has no name, but it called “C”‘, however the song of the theme does have a name, RPG by School Food Punishment. I have always wondered why the group is called School Food Punishment for obvious reasons, however their songs aren’t that bad, and this song is an overall enjoyable listen!

I seemed to notice that the series doesn’t heavily rely on music and primarily focuses on it in the Financial District, however the music that they have chosen to implemented has a more modern tone to it, and less classical which makes them a perfect suiting to my tastes, and they were overall used effectively. The voice acting was interesting in this series so far, in the way that they mix English and Japanese together, although obviously Japanese was much more prevalent. Most of the voice acting used by the Deal System is stated in English which is clear and audible whilst characters who used English, specifically Jennifer and her employer vary in quality and clarity, but is overall appropriate. I have no real qualms about the voice acting, as I have said before I don’t usually listen to Japanese voice acting (Primarily due to my laziness at reading subtitles), but it was of a high standard overall.

Finally, it comes down to my personal opinion of this series. This series has practically everything I want in a series, an interesting storyline with limited filler content, complemented with some nice animation and music. Would I go as far to say it is one of my top series? At the moment, it is shaping that it could take a position in my Top 10 anime of all time, however I shall leave that until the series finishes and I do my final review of the series. The series has its flaws, but the interesting concept more then makes up for it. I am hoping for a DVD or even Blu-ray release at some point for this, as it would be a shame to see this series be limited to online Simulcast. I do hope to see more Noitaminia series released over here soon, the collection both from the past and the future is very interesting.

Final Score

Storyline: A
Character Development: B+
Design: B+
OP/ED Themes: A
Music: B
Voice Acting: A
Personal Opinion: A

Overall Score: A-