[First Impression] Selector Infected WIXOSS

I think I heard the name WIXOSS a couple of months ago, when the topic of good shows from last year that nobody had actually bothered to watch came up. From what I gathered, it was dark, psychological anime... about card-games, that is widely regarded as "better than expected", or "under-appreciated", and apparently followed the same root as Madoka Magica in terms of a "turn" in narrative and thematic direction. And as I watch the credits of the second episode flash across my screen, I feel like knowing that might be ruining the experience for me. 

     Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, and welcome to my First Impression of Selector Infected WIXOSS: a psychological-game anime produced by J.C Staff that was released in April of 2014. Let's dive in then. 

Before I talk about the problem with the "turn", let's run down the schematics of the plot first. Ruka is a relatively normal high-school girl, if slightly friendless, who lives with her grandmother and brother in an apartment building. One day, she receives a pack of the popular card-game WIXOSS as a present, but quickly discovers that the main card of the deck: called the LRIG, apparently has a will of its own and can talk, manifested as a girl Ruka names Tama. She runs into another girl at school: Yuzuki Kurebayashi, who also owns another sentient LRIG card, and gives Ruka the run-down of what the hell is going on. Apparently, these special LRIG cards are a sign that their owner is a "Selector", a player whose goal it is to battle other Selectors and be victorious, in order to attain the goal of having their "wish" granted; however if you lose three times against other Selectors, you're out of the competition. Ruka is suddenly forced into a battle she doesn't really understand, but the irrational behavior of Tama, the broken psyches of her opponents, and the terrible nightmares that plague her at night, lead her(and me) to believe that this strange battle royal may have a few layers to it that might lead to many interesting or disturbing places.

The battle-field where Selectors duel.

The world obviously needs much fleshing out, I mean how exactly are these sentient cards being distributed by a card-game company, and if it wasn't the WIXOSS company itself, then who orchestrated this whole situation in the first place? There hasn't been much time to do that yet, these first few episodes are for context and characters after all, so I won't complain about it until we get further in. What I will say is that our main character Ruka did almost nothing for me for these two episodes. She seemed so perfectly typical, bland if a little timid, with little to no initiative of her own as she is just helplessly dragged into this bizarre world blah blah blah... until maybe the last five minutes of episode 2. The potential is shown that she may be a little apathetic towards other people(which would be unique for a protagonist to say the least), or possibly even battle hungry. And if my theory that each LRIG card's personality is a mirror of a fraction of their owner's psyche, that means if Tama is a battle-hungry psychopath that looks cute when she isn't battling, than that is also Ruka's personality underneath, which I would be very interested to see.

     Now, it's finally the time for discussing the "turn". You see, unexpected plot-twists that change a shows tone completely are only effective when they're... well unexpected. It's the reason why the works of Gen Urobuchi(Madoka Magica, Psycho-Pass) have sort of lost their luster for me; his works always contain a sudden change of tone or revelation about the world. The problem was that as he kept doing it with all of his works, I gradually started to expect it, and when you start expect plot-twists... well, that ruins all the fun, doesn't it? It's the same of WIXOSS. The crutch on which this anime has built its positive reputation is how it "takes what you think and crushes it before your eyes", and this means that, while I was paying attention to what was going on in these two episodes, I'm also sort of waiting for the anime to give up the charade and reveal its true form. And that's not WIXOSS's fault either, a show should have the right to crush expectations it built up purposely before hand, but once it does that, that is the exact reason people will tell others to watch the anime, and that ruins the surprise. Again, this isn't really anybodies fault, it's just sort of a sad fact of entertainment mediums. I mean, judging from the reputation Madoka Magica has built as a "dark/deconstruction viewpoint of the magical girl genre", the only way anybody will be surprised by the "turn" is if they have somehow never heard off the show before. It's just a shame all around.

But then again, despite what I said in the beginning, I don't actually think that means WIXOSS is ruined completely for me. Any show can have a 360 turn in tone, but that's not what makes a show good. What makes a show good is great story and characters, and from what I've seen from WIXOSS, it seems to have ample supply of both. I'm really looking forward to the next episode, and the anime itself, so hopefully, this will be something I can look back on when I'm finished and think: "that was a damn good anime". Because if there's one thing that we can all like, it's damn good anime.

Goodbye for now guys.



Enjoyed the Impression? Click here for my First Impression of Eureka Seven'Toradora. 

Or if you want a review and thing like that, click here for my anime review of Higurashi no naku koro ni. 

For something outside the anime spectrum, click here for my book review of Coraline. 

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