Record of 12 Countries is a fantasy series, but it starts out in our world, with Yoko Nakajimi, her class's representative, trying to do something about Sugimoto, who's always reading her fantasy books, engrossed in her own world. All the other girls ignore her, and Yoko battles with herself trying to do something for Sugimoto but afraid to be ignored by the other girls for associating with Sugimoto. Also, Yoko has strange recurring dreams about this other world, and in one of them Sugimoto appears and attacks her with a sword.
Then, suddenly, after school one day, a strange man with blonde hair in strange clothes appears in her classroom and says that she needs to come with him, and she's in danger. Finally this guy, Keiki, gets Yoko to say the word "Yuruuzu"(?) to protect and apparently it helps because she and Keiki are the only ones unharmed when something breaks down the classroom windows. It turns out to be a huge nightengale(??) that keeps trying to attack Keiki and Yoko, and also Sugimoto and this other guy they know who also happen to be on the roof (where they ran to). Keiki summons some beings to help fight, but ends up running away while using other spirits(?) to get the others to come too. He tries to get Yoko to use this big sword to attack the nightengale, but Yoko can't bear to use the sword. Eventually, Sugimoto asks to try and use the sword since Yoko is incompetent, but Keiki says only Yoko can use it. He summons another spirit to teach her how to use the sword, and she defeats the nightengale, and then they are taken to... the other world. :o
The character designs aren't bad, and the anime has a kind of dark style that's kind of interesting, but I'd like to see what the other world is going to look like before I decide whether I like the art style overall or not. The story seems to be moving in a typical fantasy-type fashion, nothing exceptional yet, so we'll have to wait and see what exactly the story is in the other world before really being able to tell what the mood of the story is. ^_^ |
