[Guardian Enzo]

Spoiler for 2:

I'm very much of two minds about this series. On the one hand, I think there's a refreshingly dark and unsettling character to the story that's much more "Alice in Wonderland" than "Nanoha". It does have the feel of something quite different from any Mahou Shoujo series that's preceded it - we don't even have fancy transformation sequences. I like what Shinbo is doing with the surrealist stop-motion animation used for the strange other dimensions the witches create, where the combat scenes take place. Shinbo can be many things, and disturbing is definitely one of them - and those scenes are quietly disturbing. I can't speak for anyone else but I find both Kyube and Mami to be extremely creepy. Maybe they really are the good guys, but I think there's something sinister there. I don't know that the phrase "witch hunt" came out of Mami's mouth by accident or not, but it's a loaded phrase if ever there was one.

But for all that, this still feels very antiseptic to me. I'm not buying into any of the characters yet - their interactions feel stilted and mechanical to me. I appreciate what Shinbo is doing on an intellectual level, but not yet on an emotional one.