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After director Yamamoto Yutaka made a big fuss about putting his career on the line with this original anime project, the start of Fractale may come off a whimper to most. For me, the immersion into a fantasy world and the visual introduction to what I've read about has me looking forward to what's in store, with the only real disappointment being that the series doesn't look anything like the promotional art. Instead, the style is very reminiscent of A-1 Pictures' work in Sora no Woto and Kannagi, the latter of which "Yamakan's" studio Ordet assisted in the co-production of. It's definitely a far cry from the unique artwork that I was looking forward to seeing in motion, and raises some questions as to why the characters themselves look so different. The most obvious case is shrine maiden Phryne's (Tsuda Minami) hair and eye colors that have been changed from purple to brown and green respectively - something that caught my eye immediately in the promo videos. Of course, hair and eye colors are of minor concern when the characters designs themselves have been "anime-ized" to what some people may refer to as their "moe" counterparts. To put it bluntly, I like the style they decided to go with, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat disappointed when I found out the series doesn't look as unique as it was made out to be. On the plus side, the animation itself is pretty fluid, the cinematics are impressive, and the characters have a lot of "life" to them. It's very Studio Ghibli-like, which I gather a lot of people will be reminded of. .......