And, while I don't watch a ton, I have definitely racked up quite a number of shows over the years.
Most of the anime I watch is probably of the more uncommon or unpopular variety with a few obvious exceptions. I find that I enjoy the more serious and slower paced ones, often with science fiction elements. Of course I don't always watch or even enjoy the same types all the time, but I definitely have a tendency to prefer complicated, dark, slow, and thought-provoking anime. I hope that some of the best ones I come across I'll be able to share one day with someone else who will enjoy them for what they are just as much as I. I'd have so much to talk to them about, I would think.
In any case, House of Five Leaves is a 12 episode anime that is fairly unusual. Though it takes a traditional premise - a samurai, down on his luck, gets involved in a gang that performs kidnappings, and then he begins to suspect that there is more here than meets the eye - it feels and tells a story that is very unique, unusual, and interesting. And I would argue, wholly enjoyable.
There are no magical elements. What coincidences that still occur retain their feeling of reality. The characters are each fleshed out, no so much in a variety of emotions, but at least in terms of interesting back story. Being a work of fiction, their backgrounds are abnormally interesting, but they don't cross the line to extremely fantastic and they are composed of a good variety of sources and events.
I guess I am most impressed by this anime because the entire way through it felt dreamlike, but so very plausible. All of it I could believe without feeling like I had to force myself to think - "give it some leeway, it is a story. It is an anime. It is just trying to be impressive or climatic." None of that. I never once had to make excuses for it, and that is far far more than most anime. Most anime, nay most stories, (even the good ones) I have to forgive for various transgressions when they shoehorn in to increase the stakes for the sake of excitement. While I admit that this anime wasn't very exciting, I still cared about the story and didn't every feel cheated, played, disgusted or forced to be charitable.
House of Five Leaves is exactly what it means to be. It doesn't need to apologize for trying to be something it is not. If you don't like it, you won't like it and there is no way around it. It stays true to itself the entire way through and doesn't change its characters, plot, pacing, or style at any point.
Another way it isn't a lie, is that it doesn't try to push some moral or meaning onto its events or characters. Everything involved is not necessarily completely good, nor completely bad. While the villains are ruthless outlaws for the money, so are the good guys for the most part. It is a fine line between right and wrong, when there is a line to be seen at all. This means that you don't get a feeling of victory when a heist is completed successfully, nor when an enemy is killed. Just as it ought to be. The entire anime has the effect of dulling your senses, both from the neglect of definitive values and also from the slow pacing and general apathy. You would think this could only be bad, but it is what House of Five Leaves is, and what I appreciate about it. It doesn't ever give a concentrated feeling of being real, in the sense that many "gritty" books and movies do, but all the elements that make it up, right down to the amount of exposition, are very realistic.
It's characters aren't terribly intriguing. The plot isn't harrowing. The mood isn't thick. The music, while nice, isn't amazing. It is told in a dreamlike manner, but still realistically. It has grey morality without making you question your core values. I can't pin down why this anime is so good, nor can I really claim that it is altogether really good. I can say that it stands out compared to the glut of terrible stories. I can say that it is very unique and has many good qualities.
I just can't give a solid reason why I recommend it as being good. Nor why I liked it quite as much as I did.
I do know that I want to watch it again. I feel like its meaning is not direct.
More than that.....It's like...
House of Five Leaves is about second Truths. Not the kind of Truth that beckons us to act. But the kind of Truth that directs how we choose our compromises. Not the type of Truth that defines us, but the type of Truth that is forced to exist because we can't meet the definitions. It is still pure, it is dirtied beneath reality, messiness, and complexity, and thus not absolute Truth.
House of Five Leaves doesn't try to speak about these second Truths directly, but I feel like they hang in a fog all through it. I don't think I can ever know a Second Truth. The closes I can get is to just graze by them, and maybe become familiar with them in that way. I don't think I'll ever be able to put these ethereal concepts in words since they are made of of all the degrees of Truth between Truths, but I do think that by watching it again once or twice more they will seep in to fill the cracks between things I "know" in my mind. .
Maybe some day you will watch it and you will know what I mean.
I hope so.
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