Slow paced, realistic series while it's about a woman with inhuman powers.
A slow paced series is exactly what this series is, since most of the series is following Kurau during her life. Lots of times there isn't happening much, although there is always that persistent feeling of a thriller-genre. And that's exactly what makes this series worth watching, the realistic atmosphere of a sheer unrealistic happening.
Animation: Less detailed to emphasize the focus on the story.
The animation is the first thing which looks at times beautiful (coloring!) and at other times a bit odd. This is mostly due to the character design, which sometimes feel a bit as if they lack something. The simplistic design is what might make this series look cheap or not detailled enough, but that helps the series in emphasizing the focus on the story. While it often happens that the details get more attention than the story or the characters, they tried to put the focus entirely on the story and the characters instead.
Voices: Realistic, good voices. Bad dialogues & script.
The voiceactors do a decent job. Kurau sounds like a woman who is not in her early teens anymore, which gives the series that little bit extra to make it a bit more realistic. If she would have a highpitched voice, nobody would look at this series in the same way. It's not a series for young teenagers, it's a series for an adult audience and the voice of Kurau reflect that. She's no teenager herself anymore, so she thinks different from a 'mere' teenager as well. This sometimes results in a bit cliche dialogues from her side, which tends to become annoying near the end.
The voice of Christmas on the other hand is done just decently. She doesn't really stand out and sometimes she becomes plain annoying due to her script (the persistent name-calling like in Magic Knights Rayearth or Fushigi Yuugi). Since Christmas is much more of a young child, she also reacts less mature and often enough that is just enough to consider her annoying.
Because of the often bad dialogue-scripts, one can get pretty annoyed at times, which is the reason I can't make much of it here.
OP/ED: Beautiful OP-scene and a ED-song, which got on the 'Best of Anime Compilation'.
The OP-song is nice, but not great. The supporting animation shows the happiness of life, the joy of friends being together and being alive, which reflects very much the tone of the series. That alone is worth a little praise.
Strangely enough, the ED-song is only supported by a 'zoom-out' of a certain person, which might be a bit boring. On the other hand, the song itself is worth a lot; the first time I heard it I loved the song, although I never had seen the series yet.
Moonlight (sung by S.E.N.S) is one of those song you might appreciate more when you hear it without seeing the anime, perhaps even before you see the anime. The fact that it ended up on the 'Best of Anime Compilation III' (compilation cd from the AnimeReactor Community) shows that I wasn't the only one with the opinion that it was a good song by itself.
The music throughout the series was pretty good, although they used the ED-song a lot in different variations. While the song itself is good, I enjoyed the various variations as well as background songs. Other than that are a few more vocal songs which add a lot of atmosphere to the series as well.
Story: Slow paced, captivating, but sometimes utterly boring.
The story is a knife with two edges; This is probably one of the biggest problems of this series: that the story progresses so slowly makes things realistic, but one might consider episodes as fillers, or just flat out boring. This never lasts long though, since KURAU does a good job at shifting; the first moment there is a slowdown because the character goes into hiding, while three episodes later, after the character has settled in and started life again, the action kicks in again. KURAU does this a couple of times in the right way, but this also helps in losing the pace when it finally has some action again, which will definitely frustrate all people who want to see more story/plot and less slice-of-life drama.
Plot: Interesting characters, good plot, but tends to get moralistic.
If any, KURAU does a good job in characters. KURAU is pretty much a likeable character, although she tends to be a bit too moralistic at times. She's not a Greenpeace-activist, but more a woman who wants to live her own life - which is what the scriptwriters sometimes tend to forget. Christmas does a good job as side-kick as well. Unfortunately, Christmas never really escapes the sidekick-role, which is pretty sad for such a major character. She reflects the innocent child, but due to her age, she never manages to exceed past that part, which is unfortunate, but understandable.
Other roles for people like Dag and Ayaka are done very well too, with enough character development and very likeable character traits. The way most of the important characters are introduced is done very well and they get supported by the story very well - or perhaps they support the story instead.
One thing I would want to point out though is that they bend the rules of physics in some ways in order to justify Kurau's powers. Although this is sometimes kinda annoying when you value realism, it doesn't disturb the atmosphere. The story is merely there to support the characters - and the other way around as well.
Is KURAU rewatchable - or even watchable?
KURAU is one of those series you can rewatch without too much problems, because you will most probably rewatch it because you want to see Kurau and her life again - not because you want to see the plot layout that much.
KURAU is one of those series which is watchable for a broad audience - as long as they are patient. This usually means you shouldn't be in the early teens, but rather in the 20s or older in order to enjoy this series fully - although I don't want to put people into predetermined boxes.
Kurau is a very nice series, if you can appreciate the pace.
