Manga

The Ramparts of Ice

I've been thoroughly enjoying the anime adaptation. And as I recently commented on the latest episode's thread, I've realized it's been doing something fascinating.

Not just the tone and feel of the story, but the actual depictions of the characters - their design and artstyle and movements and gestures and everything - have changed as the characters (mostly Koyun) have changed.

There was an early clue when an episode ended with a confrontation between Koyun and Minato that ended up with her blowing up at him, and seemingly entirely justifiably, and then the next episode opened with the exact same interaction from Minato's point of view, and it wasn't just different - it was almost as if it was an entirely different interaction. There was virtually no correspondence between what Koyun thought she was hearing and saying and what Minato thought he was hearing and saying.

But the really impressive thing is that that's become a part of the series. As it's gone along, the same people and things, either as seen from different viewpoints or even just from Koyun's viewpoint at different times, have been constantly changing.

Like there might be a scene of a conversation between Koyun and Yota, and it will start from Koyun's POV, then switch to Yota's, then to Miki's, then to Minato's. And each version of the scene will actually be somewhat different - it's all the same scene, but it's not even just that the different versions will be interpreted differently - to us, the audience, they're actually portrayed somewhat differently, as each version is filtered through the presumptions of the current POV character.

Similarly, when they first showed Igarashi, he actually looked dark and sinister. Everything about him - his posture, his build, the look on his face - everything - was threatening. He'd sort of loom up somewhere in Koyun's peripheral vision, looking like a pure villain. But already, as it's gone along, though Koyun hasn't yet entirely revealed the story behind her reactions to him, he's been changing. Every time he appears, he looks a little less villainous and and a little more just human. And in this most recent episode, as they're moving toward Koyun finally telling the whole story, I was keeping an eye out for him to appear, and when he did, I barely even recognized him, since he looked... perfectly normal. His eyes and his hair were recognizable, but other than that, he just looked like any other guy, rather than the dark and evil weasel he looked like earlier in the story.

And that's a really neat trick that I don't think I've ever seen before.

And what you've said here about the manga seems to tie right in with that.