Dennou Coil, Aria. Two series (in the case of Aria, a franchise) that spend a considerable amount of time worldbuilding, but in different ways.
Were it not for episode 12 of Animation, someone could have told me that Neo Venezia built itself one fine day on rainbows and sunshine and my response would have been, “Not unlikely.” Such is the unreasonably laid back attitude taken toward the world of Aqua. Magic figures heavily in Aria, especially when Akari and Aria’s president are involved, and we are all the better for not asking too many questions and basking in the delight of discovery instead.
The realm of Daikoku City is built on magic as well, just with pseudo-technological underpinnings. Its discovery, though, is a much more active process, and consequently does not have the same atmosphere as Aqua’s. There is personal satisfaction at accomplishment, but it is altogether different from the satisfaction that comes from happenstance. The latter makes me feel connected to some higher order of existence, being pushed along as opposed to moving under my own power.
Akari need only trip on the sidewalk and we will somehow witness a new face of Aqua. Daikoku City’s meta-world (for lack of a better term) is opened up through exploration, and exploitation.
Since the vague hints of Something Big in the premiere, the meta-world has unfolded organically through the actions of the cast. The second presented facet of the meta-world was its combat mechanics, because kids fight a lot, and the underground meta-economy that fuels it, because kids need something more civilized than feet and fists.
Another battlefield does not single-handedly make a compelling world, though. The transition from focus on combat and economy (sounds like an RTS) to focus on the denizens of the meta-world is made by introducing them as vehicles for resource collection followed by the revelation that there are a variety of such autonomous programs.
Shall we play a game? How about Dermatological Thermonuclear War?
Wouldn’t you prefer a good game of chess?
With the equivalent of mana, spells that are cast with gestures, suspended fish, dermatological warfare (wherein Nietzsche is skewered), and other benign incidents, the meta-world infuses the physical world that it sits upon with a sense of the fantastic, but with the safety that comes from everything being Not Real.
Isako taps WW and casts Encoder’s Bind at instant speed. Skynet counters with Hax for 0.
As we are taken deeper into director Mitsuo Ito’s vision, the meta-world becomes less about technology that is indistinguishable from magic and more about the plain old supernatural.
Movies like The Matrix have covered the ground that Dennou Coil has tread and will continue to travel in its final six episodes, that being transporting consciousness (or souls) across biological and digital domains. It has already linked the two experiences such that the meta-world can have a physical effect. But the AR system in Dennou Coil as historically established is a one-way street: its users do not feel the effects of the meta-world under normal operation.
Things are becoming unglued, is my speculation. Not in the sense that everything falls apart – although if the creators go that route, there’s bound to be beauty in the breakdown – but that we get to see the cast venture into a meta-world that has diverged from its neat and tidy facade, where one-way is now two-way, autonomous is life, digital is analog, and where the meta-world is no longer safe and encapsulated, easily explained by previous observation.
Let the real magic show begin.