In all the years Ive spent watching anime or movies and TV in general Ive found plenty of genres that I dont particularly gravitate to with one of them being scifi. Its not that I hate scifi series but I often find them hard to understand. A lot of scifi stuff seems to rely too much on technobabble to tell their stories almost like the creators of said stories only want to appeal to hardcore scifi fans who would actually understand the overly scientific terminology they use rather than people who just want to watch/read an interesting story and follow a set of characters. A lot of this is why I couldnt get into something like Orbital Children as it relied way too much on just dumping sciencey exposition and pretentious philosophical concepts at you without giving you time to yknow process any of it among many other issues. Other scifi stories put too much focus on the action and special effects at the expense of everything else. Thankfully there are exceptions to be found with one of them being Kurau Phantom Memory an older BONES anime from 2004 that got a lot of praise when it came out but nobody seems to talk about anymore. Im seriously glad I decided to sit down and watch it because in my opinion this is what scifi should be like. The year is 2100 and on the colonized moon a special project is underway to explore and study new energy thats been discovered. But thats far from 12yearold Kurau Amamis mind when her father tells her he has to work on her birthday. To make up for this he invites Kurau to his research lab to which Kurau happily accompanies him. This winds up being a bad decision as a lab accident causes two alien entities called Rynax to take over Kuraus body. Theres no way to remove them from her for the time being and for now everyone has to adjust to Kuraus change. Ten years later Kurau works as a freelance mercenary having adjusted to her new circumstances and the powers she wields...but Rynax come in pairs and she wonders when her pair will finally appear. One day her pair appears from her body in the form of a preteen girl similar to how Kurau looked when she was a kid. Kurau names her new pair Christmas and the two of them try to make a life together. But an organization that hunts Rynax called the GPO finds out about them and are determined to capture the two of them and probably kill them. With help from Kuraus father and an exGPO member named Doug Kurau and Christmas have to run from the GPO and wind up learning some harsh truths in the process. Being an earlier BONES anime it doesnt look as sleek as some of their later works like My Hero Academia or The Case Study of Vanitas but honestly even for its time I think Kurau Phantom Memory is very well animated. The shows overall art isnt always the most consistent but what it lacks in consistency and budget it manages to make up for it with dynamicism and fluidity especially during the parts that matter. I also appreciate that the character designs are leaning more towards the realistic side rather than going fullon cartoony with the characters having smaller eyes that are more proportionate to how a regular persons would look. The soundtrack is also just fantastic. It doesnt have a huge amount of tracks even for a 24episode anime but nearly every track thats there is a feast for the ears and does a brilliant job at enhancing the atmosphere. I also love the different variations on the ending theme song. Of course the cast of characters are the ones carrying this show and Kurau Phantom Memory puts character development first and foremost over action and special effects which works really well here especially with Kurau. This show absolutely nails its lead character. Shes incredibly welldeveloped and threedimensional with her own set of strengths flaws and quirks and even though the show can get pretty dark at times shes always portrayed with the right amount of warmth. The rest of the cast is wellwritten as well. They all behave and act naturally. and even the side characters who dont appear for a long time get fleshed out quite a bit even as their airtime ends. The only characters that dont get this treatment are two of the main villains and theyre mainly relegated to the background after a while. It does help that Kurau Phantom Memory does a great job at balancing both its lighthearted heartwarming moments with the darker parts with neither one feeling like they clash with the tone the show is going for nor is something randomly inserted into a scene and destroying its mood or atmosphere. Take note Orbital Children and The Heike Story. As much as I want to hail Kurau Phantom Memory as a masterpiece its unfortunately not without its flaws. Theyre pretty minimal and didnt detract from my personal enjoyment of the anime but they may make or break it for others. For one the voice acting can border on pretty cheesy at times which makes the natural dialogue come across as rather stilted and forced in both languages oddly enough. Yes even the Japanese version isnt safe from this. Secondly some very early parts of the anime havent aged well like Dougs initial introduction but that actually gets addressed early on so I personally had no problem with it. Others might take issue with the fact that the series puts more focus on character development than on the action and not a whole lot of technobabble but I dont think thats a reason to give Kurau Phantom Memory the sideeye. Plus a lot of scenes are taken up by characters just saying each others names and not much beyond that. So if you want to watch a scifi anime that has a strong story with real moral dilemmas and situations that aim to bring the best out of its characters but dont want to put up with intrusive technobabble or overthetop action definitely give Kurau Phantom Memory a shot.