And the award for Most Confusing Episode Setup goes to... i -wish you were here-, also known as Zaion. Created by the usually impressive Studio Gonzo, i -wish you were here- is four episodes long, but it's actually sixteen parts long (if you count the bizarre episode divisions). I'm not sure why the creators of this OVA series decided to divide the episodes into four parts, all I know is that it made the viewing just a little more annoying that it should have been.

Though for the most part created by an independent filmmaker, i -wish you were here-'s visuals are just as good as most other Studio Gonzo animes. Character designs are all original and interesting, and the action sequences are fantastic. The environments were very detailed, and the cityscapes looked really nice too. I could really tell that a lot of effort was put in to making everything look good. Other than the ending theme, the music didn't really impress me a whole lot.

I really liked the characters though. Not just the character designs, but their personalities and behaviors were really nice too. Unfortunately, many characters other than the two main characters are given almost zero development, despite the fact that they're on the screen for a good majority of the anime. Ai and Yuuji are very well developed, though, and their relationship is a nice change of pace from some of the more predictable relationships in anime (Yume De Aetara, anyone?).

The story really held my interest the whole way through. I was glued to my seat from the beginning to the end, and I just wanted to learn more and more about Ai, Yuuji, and the world as a whole. The virus and its constant evolutions was a very nice concept to work a romance story around, and Ai's powers really made me question a lot of things. The way the story progressed was nice too, and the pacing stumbled only a couple of times throughout the series.

Unfortunately, and I know I say this a lot, the ending was really unsatisfying. It's abrupt and manages to avoid answering nearly every question I had. I liked the fact that it was really ambiguous (something many anime endings try to be but ultimately fail at), but it really should have answered some of the more important story-related questions. It was kind of like End of Evangelion, but on a much smaller scale and a lot more abrupt.