Fractale

Despite seeming to be a young teenager, Clain lives alone in a clifftop cottage on the coast of Ireland in some distant or not so distant future when an extension of the internet, the Fractale System, has overlaid virtual reality on the whole world and become the object of religious veneration. Well, not quite alone -- his parents' rather silly looking "doppels", sort of holographic avatars with voices which many people in that time use to interact socially from distant parts of the globe, look after him.

His quiet life, in which the chief excitement seems to be finding antique computer equipment (from our present by the looks of it), is thrown into chaos when a girl about his own age, Phyrne, gives him an amulet which manifests a doppel in the form of a red-haired girl, seemingly about six years old, which (or who) unaccountably, unlike other doppels, has a corporeal presence and calls herself Nessa.

The girl and the mysterious doppel are being pursue by the Lost Millenium movement, with whom Clain eventually falls in -- despite not quite having resolved whether they are terrorists as the adherents of the Fractale System aver or a liberation movement.

Which are they? And why can Clain hold Nessa's hand?

The end-titles are one of the most charming aspects of the series: the first stanza of William Butler Yeats' "Down by the Salley Garden" sung to the traditional Irish melody (depending on episode) either in English or Japanese while the wind blows Nessa's hair and she watches a butterfly, perhaps too intently. Parental warnings: violence, including an incident that gives credence to the view of Lost Millenium as terrorists, and a plot point that turns in sexual abuse (though nothing is explicit).

Ratings (out of 5, 1 being worst, 5 being best)

Plot 4.3
Animation4.2
Music4.0
Voice-Acting (original)4.0
Overall4.2

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