Night Head Genesis

I was very excited to hear about the Night Head Genesis anime that's starting on July 30 because I was a big fan of the original TV drama. I enjoyed the (rather depressing) stories of how people are messed up and how having powers in general makes people even more messed up. Or at least unable to function in society. The story is about the Kirihara brothers, Naoto and Naoya. Naoto is telekinetic and Naoya is empathic. They are both pretty powerful, and as children they are given up by their parents to the "laboratory," a place in the middle of the woods protected by a psychic shield. They grow up, and eventually escape. The show was basically about their adventures in human society. The co-dependent relationship of the brothers was so close and so clingy it was incestuous. Both actors were pretty good looking, and it was just lovely to see them suffer (well, more like Naoya would suffer and Naoto would lash out...). The movie was particularly incestuous and gore-filled, but besides the fangirling stuff the show and the movie had a fairly consistent theme and overall storyline (well, as far as I can remember...I might have forgotten the inconsistencies, it's been so long). Campy, yes, but not horrendously so (at least, for me it wasn't).

The character designs are by Higure Yuu. She's apparently doing a manga version as well. I'm happy they got a good artist, but there was actually a manga version done previously by Tateno Makoto (eight volumes covering the entire TV show and movie, I think). I really have the visuals from that manga stuck in my head so the new character designs might take some getting used to. (As an aside, the Night Head manga was how I first learned of Tateno Makoto. I was very happy to find out she did BL manga later on. XD)

The voice actors are Morikawa Toshiyuki for Naoto and Ishida Akira for Naoya. I am very happy with the choice of Morikawa for Naoto, but my initial reaction when I found out that Ishida Akira was playing Naoya was utter rejection. He has such a different voice from the actor from the TV show (I can still hear him saying "oniisan" even now....Naoya said that a lot. It felt like it's the only word he knew sometimes.) and it's so distinctive...well, we'll see. At least he's a really good voice actor. And he can do suffering. ^^;

I need to dig out my video tapes of the TV show and movie. Man, this takes me back....

Links:
Official site
Subbed trailer that shows almost nothing and makes the show look rather silly