Shadow Star Narutaru, as I'm sure you've read in practically every other review on this anime, is deceiving to say in the least. If you were to just watch the OP, you would totally let your 5 year old watch it. But DON'T. This anime becomes very disturbing very quickly, but is also very disorganized. It's as if the creators said, "ok how can we shock the audience next?!" and completely forgot about any existing plotline. Therefore, there are a loooot of "Uncle Chuck"s in this anime. Which, is really disappointing, because there are so many elements that I would have liked to have seen fleshedout more over the course of the show. Instead, many themes were picked up and dropped almost instantly.

The art really suffers here; Shina sometimes has mile-long legs and a lot of times the art just looks awkward. The designs are simple but effective--the "Angel" dragonette absolutely creeps me out. Sounds are also simple, but effective for setting the mood.

I find I have a general formula for liking something: If I like the characters, no matter how bad the plotline or anything else, I like the game/tv show/movie/ book etc. I really did like the characters in this anime--each character had redeeming qualities that made me want to find out more about them (unfortunately this wasn't done, but that's besides the point).

I did enjoy this anime overall, since it had many moments that had me sitting on the edge of my seat and did make me want to keep watching (finished in the span of an afternoon). The reason it loses points however is because of it's hole-y, disorganized plotline. I would love to see a re-release of this without all the cuts....