Kyousougiga

Kyousougiga: A+

Once upon a time, there was a monk whose drawings came to life, and so he was asked to live in the country, away from the capital where everyone was afraid of him.  He didn't mind so much, but continued drawing things to entertain himself, and one of those things was a black rabbit named Koto, who he created to be the goddess of a city he had created.  And that rabbit fell in love with the monk, and a buddha offered to give her a body so that they could move forward with their relationship.  And in time, they had three children, only one of whom was particularly human, but they were a family and it was good.  Eventually they were given further trouble by the priests and so the monk drew a world for them, and they fled to that world to live.

And then the monk and the woman who had been the rabbit left, and things got weird.

Kyousougiga is a fairy tale with a distinctly Japanese flavor, a very well-paced and well-executed one.  What begins as a story about a strange wonderland becomes very directly about freedom, inheritance, growing up, responsibility, family and love.  The ending is one of the best I've seen in recent memory.

It's short, only 10 episodes (3 more exist, but they're compilations, live action distractions and commentary), so you can get through it in an evening if you're willing to stretch a little bit, and I recommend watching it in one sitting, because a lot is happening all of the time and if you miss things or forget details, you're likely to be missing pieces when it comes to the conclusion.

I'm inclined to draw a parallel to FLCL for a similar sense of mayhem and a similarly-couched narrative, as well as similar pacing, but Kyousougiga doesn't have FLCL's utter zaniness, so the comparison might not work for some people.  Kyousougiga didn't blow my mind quite as brilliantly as FLCL did, but that's not much of an mark against it.

Kyousougiga is beautiful and will make you want to go give your mom or dad or brothers or sisters a hug.  It's elegant and clever and conclusive in a way very few anime ever are.  It's weird, and the animation is definitely... different, and you really do need to pay attention to it for it all to work, but give it a chance to tell its story.  The payoff is worth it.