19 Nocturne Boulevard, July 2013
Fatal Girl - written,
directed and conceived by Hoverson - is a six-part fantasy drama whose main characters fight demons due to a family legacy.
They are well-drawn: Alice Yamaguchi (Beverly Poole) is both brave yet vulnerable, someone who can take care of herself yet
prone to moments of weakness. Chiyoko (Hoverson) likewise has to fight off demons to protect and satisfy her ancestors.
Ken (Reynaud LeBoeuf) tries to conform to what he conceives as an image of masculinity - strength, power, dominance - but
finds it increasingly difficult to do so.
The interplay between the characters has been deftly staged. As the six-part drama unfolds,
we see the protagonists learning how to get one with each other, even though the process proves a difficult one. Although
billed on the website as a drama in the style "of a dark anime," Fatal Girl is mostly about people and how they cope
under difficult circumstances.
And yet I can't help feeling that some judicious editorial pruning might have rendered the drama even
more entertaining. Sometimes the dialogue tends to run on a bit, with the characters indulging in well-worn (and often
spurious) verbal clichés. Hoverson is a talented writer, with a gift for creating dramatic situations (as her other
work on the 19 Nocturne Boulevard site amply demonstrates), but sometimes I feel that in Fatal Girl she
has let her imagination run away with her a little, to the detriment of the drama as a whole.
Nonetheless I think that the six-part drama
is definitely worth a listen, if only for its analysis of contemporary gender relationships within the anime structure.
