X - One (TV Series, Vol. 1)
Viewers complained that the 1998 featureX: 1999failed to capture the complexities of the apocalypticmangaseries. The TV series offers more details, but director Yoshiaki Kawajiri indulges in too many flashbacks, dreams, visions, and montages that don't advance the plot. These self-conscious devices may pay off eventually, but some viewers will wish Kawajiri spent more time introducing the nearly two-dozen characters a little more slowly and coherently. Astrological shifts announce that the battle between the Seven Dragons of the Heavens and the Seven Dragons of Earth is about to take place, with the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance. The incipient conflict is presented in the familiar visual style of the Clamp collective: there are lots of pretty boys with long hair and skinny legs, elaborate art nouveau curves, and veritable blizzards of flower petals and feathers. Rated 16 Up: Violence, minor profanity, grotesque imagery.--Charles Solomon