Dennô Coil

Kind of a slice-of-life urban-pastoral dramaish horrorish techno-fantasy? It's really effective at showing how intense life is for kids; how it's not Drama(tm) that makes them react so strongly, it's a lack of the distancing mechanisms adults have let set in; and how the ways kids' agency is taken away in the name of protecting them makes it worse. Also, the technology has a deep verisimilitude, feeling like the buggy, complicated weirdness of real-world tech. And the ending gets adorably gay!

Down-to-Earth soft scifi/drama starring kids in a world of Augmented Reality. Despite its relaxed pace and calm nature, Dennô Coil manages to touch deeply on a LOT of themes - the difficulties of being a kid, what can and cannot be called real, and the siren's call of addiction are some of the highlights - without ever feeling overstuffed. And while I found one development a bit hard to believe, it then proceeded to more than make up for that with a strong, emotional ending. Quite satisfying.