Due to some quirk ways mind works, I found myself thinking about "Utawarerumono" and "Scrapped Princess" in the morning. It was soon after I woke, while going to work. I didn't drive, so my mind had leisure of wandering.
Both this anime start with one of classic fantasy premises: in "Utawarerumono" we have a man with amnesia and extremely capable, while in "Scrapped Princess" we have a cursed princess traveling with magician and fighter. In next few or more episodes, the "feeling of fantasy" is even more established. And then, later in series, we found out that both are actually post-apocalyptic worlds, where most people forgot about science and lived as in medieval times. Then we are introduced to "bad side", people who still have access to advanced technology and use it to rule and maintain status quo. If I remember correctly (I think that "Utawarerumono" was my third anime, after "Dragon Ball" and "Naruto"), in both this anime, antagonists had in some way justified reasons for their actions and weren't actually bad as they looked. Basically, they are SF anime that first lead viewers that they are fantasy.
As of my impressions, I liked "Utawarerumono" better then "Scrapped Princess". It had better animation (except for that awful CGI in battles) and plot was a big surprise for me; while "Scrapped Princess" had generic characters and lousy colors.
The reason why I wrote this, was because of next. Almost every day when I come to work, if circumstances allow it (and usually do), I drink coffee and check some sites. Among them is Tor.com and there I found this post by Jo Walton, where he addressed disguising SF as fantasy, only in books.
Today I will receive "Dust of Dreams" by Steven Erikson, which I will write about next.
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