Le Portrait de Petit Cossette

Synopsis:

After sitting through Le Portrait de Petit Cossette I'm almost kind of stunned that it's sort of a hard show to explain. Is that a good thing? In this case, not necessarily so. Working in an antique shop Eiri Kurahashi recently receives a shipment of 18th century items. After unpacking them and setting them on display Eiri begins to see a girl within the glass reflections living out a ghostly life and even acknowledging Eiri's existence. Eventually Eiri becomes infatuated with the girl in the reflection, she makes contact with Eiri at midnight one evening and she tells him her name is Cossett and that if he wishes to be with her that he must suffer for the sins of another.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 3


Review:

Le Portrait de Petit Cossette would be what many consider gothic horror but I wasn't getting that kind of feeling from this anime. I could be mistaken or maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to comprehend this because it only felt like a ghost story to me. You'll spend most of the time in Eiri's psychosis watching him endure both physical and mental anguish as Cossette inflicts deep wounds that also affect his body in the real world. This makes Eiri believe that on the inside he's becoming closer to Cossette, but on the outside he's taversing a path of self-destruction. But herein lies the problem I had with this show as the realms of reality and psychoanalogy run parallel to each other so close that alot of times it's hard to tell which side of the fence you're on since you get pushed around with no real explination how or why you got there although some may take a liking to this type of storytelling.

With animation that seems fairly decent at times and dated at other points Le Portrait de Petit Cossette's plot may appeal to some who may appreciate spending more time trying to decipher it's phychosomatic gothic imagry more than just enjoy it as a ghost story. So, if I could sum it up my thoughts would be "I liked it but not really." Confusing enough?

Le Portrait de Petit Cossette (main theme/trailer)

Recommendation: |Low|