Mysterious black-clad, white-haired children who have been sighted again and again over five hundred years; a lonely orphan girl who constantly draws the same picture of an unearthly landscape; a team of scientists carrying out dangerous secret experiments: these are just some of the elements that have been revealed so far in this intriguing series.

Orphans Helga and Chito have escaped from the orphanage. The boy Thoma, who feels a strange affinity with Helga, discovers that they have taken a rowboat and left the island where he’s been sheltering them at his temple home. He tells his parents that he’s determined to help Helga find the mysterious place that she keeps drawing, as he’s sure it must be her home.

Professor Gherta is about to conduct an experiment on board a ship sailing close by. The crew rescue the orphans and take them on board, warning them not to leave their cabin. Gherta is trying to get a lock on her last test subject, Kirchner, using his blind sister Cybele as bait to draw him onto the ship.

Meanwhile, Thoma has been confronted by the white-haired Children of Béfort. They tell him that they are looking for Helga and, at first, alarmed by their menacing appearance and their strange manner, he refuses to help, stubbornly setting off to sea alone to search. They follow and when Thoma almost drowns, he is rescued by their flying robot, Wonder.

The sight of currents of energy flickering from a distant ship draws a shocked response from all the Children. “It’s Orsel,” says Aghi, hurrying toward it.

On board, Kirchner has materialized in etheric form and confronts the terrified Gherta. But when the terrifying black shadows called ‘the Enma’ start to appear, Aghi and the other Children intervene to try to save Kirchner. Kirchner has been sent to the world of death, or the Zone, Aghi explains, and if he returns, his soul will never be able to be reborn; it will be annihilated.

Once they have left the ship, the Children confront Helga. “We’ve been searching for you for such a long, long time.” Helga is the reincarnation of Tina, the Princess of the Planet Greecia, over two hundred million light years from earth. Helga remembers nothing of her past life – or lives, for this is not her first reincarnation on earth. But the pictures she’s been drawing are of her distant homeworld. Aghi and the other Children begin to explain who they really are and why they’ve been searching for her for so long. Exhausted by the days’ events, Thoma, Helga and Chito fall asleep. But Thoma experiences a terrifying nightmare: he sees himself standing over a murdered man lying in a pool of blood. The man has white hair and blue eyes, just like the Children. When he wakes in terror, Helga asks him what’s wrong and he pulls her to him, holding her close until she cries out to him to let her go. What has he seen? Is it a memory from one of his past lives?

A little disappointing after such a build-up of revelations, with the promise of more to come, to find that episode 14 turns out to be the recap. episode. Although, compared with all the fillers in ‘Wolf’s Rain’, this one – given the complex nature of the story – is genuinely helpful and succinctly done.

I’m always happy to appreciate a good US dub but, sadly this one is not recommended. I find it significant that the US voice actors are not credited anywhere on the disc (but then, neither are the Japanese credits translated either). Beez can be a little slapdash in this respect; I’ve often had to go search online to find out which seiyuu are acting the roles, or who composed the music. But these are very minor quibbles; ‘Fantastic Children’ is a superb piece of story-telling which unfolds its engrossing story. The music by Koji Ueno enhances the action perfectly, especially the wistful ‘cello and piano theme for Helga. And the ending song ‘Water’s Rest’ is one of the most beautiful I’ve heard in a long time.

In Summary

Writer/director Takashi Nakamura is quoted as having said that his aim in ‘Fantastic Children’ was to create ‘an old-fashioned adventure’ and in that aim he has succeeded admirably. By Volume 3, this series is displaying all the best attributes of ‘old-fashioned’ science-fictional storytelling: complex (though not over-complicated), intriguing storylines, excellent pacing, and sympathetic characters. The release of the box set this month is timely; I can highly recommend this series.