Cruel Angel's Thesis

[Mysterious F.]

I do admit Loveless is mysterious, but the series ended in a way that leaves too many questions and possibly suggests a sequal once the manga is far enough away.

[Fishalicious]

The anime makes more sense once you've read the manga. There's a lot of internal conflict in a lot of characters, they couldn't fit it into the series very well, and so they omitted it, causing it to be confusing.

[darkphantomime]

Heh, I wouldn't count them mysterious for your part on Loveless, just difficult to really piece together. But that's why I prefer Short stuff over long stuff, it provides more experimentation with how the show develops.

Boogiepop Phantom is 12 episodes, and the whole thing is filled with mystery, suspense, and weirdness, violence... But the thing is, the mystery is part of the atmosphere as a whole, while in many others, what is 'mysterious' is used primarily as a plot device, rather than as an aesthetic device.

Another example: Serial Experiments Lain.

What's important in an anime, to me, is atmosphere. Mainly because it creates  a unique feeling, especially with the weirder and darker atmospheres... So sometimes you don't know what's going on, but the subtle effects, with overcast lighting and unique points of view are quite beautiful.

Boogiepop Phantom, up until the last episode was shown with a Vignette effect, with grey and browner tones, as opposed to lighter and more colorful hues. The effect it created was that the whole thing had a unique presentation, giving morbid and psychological development to the characters. The main thing it revolved around was flashbacks, and as a result, many of the events are told out of sequence, sometimes without us even realizing it. Also, many of the episodes just focus on the viewpoint of one character, each episode revolving around a different character. So it creates a very memorable and beautiful effect.

The thing about anime/mangas today is that very few of them are truly 'unique'. They all revolve around the basic Shonen plot of a young boy as a main character going on an adventure with many others tagging along, usually with a subtext of missing/dead father or mother as motivation.
Experimental anime is a very fresh vacation from what has become an increasingly stale genre.

[Mysterious F.]

That was so big I actually skipped some of it.