Satisfying mystery: Den-noh Coil
I'm not going to spoil this one, since it's such a satisfying story to experience. "Den-noh Coil" is a mystery story revolving around 6th grade children that use augmented reality (AR) glasses. The town they live in is an experimental space where the technology was tried out first. Kids, the most enthusiastic users, are drawn to the many wrinkles in the technology, hacking and spamming each other and the town's very aggressive (yet cute) AR "anti-virus", Searchie.
The show starts playful with the kids' shenanigans, but gets increasingly serious and dark, with horror overtones as it goes into its last third. The reasons why I recommend to watch it are several:
A deep mystery, involving multiple layers, that is completely resolved and explained towards the end of the show.
Rich world-building, with information about the setting being introduced partially through show-not-tell, partially through exposition dumps.
For all the episodes of the show that feature the main plot, rather good pacing, with the children being dragged along by events escalating and the viewer struggling to keep up with following what is revealed (but can manage).
Consistently great artwork, memorable characters, and fantastic imagery.
The story is emotionally touching and portrays emotions very well. In fact, all the main characters have an emotional motivation that they would follow well beyond the bounds of reason.
It is self-contained! You can walk away after having watched the show and would need no further media (no manga or light novel needed to continue), and you do not need to wait for sequels or anything.
Given how much ground the show has to cover, I was quite surprised that it even manages to contain a filler/recap episode, just to remind us of all the plot developments up to this point.
With the last episodes I was reeling. I was not sure the plot threads would resolve, nor the mystery, or if the end could be satisfying. The mystery grows as more elements and actors are introduced, but if you stay till the end, you would find that it does so in a logical fashion. Given the complexity of the matter, the end remains satisfying and follows from what was presented in the show.
As for the name, "den-noh" ("dennou" in more typical transliteration) means "electric-brain" or "computer" or "cyber." What a "coil" is will be revealed late in the show. Given that the show premiered in 2007, it's odd that it took a long time to really make its appearance in the West, but now you can stream it.
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