There's a lot going on in Un-Go. It's a mystery series that takes place in an alternate reality Japan, set in the aftermath of a hazily-defined war conducted largely through acts of terrorism. So that's two genres already, with the series having to juggle telling whodunnit stories with fleshing out its dystopian science-fictional world. On top of that, we have an element of the fantastic with Inga, the supernatural sidekick of our lead detective who can extract one truth from any suspect. And there's a larger plot about a conspiracy in the workings of the shadowy central government. All of this in 11 half-hour episodes.
The most successful of these aspects is easily the science fiction part. Un-Go touches on a lot of the anxieties we face today, most notably the clash between the increased surveillance and panic over security, the increasing opacity and secrecy of government, and the barely restrained anarchy of the Internet and the subcultures it spawns. Sometimes these issues aren't really dealt with in the depth they should be, but it does make a very interesting world.
The plot and characters, on the other hand, can't help but seem a little perfunctory. The mysteries, especially in the one-off episodes, are rushed to a conclusion before the viewer really has time to speculate about what they've seen. Inga also has an annoying tendency to act as a deus ex machina, and the entire supernatural subplot just feels like a burden on an already loaded show. Maybe it's fair to blame this on the limited time available, but Un-Go could have gone for fewer stories with better pacing and greater depth, and been a lot more successful.
Un-Go has been getting a lot of praise, and some of that is warranted, but in the end I had a hard time really immersing myself in it. It's a lot more interesting than most of what comes out of the anime industry, but never really achieves the greatness it's striving for. In the end I'd file this with most of the noitaminA science-fiction series in the "ambitious but rushed" folder.
