It hands you a candy-colored circus airship and then makes you watch a kid with animal hearing cry over a bracelet. Karneval's whole trick is the whiplash: Yogi bouncing around in the Nyanperona cat suit one minute, patch off and silver-haired and lethal the next, Hirato smiling under that top hat while he says something genuinely menacing. Manglobe poured the budget into the look, and it shows, the lace and ribbon and jewel-tone palette, Gareki's goggles, the Varuga bodies that Kafka leaves behind. GRANRODEO's opening sets the tone before a single line of dialogue lands. Fair warning, thirteen episodes is nowhere near enough manga to close anything out, so you get the setup, the found family, and then a door left open. Watch it for Gareki, the pickpocket who keeps insisting he doesn't care, sticking around anyway.

Nai is searching for someone precious to him, and his only lead is a bracelet that was left behind. Gareki is a sharp young thief who steals and picks pockets to survive. The two cross paths in a strange mansion, where a setup turns them into wanted criminals pursued by military security. With nowhere left to go, they meet Circus, the country's most powerful defense organization, which takes on crimes too tough for the police and guards civilians from varuga, monsters that feed on people. Hoping it will lead Nai to his missing friend, the boys join Circus, face dangerous varuga and begin to uncover the secrets of a shadowy group called Kafka. The series blends action, fantasy, mystery and sci-fi.