First anime post, and it’s full of pics, too. Knock yourselves out.

Edit: Now comes with mouse-over captions!

OP: “Prism” by Ikeda Ayako

A pretty good song for this particular show, if I’ll say so myself. It starts off with a mysterious feel, with a direct change into a more melancholically happy, somewhat hopeful tune. The visuals themselves are fairly simple, yet give us a great feel about how the world is supposed to be like, from the main characters literally grasping at shadows and shots of their school life. I don’t really get why they decided to end the OP with shots of the characters climbing stairs though, but there’s probably some sort of significance to that bit later.

Episode One:

“According to rumours among the other kids, many cases of pets going missing have been occurring in Daikoku City recently.”

Title: “The Kid With Glasses.”

Train rides. Best way to start off an episode ever.

Well, anyway, we’re introduced to our main protagonist, Yuko Okonogi, and her ever boisterous little sister, Kyoko, observing a fog phenomenon in the town. They’ve just moved into Daikoku City, and we’re given a first-hand impression of the exact nature world when Kyoko drops a bag on their cyberdog Densuke, and the bag just drops right through. Densuke isn’t too thrilled about this, though, and he jolts away, his textures still flickering from the bag falling on him.

Almost immediately after, we’re shown another character, a girl in gray clothes, setting up what appears to be a trap of sorts, namely chalk marks that resemble something straight out of a transmutation book. A strange black blob appears to be the target, and a cybercat is the bait. Things get out of hand, however, when a round probe suddenly appears and zaps the blob, causing the cat and the remains of the blob-creature to split. The girl herself evades detection by drawing chalk marks around herself, causing the probe to see the area around her as a black out-of-bounds area that the probe ignores and passes by.

Back to Yuko. She’s in a fast-food restaurant, and we see her having a harried conversation with her mom. We also see that Kyoko has some sort of affixation to the word “Poop.” In the middle of the conversation, however, Kyoko disappears. Yuko finds her outside the building staring at a speck of black goo. Upon further examination, they find that it’s part of a trail, which they obviously follow, up to a big pile. Being harassed by Densuke, however, proves too much as it sprout two legs and take off faster than you can say “Great Scott!”

Further on down, we see a girl, Fumie, and a boy, Daichi, get into odds over the cat that escaped earlier, each claiming to have found it first. The cat escapes and finds its way over to Yuko. Unfortunately, Fumie finds her and in an amusing exchange, manages to exchange the cat for some form of currency which Yuko isn’t familiar with, as well as a call card describing a Dennou Coil CyberInvestigation Agency. Daichi arrives just in time to see Fumie finish the exchange, and isn’t very happy.

Meanwhile, back to the blob from earlier - It sees a strange error in a nearby wall and approaches it, seemingly doing something to make the error bigger. At this point, Yuko realizes that she has a tracking device with her and attempts to track down her dog. Instead, she finds the blob and gets into a little scuffle with the poor thing. (P.S. - Never antagonize a girl with a computer screen in her hands - You’ll get brained, and bad.) Densuke then arrives and tangles with the creature. However, the creature realizes that the error mark is disappearing, and takes off down the rabbit hole, Densuke in hot pursuit. Before Yuko can do anything else, the error disappears. Yuko attempts to reopen the whole by smashing her computer screen against it, but only succeeds in breaking her own screen. Kyoko finally reappears, and they mull about it for a while.

Flashbacks! The anime staple. *Cough* Anyway, we see a much younger-looking Yuko receiving a gift from her grandfather. It’s her glasses, and upon putting them on, she sees Densuke as a pup for the first time. The atmosphere among the adults is somewhat grim, as her grandfather had passed away before being able to give her the glasses. Yuko seems oblivious to that, however, bonding with Densuke.

Back to the present, Yuko decides to get Fumie’s help, dropping off Kyoko with her mom before she meets up with Fumie, who charges her the exact amount of metabugs she gave Yuko earlier (Geez!). Fumie demonstrates a much larger knowledge of the cyber portion of the world, bringing out several strange items as well as well as naming the flying probe as a “Kyuu-chan”, while the black blob creature is apparently an “Illegal”. Fumie describes it being a sort of computer virus of recent times.

In the other world, neither Densuke nor the Illegal are doing too well, however, the former finds some metabugs which it then consumes to regain strength. Densuke seems lost, however, and his data appears to be dwindling.

Meanwhile, Fumie literally creates a hole in the wall with a spraycan, before pulling out a fishing rod from her purse in a manner reminiscent of Doraemon, before tying her cyber-companion “Oyaji” to the string, and basically has him go in the hole to look for Densuke.

However, Kyuus barge in on the scene and start zapping things. This has an adverse effect in the other world, where a giant wall is crushing everything in sight, much to the chagrin of the three cyber-creatures still stuck inside. Oyaji is fished out, but as Densuke tries to escape, he finds himself cornered by the Illegal. (Insert Jaws theme here)

Obviously, Yuko isn’t too happy about the prospect of leaving Densuke behind. Suddenly, she hears something, and adjusts the location of the zinc plate the hole was on, convincing Fumie to go for one last try. Fumie gives in, and Oyaji finds a Densuke who is down for the count. It grabs Densuke, and in an escape sequence that would make Indiana Jones proud, it barely escapes out of the world with Densuke in tow just as the wall crashes down on everything.

Fumie and Yuko barely manage to escape, the former’s fishing rod being reformatted by the aggressive Kyuus. But, before the two can put enough distance between themselves and their pursuers, they find themselves blockaded by the Kyuus. And to make matters worse, a circular mark with the word “Post” on it forms on the wall behind them, and a strange red blob-thing starts to emerge from it, much to Fumie’s despair, as she wails that in the end, “Satchii” has appeared as well.

ED: “Sora no Kakera” also by Ikeda Ayako.

Another soft melody in the vein of “Prism”. I don’t like this quite as much as the OP, however. The visuals are nothing to shout home about, and the song doesn’t exactly make me catch my breath as well. A pity.

Additional note:

Now that I’ve watched up to 15 and reviewed this episode over, I’ve noticed a couple of the series’ recurring characters hanging out at the fast food restaurant. A nice little touch from the show’s producers.

Hint: If you want to know who they are, check the mouse-over text.

Author’s Impressions:

Well, that was quite a cram-fest in terms of information for a first episode, although the pacing was excellent. The viewers are introduced to the strange world of Dennou Coil, wherein the virtual and the real world literally overlap with one another. Not to mention the presence of Illegals and Obselete Spaces which make up the imperfect presences in this cyberworld. Something like an “Antagonist Presence” if you will, as well as hints of their interaction with one another, ie Densuke possibly being infected by the Illegal in this episode.

The OP is also quite excellent, the sort of thing which I watch during each and every episode. Unfortunately, I’m not as fond of the ED, which I often skip at each and every opportunity. Perhaps it’ll grow on me in the future.

All in all, it’s one of the most original things to swing this side of animedom, and I’ll be darned if I’m not going to keep up with this.

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Of note, since Dennou Coil is already up to episode 19, I probably won’t be doing all the episodes. I’m really only doing the first one out of principle. You can tell me if you want a particular episode done though, and I’ll probably look into it.

Also, if you want the biggest sized pics (704 x 400), be sure to check “All sizes” at the flickr links.

Credits: Ureshii Subs. I think that’s right. >_>

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 10:25 am and is filed under Anime, Articles.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.