Telepathy Shoujo Ran
 

The children's novel series Telepathy Shoujo Ran Jiken Note by Asano Atsuko will be getting animated.

Broadcast: Spring 2008

テレパシー少女「蘭」事件ノート
Telepathy Shoujo Ran Jiken Note

The novel series is published under the AoiTori Bunko label (a label aimed at children).

There are 8 novel volumes which can be seen here:
http://shop.kodansha.jp/bc/aoitori/park/16t_ran/

The novel series got a shounen manga adaptation that's serialized in the shounen manga magazine Shounen Sirius. The manga is drawn by Iida Toshitsugu.

Covers of currently released volumes of the manga can be seen on Shounen Sirius' page for the manga:
http://www.sirius.kodansha.co.jp/contents11.html

A synopsis by Toua:

NHK's official site for the anime has opened:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/anime/ran/

So this show airs in two days time (well, one and a bit). And no-one cares.

Except me! It's based on novels and airing on NHK which means it's probably based on good novels or at least ones popular with a more general audience than stuff like Kanokon, even if it's probably quite kiddie. Besides, it has glowing psychic school children and mysterious men in cloaks, it must be awesome.

The show's about Ran Isozaki, a 13 year old girl. One day she hears a mysterious voice saying "This is the beginning..." - turns out it's a girl with psychic powers who transfers into her class, Midori, and decides to cause her lots of trouble. Of course, Ran's own psychic powers also awaken, and together with Midori and her boyfriend Rui the three of them end up embroiled in all sorts of weird situations. Of course, being on NHK, this means that they learn all sorts of heart-warming lessons etc. etc.

Who cares - glowing psychic school children, that's what matters! And, unlike certain other shows airing at the moment (coughZettaiKarenChildren) there's no slightly disturbing sexualisation of them!

The official website as linked to by NeoSam hosts a fairly pointless little trailer for the first episode, but someone has kindly posted an advert on YouTube which is much more exciting and gives a little preview of what the OP will sound like (a bit weird, if you ask me). It also appears to have half decent animation and a crisp, clean look to it, which are both good things in my book.

TMS are animating, which isn't a great indicator of things to come, and far too many of the team worked on the rather annoying Noramimi for my liking (but then it's getting a second season so what do I know?), but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, the official website doesn't seem to like Internet Explorer so I can't actually read the seiyuu credits as they're hidden by the background art, but I don't really care anyway so I'm not going to lose any sleep over them.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this show - not because no-one else is, but again I must mention GLOWING PSYCHIC SCHOOL CHILDREN.

(also I secretly hope that it's going to be as awesome as Dennou Coil was this time last year despite having absolutely no grounds for making this comparison whatsoever and knowing full well that Dennou Coil had years of planning and virtuoso staff behind it whereas Telepathy Shoujo Ran has a guy that wrote the scripts for the Air and Clannad movies working on it - not exactly an indication of subtle greatness, really)

Dogs that shoot fire!

Whoa!! It wasn't bad at all..... Seems like a great series, Ran is just too common a cute hers own way.... Mysterious girl who came to the class, ussing telepathy and have a freaky aura around her, and yeah Crazy DOG from hell with flamethrower:heh: .... Realy interesting..... keep watching this one:) btw GREAT HD ANIMATION QUALITY

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised and am cautiously optimistic, though I think I'm a biiiiiiit tired of psychic girl shows for Saturday. Some of their visual decisions were also... questionable. Mainly the choice to start it with 90 really boring seconds of a shadow playing a violin and GIGANTIC FLASHING LIGHTS TO SHOW A VOICE TALKING TO YOU. Move it to Wednesday or something.

Cap dump:
http://blog.seiha.org/?p=904

Well... I tried to keep my expectations as low as possible since the series is taking over Dennou Coil's timeslot, and I was bound to compare the two even though there's really nothing else linking the series besides the targeted audience, and possibly some of the setting.

In the end the first episode was fairly entertaining. Nothing groundbreaking, but I liked the innocent atmosphere, filled with elements that are surely meant to appeal to children and you can't help but go 'aww' at (Ran's cats, anyone?).

The production values seem solid - I'm not that fond of the character designs, but there's no sign of real laziness when it comes to actual animation. All of Ran's classmates get proper faces, people in the streets move most of the time, all these details. Of course, whether TMS can keep this up remains to be seen.

I must also praise some of the cast. It was mostly Kana Ueda that shone for me, but Emiri Katou also did great. Other noticeable appearances include Rina Satou (who I almost mistook for Mamiko Noto as I heard her two first words, odd), Tomokazu Seki, and Daisuke Sakaguchi as a classmate who didn't get much airtime.
Sadly I also have one major complaint: Rui's voice doesn't work out for me. I was scared after reading his seiyuu's name, that I remembered from Lovely Complex (in which his performance was simply appalling). He does a slightly better job here... which is to say his job is still too poor amongst the rest of the cast. It simply sounds too forced to me - and I'm usually one to be very tolerent towards new seiyuu too ( I even liked Chiaki Omigawa's Maka from the start! ). He didn't have that many lines in this episode so I was able to bear it, but since Rui's role is most likely primary, I suppose I'll have to get used to it...

Since the summer season looks rather poor, I'll gladly continue the series for a while.

I enjoyed it. I thought the look was quite unique, especially the backgrounds. I liked the odd way they did moving water, and the strange slanting lines in the OP animation were nice.

I thought Katou Emiri was excellent: innocent and clear. But I also thought Rui (Shimowada Hiroki) was effective. His awkwardness seemed quite appropriate here.

The character design was exceedingly simple, but worked for me. It was not much of a surprise to see that the original character design draft was by the person who did charades and animation supervision for Shinkai Makoto's Place Promised (Tazawa Ushio).

I thought the sound effects were particularly good. The crowd sounds, etc. I guess that is the work of the sound director, Takakuwa Hajime, who did Spice & Wolf, Major, Blue Dragon, etc.

And the art director, responsible for the backgrounds I liked so much, was Yasuhara Minoru, who did the same job on Kannazuki no Miko and Innocent Venus, as well as drawing some backgrounds for Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto.

I also liked both the OP and the ED. Particularly the OP, by Chara.

Anyway, quite a promising start, for me, especially when I didn't expect that much. The show had slow moments, but worked up to something good, through one episode, particularly because of the art and the voices, Emirin's in particular.

The first episode was decent all things considered. Need to re-watch it later and maybe check out a couple more before I decide. However the main I'll say right now is this.

It was... ok. Should wait for ensub, because just can't understand what's happening. It may be a good show. "Firedog" was interesting to watch.
And I really like the OP, so I've tried to make some avatars.
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5416/ranava5cm1.gif http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/4011/ranava2au4.gif http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/2500/ranava31sn2.gif http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/905/ranava6nc3.gif http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/7513/ranava7yn6.gif http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3193/ranava8ga9.gif http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3633/ranava9pw2.gif

^ nice avies ^^

ep 1

We have an episode 1 script on our website if you guys want to take a look. We're not picking up the show though.

^
Darn it... such a shame, as the first episode was so interesting. A full on catfight right from the get-go? You don't see that everyday in anime lol. Not to mention the main couple pretty much set on the first episode, plus them already having a date to boot. Makes my heart happy lol XD

I really hope someone picks up this show, as the animation is top notch while the theme seems to be a bit darker than your usual kiddy fare. Kind of reminds me Dennou Coil really, and that is every bit a compliment as I thought that show rocked. Usually summer season for me is slow and generally uninteresting, but this show has given this season a good start.

^ You forgot to mention that the main couple are osananajimis...but of course that fact was probably firing underway seen as you "loved" the first ep :heh:

Wow, and here I was expecting something light hearted.

I guess TSR knows how to handle haunting, creepy scenes when it must. That caught me more than anything out of episode 1.

Glad the girl got bitch splap she deserves it wouldn't mind the boy getting bitch slap as well because of he's voice.

Actually, I was just all WAFFy and all with their date and all, which was understandable considering their status. I wasn't all that wild about the series just with that. (That said, it's nice watching once in a while where I don't have to worry about who ends up with whom.)

Now the catfight with ESP powers and psychotic tendencies of both girls was the real highlight of the episode, IMO, despite my tendencies to osana-najimi couples. It went from 'Alright/Good' to 'Hell yeah!' from there on. Kana Ueda does make a good tsunderekko VA, but this episode proves she makes an even better psycho-bitch VA lol. XD

God, never have I felt so good after seeing a character slapped in recent memory. Ahh, catharcism... ^_^

So the cool kids don't say "childhood friend" this summer? ;)

I just watched thew first episode and the jury is still out on this. But Rui alone already almost won me over. He's the lead male isn't he? How comes he's so attentive and concerned then? And Midori's bitchyness won't last long, judging from NeoSam's introduction. So far so nice.

Cat fight! Cat fight!

Pretty enjoyable overall. Ran was a positively Miyazaki-esque heroine, I thought. But I do agree that Rui's seiyuu didn't quite fill the bill. Jury's out - I'll certainly tune in for the next few and see how things develop.