Nijuu Mensou no Musume

[SuperKnuckles]

That and the whole Edogawa homage the show obviously is catering to. A yet another detective show that pays its due to the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Edogawa = Detective Cona.... er... Twenty Face's Daughter.

[Dop]

I really enjoyed the first episode, one of the best first episodes of the current crop. The whole look and feel, the gallant honourable thief with his own private twin-hulled airship.
How cool is that?

I shall definitely be watching more.

[orion]

I really enjoyed ep. 1 too. Chika is cute and Twenty Faces does remind me of Roger from Big 0.

What a sad family situation. You got to wonder about people who can poison you and do it with a smile.

[ZODDGUTS]

Yeah that guy reminded me of Roger from Big O also the tone of the series is similiar to that series as well.

[duckroll]

Ep2 r0x. That is all.

[darkchibi07]

Awww, now I'm curious! The first episode was pretty intriguing enough as it is.

[Sonhex]

Originally Posted by duckroll

Ep2 r0x. That is all.

Damn right. That was hugely satisfying episode. Probably the first one of the new season where everything just clicked for me. I loved the pacing, it really leapt along with plenty of action and adventuring with some nice character development for Chiko.

Spoiler for ep2:

Her box moving solution brought back fond memories of spunky Jane from Patapata Hikousen no Bouken. Though Chiko's not quite as motivated, yet: her desire to 'do some work' and help the gang, is a good step forward from her bed-ridden malaise. By the end of the ep we got to see her taking her first steps toward becoming a ninja thief.

Interestingly I was a little puzzled by Twenty Faces' conflicted expression there. I have some suspicions about his motives. He remains a damn cool anti-hero though.

Interesting to see them keeping the evil step parents in the story. I think the stepmother will continue to be an prominent villain.

Chiko X Ken ftw.

Animation was great too, especially in the first half during the destruction of the island hideout and the big gun. Plus bonus points for inclusion of a VW Beetle in the car chase

[Irkalla]

Ah, ep. 2 was great!
Chiko is really starting to evolve, a couple of more episodes and she'll be like Cat's eye

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by duckroll

Ep2 r0x. That is all.

Like Sonhex, I'll quote that for truth.

Spoiler for ep2:

Great pacing, giving just enough to make things work and not so much as to bog things down. One episode, two full adventures. So far, they are keeping up the neat tricks -- the bottles, the guns firing upward, Chiko (somehow) taking the bullets, the drop-floor. And I love both the Boss's slogan (mite, kiite, kangaeru - "Look, listen, think") and the serious look on Chiko's face as she ponders it. Action + character + relationship + ideas.

And Hirano Aya is just bowling me over. I can imagine feeling an artificiality in the voice she is using, but it is so emotionally effective. This is the Aya that always has a hint of sadness lurking somewhere in the background of her voice, and I love it. And I love her laughter at the end even more. You can hear the character development starting to move. I sometimes think that Aya at her best is not simulating a character, as a good professional seiyuu does, but embodying her character. As with Konata, she can take the voice into some weird realms, but in the service of creating a unique character and conveying emotion.

The relationship between Chiko and the Boss works for me. He may have some unknown ulterior motive other than simple "fatherly" concern and pride, but the fatherly aspect is pretty pure at the moment, it seems to me. And her adulation and desire to "get close to" him makes dramatic and emotional sense.

The one thing that definitely did not work for me was the negative stereotyping of Chinese. Until Japanese popular culture producers get these 1930s stereotypes out of their vocabulary, there will not be real peace between Japan and China. The same goes for the Chinese love of stereotyping wartime Japanese, I have to admit. Maybe some Chinese are getting over it: there are already three Chinese subs of this episode.

And this show is not exactly realistic. More like magic realism. Just when did Chiko manage to get hold of the woman's gun? And how did the Boss manage to get that trap-door floor set up? But the effects were worth it.

And I continue to love both the OP and ED. I'm at the stage where hearing the opening strains of the OP gives me a thrill. Not just because a show I like is starting, but because the song creates the right emotions of anticipation. And the great flow of images late in the OP of Chiko at her most thief-like give me chills. I guess I'm hooked. The OP and ED are directed and storybarded by Yano Yuichiro, who was the director of Tales of Agriculture and Unihabited Planet Survive.

Here's a pic from Aya's blog of herself with Uchida Yuya, who plays the Boss. He is basically a stage actor. He has only done five anime, and this is his first starring role, but he has dubbed many foreign movies and TV shows and 11 stage dramas are listed in Japanese Wikipedia.



By the way, there is a mini-PV on YouTube of Aya's ED, which comes out this week. The song and singing do it for me, but if they don't for others there are also the loooong legs (Aya's standard outfit now often seems to include very short shorts) and the lollipop (!?)

[DangerMouse]

Awesome hype for ep2, can't wait

I was totally hooked on ep 1 finally seeing it in subbed form.

[ani_d]

Just saw episode 1. I heart it. <3 I wish they'd release episode 2 soon lol

I'm just wondering how come the only time Aya Hirano sounds normal is when she does dubbing and when she sings. I saw one of her interviews and her real-life voice is so nasal. Is that really how she talks? :|

[Kang Seung Jae]

Originally Posted by ani_d

Just saw episode 1. I heart it. <3 I wish they'd release episode 2 soon lol

I'm just wondering how come the only time Aya Hirano sounds normal is when she does dubbing and when she sings. I saw one of her interviews and her real-life voice is so nasal. Is that really how she talks? :|

Quite a few people are like that.

For example, my voice is pretty high-toned when I talk normally, but then becomes deep when I do Korean subs and songs.



On episode 2: I want that giant tank!

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by ani_d

...I'm just wondering how come the only time Aya Hirano sounds normal is when she does dubbing and when she sings. I saw one of her interviews and her real-life voice is so nasal. Is that really how she talks? :|

Kang Seung Jae is certainly right, but I also think that high voice Aaya uses in interviews is partly a cutesy Japanese-girl polite show voice she puts on, thinking it appropriate for the situation. Have a listen to this segment of her NHK interview from last year, starting around the two minute mark. I think that's likely closer to how she normally speaks. There is also an interview with her toward the end of her idol DVD in which she seems more natural than any other place I've heard her speak.

By the way, I made a translation of the French poem in the OP and put it in a blog post.

[GreatTeacherKen]

just watched the first episode.

It seems pretty good so far. Really love the music in this show: OP, ED, BGM, everything. I have a suspicion that after a certain point in the story that 20 faces won't show up as often if at all, judging from his screentime in the OP and ED and the focus on the girls in them.

[Sorrow-K]

Ep 1

Not as good as I was lead to believe, but quite interesting nonetheless. The OP and ED sorta give away what direction this is going in, but it's not a bad one of itself. I can't say I have too much experience with the crime caper/detective anime genre, since I never got into Lupin or Detective Conan, so this is almost new territory for me. Good to see Hirano in a serious role as well. Looking forward to seeing how she handles it.

One thing I couldn't get past in this ep: why Chiko? Was Twenty Faces original intention just the heirloom and he decided to pick up Chiko as a bonus, or did he plan to "steal" her right from the beginning? And what did he see in Chiko that made her so special? I guess the last question will probably be explained, but I would have thought such details would have been important to the plot. His unexplained enthusiasm for her kinda pushed suspension of disbelief.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

Ep 1

Not as good as I was lead to believe, but quite interesting nonetheless. The OP and ED sorta give away what direction this is going in, but it's not a bad one of itself. I can't say I have too much experience with the crime caper/detective anime genre, since I never got into Lupin or Detective Conan, so this is almost new territory for me. Good to see Hirano in a serious role as well. Looking forward to seeing how she handles it.

One thing I couldn't get past in this ep: why Chiko? Was Twenty Faces original intention just the heirloom and he decided to pick up Chiko as a bonus, or did he plan to "steal" her right from the beginning? And what did he see in Chiko that made her so special? I guess the last question will probably be explained, but I would have thought such details would have been important to the plot. His unexplained enthusiasm for her kinda pushed suspension of disbelief.

The title of the show might foreshadow that a bit.

BTW, I got the official lyrics for the ED so they will be included in episode 2 (for those who were inquiring about that).

Here's a preview: "Naked half, there's a shiny way."

-Tofu

[Kaoru Chujo]

The ED is out, and here are images of the lyrics from the CD leaflet. First is the ED, unnamed world. I've also included the B-side, Maybe I Can't Good-bye, with lyrics written entirely in English (and Engrish) by Hirano Aya.

Aaya's Engrish is close enough to be understandable. Even the title, unidiomatic as it is, is clear enough. At least it's mostly understandable when read, as opposed to when Aaya sings it, lol.

I am playing both cuts over and over. I think she is finding her voice. The B-side has definite echoes of Nirvana, which as far as I'm concerned is a good thing. Are there any other seiyuu who sing actual rock like this? If she and that band had more cuts like these -- and particularly the B side -- and could do them live, I think they could tour North America. It makes me want to get up and dance, anyway.



There has been good reaction on Nico Nico Douga and in the 2channel Aaya thread, although one guy there called it "gal rock" and said she should apologize to Nirvana. Well, I'd rather an homage to Nirvana than yet another homage to Celine Dion.

As for Sorrow-K's highly understandable difficulty with why Twenty-Faces was so interested in Chiko, I expect that may be like her bitchiness in ep1: we eventually discovered that she had very good reason to be so bitchy. My question was how Twenty-Faces was able to substitute himself for the butler. Did the butler go to him, having seen that Chiko liked him? Or did he substitute himself for the butler when he started going for the ruby? The "butler" knew that Chiko knew something was wrong with the food: he kept bringing her food her mother hadn't touched, and he didn't take the juice over to her, but left it at the door. I was thinking that Twenty-Faces only learned what a gem Chiko was when he had infiltrated himelf into the household.

Spoiler for speculation:

Or is there really something in that "musume"?

But I do think we are going to have to accept some challenges to our suspension of disbelief as the show continues. It just seems that's how it's pitched: somewhere between fantasy and reality.

It's interesting how memes come in waves. Right now we have two shows, this and Kure-nai, in which a young girl is rescued/abducted from a bad home situation and lives with an older man (not much older, in the case of Kure-nai). I can't help seeing this meme as a version of Genji-Murasaki in the Tale of Genji.

I have basically zero familiarity with the detective/crime genre myself, so perhaps I am enjoying things that are banalities of the genre. But as usual, the things that keep me with any series are the characters and relationships, as well as the underlying myths, which I find quite powerful here. We'll see how things go.

[Kaoru Chujo]

I know I shouldn't double post, even 24 hours apart, but the PV of unnamed world just showed up on YouTube. I think it may sell a few CDs.

I have a new blog post on the show, including the embedded PV, in which I talk about 2channel reaction and give a couple of illustrations of differences between the manga and the anime.

[NoSanninWa]

Just saw the first episode, so when I checked out the forum thread I was astonished to see that it was only 4 pages instead of 24. It does indeed feel like an anime from a previous decade and that might be why it is so under-valued. Fortunately I am going to be enjoying this show to the fullest extent.

Originally Posted by SuperKnuckles

The lead guy reminds me of Roger Smith in Big O and yeah, the Kaito Kid (Detective Conan) feel is there.

Lol! It's just the eyebrows.

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

I know I shouldn't double post, even 24 hours apart

Feel free. As long as it is a reasonably period between posts it doesn't bother us moderators even a little bit.

[nadare]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

I know I shouldn't double post, even 24 hours apart, but the PV of unnamed world just showed up on YouTube. I think it may sell a few CDs.

I have a new blog post on the show, including the embedded PV, in which I talk about 2channel reaction and give a couple of illustrations of differences between the manga and the anime.

Hirano Aya's hair in the unnamed world PV looks like Ayumi Hamasaki's for some reason.

This has got to be one of the better shows of the season yet only a few takes interest in it.