(L) Denno Coil (TV Series!)

[Mecorx]

Originally Posted by Shii

I did it for shits and giggles. The timing and translation were Anon's work so it would be rude to credit the subs to myself; but Anon's IRC channel was, as most fansub channels are, unresponsive, and I didn't want to put the blame on them without permission for any mistakes I might have made. Obviously the proper thing to do here is assign credit to a charitable and wholesome person who wants to do the right thing for America.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with the show so I'll stop here. I wish Geneon were still around so they could pick this up for US distribution; I worry about its chances otherwise.

Lol, i went on the Anon IRC and the welcome message was "...F*ck Ron Paul..." or something like that... I got tired of waiting and encoded the subs onto the raws for myself a while ago

[scr]

hi guys, have been watching some eps of Dennou Coil and reading some posts in this thread (especially about the ending), i begin to see vague similarity between Dennou Coil and

Spoiler:

Utena (the Movie)

why ? because it's about getting rid of the "prince" figure. Yuuko must realize that there's no 4423 to begin with. Isako must realize that her onii-chan is really dead. both must move with their own life, and so on, and so on. especially if there's someone dear to you in life.

now, if you would excuse my fanboy-ism ...

[RebootEDC]

/me while trying not to read any spoiler, writes:

Does anybody know where does the song from Kanna's accident crossing come from?

[wao]

Do you mean the sound of the traffic lights crossing? The one that's featured prominently in Lain as well? That's a famous song that's also used (or was used?) in Japan for road crossings if I'm not mistaken. It's called "Tooryanse". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dryanse

Unless you mean some song from the soundtrack?

[RebootEDC]

Originally Posted by wao

Do you mean the sound of the traffic lights crossing?

Yeah, that one.

The one that's featured prominently in Lain as well?

Uoh! I saw Lain ages ago... And I don't remember ^_^

Unless you mean some song from the soundtrack?

No, no, it's the one you said before. I didn't know it was that popular.

[te2rx]

Amasawa.mp3

^^ First off I made a bit of musical fan-art. It started out as a glitchy minimal techno track, but then I was like why don't I derail this thing with glocks, strings, pizzicatos and voice-pads all Dennou Coil style? So that's what I did, and hopefully it should evoke a hazy Dennou Coil-like nostalgia.

Anyway, after much procrastination I finally got around to watching the rest and updating the wikipedia article and all that. Compared to any other anime, the final 1/3 was entertaining and mildly engaging, but personally it was a big letdown for me. As 7th observed months ago (IIRC) the show got too caught up in pushing the convoluted story and all these major revelations along. I enjoyed the show much more when it was about portraying the world of kids in regard to new technology, sometimes with heaps of excitement and other times with somber melancholy -- episodes like 4, 6 10,and 13 really did it for me.

The final 1/3 seemed to shed a lot of its subtle sensitivity and opted for fast-paced bombastic storytelling and comic book convolution. Ep 24 ("Kids who throw glasses away") offered a glimpse of what the ending should've instead been like IMO -- a convincing portrayal of the world of kids through the lens of sci-fi, not the ridiculousness of fighting off the villains including Mr. Means Justifies Ends and the Magical Manifestation of Our Negative Feelings**... all that felt like something I've seen in dozens of other anime. Not only was it pretty corny, it felt particularly out of place in an otherwise convincing series.

It sounds like I'm calling it the worst sh-t ever made, but I'm not. It was as gripping and entertaining as any decent anime ending, and much of it was brilliantly animated. I'm just saying there was a lot of unfulfilled potential in its tunnel vision drive to make an exciting ending.

When I first heard of the show, I thought it was going to be like Mitsuo Iso's Children's Night X 26, but well... at least half of the show turned out to be memorably brilliant. That by itself was worth all the hype and excitement.

**

Spoiler:

**(yes I mean Nekome and Michiko respectively)

[Kirarakim]

While I love Dennou Coil and was pretty happy with the end overall. I agree that the series would have been better without any villains and conspiracies.

I also wasn't entirely happy about the explanation for Michiko. But I did like the explanation for Isako's brother.

[RebootEDC]

I could wait no longer and betrayed Ureshii.
I just can say that this anime has been fucking awesome.
I feared, though, with the low animation quality in the episodes 22 to 24, but it got impresively gorgeous for the great ending.

Thanks Madhouse for another great show.

Spoiler:

¡DENSUKE! DOKO? T_T

[wao]

I go on a 5-day holiday and there's only one new post in this thread?!?!

Thank goodness for the google blog search feeds - it's really heartening to see all the various reviews of Dennou Coil by people finishing it. I have yet to see any obvious full-length anti-Dennou Coil posts... People who didn't find it to their taste generally stopped posting about it or just left a note that they dropped it on their blogs. I suppose it's good for fangirls who may feel compelled to look very, very hard at the nearest garden fork if they come across unreasonable bashing posts.

And I still wouldn't primarily credit Madhouse for the work in this show - I'd be more inclined to worship Mitsuo Iso And Pals. I can't imagine any other reason why there was absolutely no foreign outsourcing of animation in the whole show (afaik). I'd say no outsourcing as I don't remember seeing a single other animation studio's name in the credits, although episode 10 was quite obviously Gainax... It's an incredible feat, IMO, for an original 26-episode (helmed by a director making his debut), by Madhouse of all studios, considering how much I remember they like to use Dr Movie and whatnot.

[SeijiSensei]

OK, I'll bite. I already posted about Madhouse over here. Yes, Claymore had that outsourced look, but I thought that Oh! Edo Rocket looked wonderfully and consistently drawn throughout, despite some help from the good DR. Maybe I don't have the same historical sense of Madhouse's performance over the years, but this year I've liked a lot of their productions. Maybe it's just that they've been animating the properties I've been most interested in watching. Since I have arcane tastes, that's perhaps something of a compliment to Madhouse.

(Nevertheless, despite my admiration for a number of Madhouse series this year, I still think Toei's work in Bakaneko and Mononoke raised the visual bar to another level.)

As for Dennou Coil itself, I have many of the same reactions to it that I had to Noein. I loved the children and their private world. I loved the artwork, the animation, and the score. I loved Densuke.

Eventually, though, as Dennou Coil moved deeper and deeper into the fantasy world, I found the plot itself less compelling. It's obvious even from the OP that the show is about the mix of light and dark in our lives, and how coming to terms with the dark side is an aspect of maturation (in Ureshii's translation, "...there's always one shadow. The future is probably there."). But I felt the writers got too caught up in the symbolism (the keyhole, the other world, 4423) and lost sight of the simpler, more moving story of these children and their wonderfully complex lives.

To me, one of the best scenes in all of Dennou Coil is the conversation between Yasako and her mother in episode 24 about pets, death, and the importance of physical contact and human warmth. Sure I liked the whiz-bang stuff like the menacing, yet kawaii, Saatchi, but for me Dennou Coil shined brightest when it portrayed the real human relationships that persist even while living in a virtual world.

[Risaa]

I finished Dennou Coil a little while ago and remember being dissatisfied with how it turned out. The early episodes led up to the Isako+Yasako event (oh no, I just made it sound like a lesbian porn flick, didn't I) very neatly and tidily and the artwork and animation was appealing but the storyline itself went downhill very quickly for me.

Spoiler for Do I really need to spoiler this? Hmm..:

I loved Isako breaking down at finding out that her brother's been dead all this time, and I even liked the added drama of poor Densuke's death (though saddening as it was). Yasako's bit of emoness due to both the death of her pet and at the realization that Densuke was never "real" to begin with was awesome.

But I was disappointed that Isako's troubles all came down to jealousy over a kid who happened to come along and talk with her brother (OK, and pecked him on the cheek). I felt like she needed to get slapped and told to move on with her life, it's just that ridiculous to me.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed the series. Those mojo are spunky!

[ZeusIrae]

wow, I just finished the show.

The end was intense.There's funny coincidences in this world.Last week's the Economist had a long article on augmented reality.Very intresting.

I don't have much to say but it was of the few shows that I liked this year.Dennou Coil was one of the best of 2007 if not the best.

he early episodes led up to the Isako+Yasako event (oh no, I just made it sound like a lesbian porn flick, didn't I)

XD The end gave me shoujo-ai vibes too.All good except...........that they are 12-year-olds.

[turn_self_off]

12, 18, could have fooled me...

as for the comment, by SeijiSensei, about it going fantasy, i dont agree. unlike lain (a series i suspect it will always be compared to), its, imo, nicely grounded in what i would call cyberpunk/transhuman style sci-fi.

[wao]

The fact that it seems a little hard to swallow that they're all 12 makes me wonder why they couldn't have just made them 14-year-olds on the verge of entering high school (to provide a "change" of sorts). But then I guess the middle-school context would make some relationships turn out quite differently and distract from some issues.

I guess you could say that while it's kinda frustrating that all Isako went through was triggered off from

Spoiler:

a feeling of jealousy of someone pecking her brother (as well as a strong denial that he's dead, I guess) - at least perhaps you could forgive her for that mistake as she's still 12 and hasn't learned to be close with people who could support her yet. I think under all her independent tactics it's kind of clear by the end that she's still a kid inside.

I think she should know to move on with life by now and hopefully find someone to feel free with in place of her brother

[ZeusIrae]

as for the comment, by SeijiSensei, about it going fantasy, i dont agree. unlike lain (a series i suspect it will always be compared to), its, imo, nicely grounded in what i would call cyberpunk/transhuman style sci-fi.
Today 01:10

True, that's one of the most amazing thing about dennou coil.Didn't know anything about augmented reality before I watched this show.And some of the things we see are in fact very close.In some professions(for ex engineering and architecture)some people already use AR.In ten or twenty years, it will be mainstream.

After that, who knows what we will be able to do with it?I wouldn't be suprised if one of the pranks we saw in dennou coil becomes reality one day(like the board covered with spam).

[turn_self_off]

heh, that prank is basically a looped web popup taken into the AR interface.

hell, i recall that there are software on windows that can make it spill out a near endless row of dialog windows (those small ones with a bit of text and either a yes/no or ok).

only difference would be that in windows those dialogs are always placed at the center of the screen unless there is already one present, and then the new one is shifted down and to the right. this repeats as needed until they start piling up in the lower right corner of the screen.

Spoiler for lain and coil, just in case:

my problem with lain is that there is no physical brain interface. instead one have a programmer that puts "himself" inside the next generation internet protocol, and this makes the barrier between the digital and the real fall apart apparently.

not so in dennou coil where one have the quantum based (one of the magic words of scifi today, another being nanotech/nanites) antennas of the glasses able to interface with the brain in a read/write manner.

this, and attempts to extract thoughts and emotions using what i guess are agents, result in the creation of illegals.

btw, this isnt the first time i have encountered "imago" like "powers" in cyberpunk writings. the pen and paper rpg shadowrun had for two editions (or more) something they labeled otaku (yep, they borrowed the word and gave it new content). basically kids that could just plug right into the computer network without a "deck" (a special computer that acted as a stranslater).

the latest edition have turned them into technomancers, and they no longer need to be kids. basically its a person that somehow can interface with the now wireless computer network, using only their mind. said edition have also scaled down the deck into a mobile phone like package, and introduced AR as a additional way to interface with them (so you can basically do what is seen in the series.

[Kirarakim]

As for Isako's age thing

Spoiler:

But she wasn't 12 when the incident happened with Yasako. She was much younger. Both Isako and Yasako were around Kyoko's age at that time. I guess in some ways they were trying to say the incident almost prevented Isako's development. She wasn't able to let go of her brother and grow up because her mind never healed properly. This is also why I think the scene with Isako losing her pigtails was very significant as it was sort of last good bye to that time with her brother.

I actually was glad all the characters were children and I think they did act their age. The only characters that I thought their ages were little off was Tamako and Sousuke. They both seemed much older than High School students.

[aboutblue]

Well I started this series a couple weeks ago and just finished it now. As I watched it I read through this thread so it felt like I was watching it at the time it aired... in a weird, time-warp sort of way. Wao I have to say thanks for your summaries, during later episodes you often commented on details that I'd overlooked or forgotten about.

Dennou Coil really blew me away. It was incredibly imaginative and entertaining, the plot kept me hooked and the mysteries unraveled with enough twists to keep me guessing until the end. The characters were also what made this show so great. The kids and the way the interacted with each other felt real.

Watching Dennou Coil was a bit like reliving the best parts of childhood again or remembering that when you were a child playing in your neighborhood was an adventure and mysterious or cool things could be found if you just bothered to look. Though at the same time I liked that the creators didn't idealize childhood too much. Being a kid can be pretty scary (even without Satchii chasing you down the street and shooting rays at you or Michiko trying to abduct you).

As for the ending, I also have to say that I enjoyed some of the earlier episodes better. I agree perfectly with what te2rx said:

Originally Posted by te2rx

I enjoyed the show much more when it was about portraying the world of kids in regard to new technology, sometimes with heaps of excitement and other times with somber melancholy -- episodes like 4, 6 10,and 13 really did it for me.

But overall I was not disappointed with the ending. It wouldn't have worked for me if I wasn't already so attached to the characters, but luckily I was. The only thing I feel like complaining about is that

Spoiler:

Fumie did very little, probably since the end of the Haraken/Kanna arc if I remember correctly. I expected the focus of the show to switch to Isako and Yasako which was fine, but Fumie had such a strong role in the beginning of the show that it was disappointing when she became a minor character. I was sure her pro hacker skills were going to come in handy when things got bad, even if just to help Yasakao from the sidelines like Haraken did. But instead she was badly shunted to the side.

Okay, enough rambling for now. I do hope this show is licensed because I certainly want to buy it. I doesn't seem to be that popular with fans outside of Japan, unfortunately. I've only noticed a few bloggers writing about it. I feel like even Moyashimon (which is an off-beat show that seemed like it was going to be overlooked) is getting more buzz.

[leofish]

DApage : Dennou Coil - Path

I forgot to post this here, for those who might be interested; did another wallpaper, very much end of show geared. 1920x1200

Spoiler for spoiler?:

I don't think the wallpaper contains anything spoiler-ish. the closest thing might be densuke, but I don't think it really gives anything way...

I very much appreciated the end, though I would agree that the absence of aid from fumie was saddening. Either way, I look forward to whatever Iso's next project is, and eagerly await the rest of the dvds for those lovely storyboard books :3

[aboutblue]

I like that wallpaper. Very nice.

By the way does anyone have a bigger version of the image of Yasako underwater (the one posted on the front page of this thread)? I really want to use that as my wall but 800 x 600 is pretty small.