Figure 17 1 - Do You Like Yourself?

Figure 17 DVD 1 finally got here today so I've watched the first 45 minute episode. (Warning: May contain spoilers. Read at your own risk!)

If this first episode is any indication of how the rest of the series will be, I'm going to really like this show! Our main character is Tsubasa, a 10 year old, pretty shy girl who has moved from Tokyo to Hokkaido with her father after her mother died. They moved there because Tsubasa's father has always wanted to be a baker, so he got a job at a bakery they had visited on vacation before. Tsubasa doesn't really seem to like her new life there.. School seems to be pretty rough for her: the boy who's supposed to help out with classroom chores doesn't help, another girl says that Tsubasa won't talk because she doesn't want to talk since she's from Tokyo, and her father misses Parents' Day because he was busy at work. After school, at night she sees a UFO crash near her house. Her dog runs after it and Tsubasa decides to have a look. Where she meets the alien who pilots the ship and his cargo, which is a rather nasty lifeform called a Maguar. Big mouth with tons of sharp teeth, spikes that protrude from it, and one big bulbous eye. Yuck :P The alien uses some kind of odd substance to make himself more powerful, changing into a different form, but he isn't able to kill the Maguar. Tsubasa is chased inside the ship by the Maguar, where she comes into contact with some of that substance, changing into what I'm assuming is Figure 17, a powerful bio-mechanical being. Tsubasa doesn't have a clue what's going on and Figure 17 moves on its own without her input as she's more of an observer. The voice inside says that it's "Another Tsubasa", and asks for Tsubasa's help to defeat the Maguar, which they eventually do. But what happens afterwards is odd... there's another Tsubasa!

I'm really impressed by this 1st episode. Tsubasa is a character I can identify with (I was shy when I was that age, too), and the way she's presented doesn't elicit the usual, "C'mon, say something!" response that's usually the case with shy characters in anime. The episode kept my interest for the entire 45 minutes, which is quite an accomplishment. I was surprised it had already been halfway through the show when the eyecatch showed (it's that animation that plays before/after a commerical break in the middle of a show). The animation is wonderful so far in widescreen 16:9, and the music is pretty good too. The opening sequence and song is great, showing both Tsubasa and the other Tsubasa, Hikaru in various situations. (I might post it a bit later on the video page). Anyways, I'm going to watch the other 2 episodes now to see what happens!

Current Rating: A
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