Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Futakoi Alternative 1
Opening: "New World" by Be Yumi: Korean singer from what I've read. Awesome action-packed animation showing each set of twins, and the song captures the "cool" feel of the show great.
Ending: "Bokura no Jikan" by eufonius: The claymation ED comes back! Very cool, and nicely done song :)
Wow.. when they said "Alternative" they meant Alternative, lol. Forget everything you saw in the fall Futakoi.. well, except for the twins and their names and such.. but this is a completely absolutely different beast right from the start, just exuding "cool" unlike the other. ufotable has really outdone themselves this time. I like :) Gimme some time to write up a summary here... prolly going to have to watch it again... ;)
A white squid-like tentacle creature attacks a military-looking plane. Lulu and Lala, like you've never seen them before, are onboard trying to keep it at bay with some pretty heavy artillery, and finally get it trapped behind a door and caught in an explosion. And now they're covered in white goo ;) But they didn't quite kill it, so they have make a getaway -- ufotable gives a glimpse of some pantsu as they run away. This ain't no Negima, you know ;) -- and they parachute from the plane, which explodes after they jump, landing in a riverbed.
Change scene.. The town of Futagotamagawa, so named because there are a lot of twins there. And there, apparently the Sakurazukis are now yakuzas, running Nikoniko Financiers. Rentarou -- private detective, 21 years old -- is being held by them. Seems the boss with the robotic arm, Zenji, had a bit of a run in with Rentarou's pop and lost an arm 30 years ago. And he ain't happy ;)
But actually, it's for a different reason... 2 hours before that... Rentarou's with one of the Yakuza, Kankurou, who's got a message from the boss for him. Seems Rentarou was also taking care of Kankurou's pet bird, Piko-chan... said Piko-chan is now in a cat's stomach, making Kankurou just a bit pissed off, and he drags Rentarou outside and they drive off.
Souju-chan does some shopping, and while there a TV reporter comes up, apparently to interview the store owner. Store owner falls over as she goes to meet her, though. The car Rentarou's in speeds by as he screams ;) Back at Rentarou's private detective office, a very scared Chinese-looking guy is asking Sara-chan -- 15 years old this time, btw -- for some help, as guys try to beat down the door. She says she'll take the job and looks for something, finally finding it and... setting the timer? She ties ropes to herself and the guy, and they leap out the window onto a motorcycle, speeding away just as the gangsters beat the door down. And that box Sara put out... it's a self-destruct device that goes off ;) A police officers in a police box nearby notices it, but his partner is just sitting back listening to music...
Michiru-san, the owner of the store Souju was at is in no condition to much now. So Souju takes over and makes some very delicious croquettes :).. Sara's trying desperately to get Rentarou on the phone, but no one's answering as the gangsters chase her and the Chinese guy. But luckily, the bike has turbo on it ;)
Now poor Rentarou is in a boxing ring. Looks like he's gonna have to fight a pretty big guy.. Back at the store, Souju's gotten very popular and very busy making croquettes for everyone.. Meanwhile, those two police officers have set up a roadblock, but Sara's not gonna stop for them, of course, speeding by, riding the wall then emerging into a forest.. where she loses a bit of her skirt, and tries to call again. But neither Rentarou or Souju answer the phone... Back with Rentarou now. The boss comes up and tells him to show the big guy his middle finger, i.e, make him mad so Rentarou'll get his butt kicked and make it entertaining for the audience ;)
Sara speeds by the store where Souju's at, and now a helicopter with those gangsters they ran away from earlier is chasing her. Souju jumps in a car with the TV reporter and they give chase. Sara uses the boost again, but this time they can't quite get away, and get stuck on the helicopter (some more Sara service here). But she's not too worried. Rentarou'll come... The TV reporter asks Souju what's good about Rentarou.. well, when it's time to do it he does it, basically ;) And back at the boxing ring he beats the big guy down. Those two police officers are on the roof of a building nearby, with the scary-looking one pulling his gun and taking aim at the helicopter. He shoots and takes it down, the helicopter crashing into the boxing arena where Rentarou is, destroying it and saving his butt ;)
Sara is not very pleased that Rentarou didn't answer the phone, saying so in the typical Sara fashion ;) Souju runs up and joins them. Rentarou has no idea what was going on.. so how about some croquette And they leave for home... well, what's left of it after the self-destruct device blew it up. No need for one of those next time ;) Rentarou lays down and pats the bed on both sides, telling Sara and Souju to come to him, and they come lay down on both sides to go to sleep..
What a lucky guy, that Rentarou. Urayamashii~ ;) I'm not normally one to like shows with this much action and stuff blowing up and such, but since I know we'll be getting some drama along with it (at least that's what it looked like in the trailer), and it's just so dang cool in the first place I'm liking it. Sara and Souju certainly help that just a weeee bit ;) SD Sara was great :) And in a reversal of sorts from the other Futakoi, I was thinking "kakkoii!" ("cool!") more than "kawaii!" ("cute!") most of the show, hehe.
ufotable's done an excellent job with animation, with very high production values, and the same cast returns to voice all of the twins, so no complaints there. I look forward to catching more :) Futakoi Alternative goes under Full.. it's going to be rather taihen to do this kinda thing every week if it keeps on packing so much stuff into one episode, lol ;)
Posted by Matthew at April 6, 2005 9:05 PM
Wow, it looks awesome. I can't wait to check it out for myself.
Posted by Fencedude at April 6, 2005 9:24 PM
I agree with Fencedude right there. It looks like a different genre altogether.
Posted by Ronin at April 6, 2005 9:32 PM
think i'll give this one a shot lol.. i couldn't get into the fall futakoi at all :/
too much stuff that looks interesting that I need to at least sample lol
Posted by kiryuu at April 6, 2005 9:42 PM
The more "alternative" it is, the better. Fall Futakoi was complete crap in every way. When a show has something like 12 cute trin girls and can't hold my interest at all, SOMETHING IS WRONG.
This, on the other hand, looks great.
Posted by Disarm10 at April 6, 2005 10:41 PM
Director: Have you seen this? This is utter ****, why the hell did we agree to animate this?!
Aquisitions Manager: Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...
Script writer: You realize that this "Futakoi" is some of the most inane tripe I have ever seen, if we animate this according to the story from the game we'll be a laughingstock.
Director: You know, it actually doesn't specify what the story has to be like, just that we use these six sets of twins...
Scriptwriter: Really? Now that raises some interesting options...
Director: What if we made it kinda like FLCL? Give them all guns and fill the show with crazy characters?
Scriptwriter: I like it!
Etc, etc...
Posted by Fencedude at April 7, 2005 12:12 AM
Upon re-re-re-re-watching the opening, I realize that I've seen some of these scenes before.
Anyone recognize any of them? I know I should recognize at least the jumping onto the roof of the train one.
Posted by Fencedude at April 7, 2005 12:15 AM
WOW!CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT HERE,in the philippines!!I've seen the fansub of futakoi 1st version.
Posted by john g. at April 7, 2005 12:24 AM
OMG lol! This show is FUCKED up! Me like!!!!
Posted by Hephador at April 7, 2005 1:20 AM
WOW. That looks COMPLETELY the polar opposite of the Fall Futakoi. Wow... That looks awesome. Will catch the first fansub even though ultimately I'm still not interested. I'm interested in the bit in the OP where Sara and Souju were skyboarding. That looked cool.
And well, teh animation is also partly done by some of the folks who animated Jinki Extend, which had some decent animation, and ufotable's pretty solid, so... phew!
Posted by wao at April 7, 2005 6:22 AM
Wow, that's so totally different. :) I liked it though, funny as hell, loads of action, cute twin girls (especially Souju & Sara, although Lulu and Lala are great too ^_^). I can't wait for the subs to come out so I can understand more of the dialogue. :) So who's side are those police guys on anyway? I think the scary one just wants to shoot people. :)
Fencedude: I'll have to watch the OP again after work to be sure, but I think it's similar to scenes from the OP to Read or Dream TV.
Posted by Maestro4k at April 7, 2005 8:20 AM
Ai and Mai in the opening, anyone thought of Kill Bill ?
the rose scene and gun kissing looks like a parody of something also, as well as Ui and Koi's car chase.
need to watch more movies, don't recognize much of the scenes ^^;
@Maestro4k : nickname is Dirty Harry. :D
Posted by Kiryuu at April 7, 2005 8:52 AM
Rewatched the OP a few times, the train scene is very similar to the one from the ROD TV OP, I'm pretty sure that was at least an inspiration for it. The scene with Sara & Souju riding off the building in the moped is also very similar to the one from the ROD TV OP where Maggie drives a car out of a building. The sky/snowboarding scenes I believe are from a James Bond movie (and the opening chase at that), although I can't remember which one. Several of the scene with missles are inspired from various mecha anime, a couple looked to be almost straight out of Macross (aka Robotech: The Macross Saga in the dubbed/re-edited version here in the US). There also seems to be scenes inspired by Lupin III movies.
The show's great, it's like they took the Futakoi girls, Lupin III's action and comedy, enough weaponry to make Lupin & company jealous, a few James Bond movies for good measure into a blender. Along the way they tossed in liberal doses of SD for spice. :)
Now I'll have to blog this episode at least or no one will see my comments. ^_^
Posted by Maestro4k at April 7, 2005 6:09 PM
Wow! I watched the promo and it looks absolutely great. I hadn't seen the first Futakoi thought. Is the Alternative some kind of a continuation (despite obvious differences), or can I watch Alternative, while not having watched the first series, without loosing any crucial pieces of the fable?
Posted by Barghest at April 8, 2005 9:46 AM
Barghest, don't worry. You don't have to watch the fall Futakoi to watch Futakoi Alternative. Think of them as two seperate titles completely ;)
Posted by moyism at April 8, 2005 6:30 PM
About the missiles looking like Macross, yeah, they look just like the style of this famous animator who did some really memorable missile/battle sequences in Macross/MSG, Ichiro Itano. You can find some of that in Macross Plus and Zero also.
Posted by wao at April 8, 2005 10:02 PM
I find it interesting that (according to Wao) this series has some animators who also worked on Jinki:Extend. That show also has an OP and ED that closely mirror the OP and ED from past series, as pointed out by Momotato here: http://www.momotato.com/archives/2005-02a.html (scroll down 3/4 of the page or search for "JINKI:EXTEND #5"). I hear a lot of people commenting that the OP is similar to ROD TV. Is it scene-for-scene similar? Anyone care to do a comparison?
Posted by BlckKnght at April 9, 2005 10:24 AM
This show is awesome - this episode has that cool vibe (and many other similarities) like Tarantino's Kill Bill - spot introductions, blood, not linear story..
Posted by Tsuki at April 12, 2005 9:54 AM
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