Category: Dennou Coil

Okay, I know I had my doubts about the past few episodes. I know that they somehow didn’t feel right, and I know that I felt a bit disappointed by them. With this episode, I take all of that back. Seriously, it was an amazing one, and the exact reason why I’m such a fan of mystery-series. It’s not the revelations that make them great, it’s how the storyline uses the questions as effectively as possible. This episode basically has three major storylines. The first one is Haraken’s. In exchange for the access-code for the Sacchis, Isako has to show him how to get to the cyber-world, though Haraken gets carried away, and when he sees a giant keyhole like in the pictures, he just enters it without thinking. A girl looking like Kanna is in there, though Yasako manages to get him back before it’s too late. His cyber-body and real body may have separated a bit, he manages to fix it. Later, Tamako punishes him for giving the Sacchi-access-code, and takes away his glasses. The second storyline that gets developed is Isako’s. The person she was in contact with turns out to be Nekome, of all people. It seems that he joined Tamako in order to provide coverage for her, and make Isako be able to do what she wants. I wonder what’s in it for him, though. Why is he so interested in getting 4423 back? Or is he just using Isako to get valuable information? We also see him confirm that it’s going to take a while longer to get the guy back, and I’d almost think that he’s manipulating her. But the thing I really loved was the third storyline: Kyoko gets taken to “the other side”! I have no idea why, but right after Isako tried to open a gate to the cyber-world, whit fog started appearing, and now that same illegal that we saw gobbling up 4423 took Kyoko’s cyber-body away. It’s not sure whether she’ll be away for good (we’ll see that in the next episode), but this has so much potential. I also wonder… why Kyoko of all people? Why now, of all times? (perhaps Isako’s opening of the gate made the Illegals from there able to enter the human world?) I remember that Wao once said that there was a possibility that the humanoid illegal was Yasako’s grandfather, and it’s starting to look more likely. After all, I can imagine the guy to be longing to see his granddaughter. I can imagine that both Kanna and 4423 were taken away because they got too close to this illegal for their own good. The question also remains: if Kanna’s and 4423’s spirit really are with the humanoid illegal, how come they haven’t attempted to escape? Do they still have the same personalities? And if they were somehow able to return, would they be completely all-right?]]>

Quite the intriguing episode. I remember noting a few weeks ago how unlikely it was for children to be involved in whole complots and companies, though now I understand where this anime is going: both Isako and Haraken have become obsessed with its mysteries, and it basically shows how fragile the minds of children can become at that age without any form of support. It’s a pity we’ve yet to see anything about neither Haraken nor Isako’s parents, but by the looks of it, they didn’t spend much attention to their children. In here, Yasako is much like the “straight man”, who basically grew up normally. I think that it’s now up to her to save both Haraken and Isako in their obsession (notice how Yasako stopped calling Isako Isako?). Basically, the entire episode was about how Haraken lies to Yasako about stopping to worry about Kanna, while he makes a deal with Isako afterwards: exchange the access-code for the Sacchi’s so that she can take him along with her. I assume that this means to use Michiko-san to go to the cyber-world where Kanna’s soul is supposed to be. I don’t know… while I loved this twist the current episodes have felt rather… formulaic. Sure, the twists are interesting, but I somehow feel I’ve seen this before. But then again, we’re only at episode seventeen. The series is probably building up again for its finale, and there are plenty of episodes left. Another thing that bugs me is the utter lack of quality-time for Daiichi, Fumie and Kyoko ever since the recap-episodes. It’s a pity, since they were among my favourite characters.]]>

Another building-up episode. It’s a bit disappointing, since most of the airtime was dedicated to a revelation that everyone probably already figured out: Isako’s brother is 4423. Yasako and Akira find this out as they find her, visiting her brother, conveniently located in room 4423 in the hospital. I do woner what Isako’s been up to, by the way. She’s obviously waiting for something, but what exactly is it? Right now, it looks like all she’s been doing is visit her brother with regular intervals and nothing else, so it must be something really important. Anyway, the only new pieces of information is that we now know that 4423 is inside the library now, so Isako has been able to recover his cyber-body somehow, and Isako classifies Yasako with “all those other adults” after telling what happened to 4423. This explains a bit more about her reasons and personality. Apart from that, we finally know the reporter’s name: Nekome. He seems to be an acquaintance of Tamako, and he apparently contacted her to help her. I’m feeling that he’s also after Isako (we see the pink cat again in Room 4423, and I’m getting more and more convinced that it’s owner is Nekome), and it seems that he’s now the superior of Tamako. The interesting stuff about this episode came from Fumie and especially Haraken, though. They’re both in the library, researching the Illegals and Michiko-san after Fumie finds a few urban legends about her in a local tv-show. It’s also the hardest to understand part, so I hope I got this one right. It seems that Haraken posted on an on-line forum, asking whether other people have heard of accidents with the navigation-equipment. I like this part; it shows that our main characters aren’t the only ones in the world with affinity to the cyberworld. It seems that there are more cases about people disappearing. One article also speaks of “cyber-clothing”. I’m not sure what this means yet. Fumie then brings a few books about urban legends, and they show quite a few interesting things. It contains hastily drawn pictures of people and shrines, and a certain keyhole that we both saw in Yasako’s old diary and on the Illegals, as soon as Isako tried to open them. I’m not exactly sure what the book said apart from that, but if I had to guess, then it’s got something to do with people, disappearing into the cyber-world. We see them walk either towards said keyhole, or along a couple of train-tracks. The interesting thing is, of course: what was that keyhole doing in Yasako’s diary? Right now, it looks like she just fled once 4423 got eaten, but I’m beginning to think that more happened afterwards. Still, I do wonder whether Yasako will be able to carry the second half of this series as a main character. She has been developing nicely for the past few episodes, but she never really turns into the highlight of an episode. It’s always another character that turns out more interesting than she does: Daiichi, Fumie, Haraken, Denpa, Kyoko and Takeru are all more interesting than she is, and I’m beginning to get worried about that. The only time where she really shined was in episode nine, where she was on her own and had to protect her teacher from Daiichi’s attacks. Ah well, only time will tell.]]>

Rejoice: Dennou Coil is back! Apparently, the break and recaps weren’t meant to give the animators some time off, or to catch up or something similar; the timeslot for Dennou Coil was just occupied with baseball. Sorry about that. Anyway, with this episode, the story gets fired off again, with a very high emphasis on mystery. Being a mystery-fan, I like this a lot, and It’ll be interesting to see whether the mystery is going to develop as well as in other great mystery-series as Higurashi, Night Head Genesis and Ergo Proxy. So far, it’s making a great start. Basically, in this episode Yasako gets lost. After being chased by a bunch of children, mistaking her for Isako (apparently, Daiichi and the others aren’t the other she mercilessly used), she gets saved by a young boy of about her age: Takeru. He uses the same drawings on the ground that we’ve seen Isako use. He claims that this was drawn there before he came, though I don’t really believe that (see below). Anyway, it seems that Yasako was quite close to her neighbourhood without actually noticing it, so Takeru decides to give her a bit of a tour through the area. Then after a while, Yasako starts to have deja vus, where she’s almost certain that she’s close to the place where she got lost when she was small, right before meeting Yonyon nii-san. The two of them search a bit, but Yasako’s memory is just too fuzzy to remember. She however, remembers that something big happened. There’s one place that looks like the stairs we’ve been seeing in a few episodes, though there are a few differences. Takeru then suggests that it might have been a cyber-place on an old place in the town, with the white fog and all. If that’s the case, and the place was really a shrine, there is a possibility that the place is still there somewhere. Takeru then explains about a phenomenon called “Imago”. It’s a psychic ability to find old buildings and spaces with your glasses. A person with Imago is supposed to be guided by strange voices, but it’s supposed to be just an urban legend. I suspect though, that Yasako has it, because she has heard these whispering voices once before. Yasako then wonders why Kyuu-chans are erasing so many old buildings, and Takeru replies it’s because illegals caused a child to get killed (aka: Kanna). Then, Yasako hears the voices again, and they lead her to the place where she was lost when she was young. She then begins to recall her memory. She ran into a small shrine, and something was hiding inside of it. It turns out that this was a human-like illegal that was searching for Yonyon nii-san. Furthermore, we then switch to the part of her memory when she was with Yonyon nii-san, probably fifteen minutes later. Yonyon nii-san was then swallowed up by that very same illegal. He urged Yasako to leave before this happened. Unfortunately, the Kyuu-chans erase the fog that was causing the whispers, so Yasako isn’t able to remember more. After this, Takeru talks about a few more “urban legends” about these “cyber areas”. I suspect that these are the same as the one we saw Densuke escape in in episode 1, but these ones are accessible to humans as well, it seems. Supposedly, you can’t stay within them for too long, otherwise your cyber-body and real body will disconnect and you’ll lose your soul (I hope I understood this part well). There’s another urban legend that says that you must never, under any circumstances take of your glasses in such an area, otherwise you’ll never be able to return. The two of them then say goodbye. When Yasako arrives at home, her mother tells her that she got a phone-call from her teacher. Apparently, a classmate of her called “Mayumi” is going to transfer to Hokkaido, but to be honest, I completely forgot who she is. Wasn’t she the third girl-member of the biology-club? The one we saw in episode 8 and 9? Anyway, the episode closes with Takeru, making a suspicious phone-call with what sounds like his employer. He tells him or her about Yasako, and how she’s got Imago, the same as with Kanna. This episode finally confirmed that the real and the Cyber-world aren’t two entirely separated things, and that people have been known to have an unconscious effect on the cyber-world (Imago; I’m actually starting to believe that it was this Imago that caused Kanna’s navigation-system to screw up, not the Illegals) and that there have been cases where people were just “taken” into the cyber-world, leaving no traces in the real world apart from memories. Isako’s brother is either Yonyon nii-san, or he suffered this fate of being in a cyber-area and he either stayed for too long or he took off his glasses. Apparently, the power of Michiko-san is useful in getting him out of there. In any case, Yonyon nii-san is still out there somewhere, as we heard him talk with Haraken in episode 9. If Yonyon nii-san and Isako’s brother are indeed the same person, it’s quite ironic, as Isako was actually quite close in being able to talk to him. I wonder why she hasn’t discovered this yet. I also wonder, is there a link between Yonyon nii-san and Imago? Are the whispering voices actually his, and if tat’s the case, did Kanna meet the guy somewhere in her past as well? The question also remains: what is Takeru’s role going to be? That’s about the only bad thing about this anime: kids who are barely twelve years old already are expert hackers, and instead of playing games, they’re already involved with shady businesses. I’d rather see some more development regarding this plot-hole. Is it usual for kids around that age to have a part-time job like that, or are Isako and Takeru exceptions? And to close off this post: what surprised me as well was to see Yasako being surprised by a life dog, not a cyber one. It really seems that pets in this age have become less and less common for people to have, with the arrival of cyber-pets who are much easier to maintain. Still, there remain people who didn’t buy them, and stuck with the real ones for different reasons.]]>

“You know, I’m all for giving the animators enough chance to catch up and all, but I’m beginning to get really pissed off when there hasn’t been any Saiunkoku Monogatari or Dennou Coil for FOUR SUCCESSIVE WEEKS! Because yes, this week is yet another recap. This time, told in the perspective of Akira. Seriously, I’m getting Wolf’s Rain flashbacks here. Thank god the beginning of this episode had at least a bit of new footage.” At least, that was what I was going to write, until the end of the episode started showing some more new footage. First of all, Fumie discovers that Akira has been spying on her all along. While this was nice and fun, the next scene was what really surprised me: remember the reporter-like guy? He finally shows a bit more of himself when he talks to Haraken. He really knows a lot about both Illegals and Haraken himself. He also tells him something very interesting: if Haraken continues his research, he’ll end up just like Kanna. The name “Dennou Coil” also has been chosen for a reason, it seems. This seems to be the event, item or phenomena that everything centres around. We also see a new cyber-pet introduced in this episode: another cat with hands as ears. The question remains: who is her owner? Some heavy hints are pointed to the reporter-like guy, but it can be anyone at this point. Let’s hope the next episode will be a real one.]]>

Recap. It’s nothing special, though. Unlike Bokura no, this really isn’t a series where a recap works. Basically, it was aimed at young children, to explain the plot and characters a bit to them. Throughout, we see a few shots of the voice-actors for Isako and Fumie, explaining this, sometimes accompanied by a giant Sacchi-balloon, a stuffed Densuke and fake glasses. This one really reminded me that this show is aired on the NHK-channel. The only reason I’m really making this post is to make a few announcements, for those who are wondering: – Dennou Coil this week is a recap. I assume the next episode to finally air next week. – There is still no sign of any new episodes from Saiunkoku Monogatari. I’m afraid it’ll take a few more weeks till it’ll continue. – There is also no Toward the Terra this week. I assume that it’ll continue next week.]]>

This episode continued to flesh out the Illegals. While the previous was a comedy, this one was a tragedy. There’s no Daichi this time, or Kyoko. This episode was all about Denpa, and it turned out really sad and overall an incredible episode. Only a heartless bastard would not be moved at the end of the episode. The episode starts with Haraken’s aunt, who is using the Kyuu-chans to get rid of the white fogs that surround the old buildings. And this couldn’t have been a better introduction, as it really shows that the Illegals are in trouble, people see them as viruses, which need to be exterminated. This episode introduces an illegal you just have to feel pity for. It seems that Denpa has been taking care of it, at an old football-field where the Sacchi’s can’t come. It’s based on the stories of the Loch Ness monster. He ran into it among its friends. They disappeared very soon afterwards, though, and only that particular illegal stayed, because Denpa fed him some metabugs. It’s interesting as it can only move on the muddy parts of the field, and it gets hurt by the grass, like it’s water. It also hates direct sunlight. Yasako and Haraken discover Denpa at one point, and they comment on how sad it is for such a creature to be there without its friends. When Fumie sees it, though, isn’t enthusiastic about it, and she reckons that Kunbinaga (as Denpa seems to call him) will die soon anyway, and leaves. Later, however, Denpa discovers that the soccer-field is about to be turned into a new building by construction-workers. Therefore, in order to save Nessie, they have to find a new home for him. Yasako manages to find a nice spot in the end, though there’s one problem: getting Kunbinaga there. They decide to ask help from Haraken’s aunt. And finally I know her name! Harakawa Tamako. Finally I can address her as something other than just “Haraken’s aunt”. Another interesting thing to note is that she is in fact seventeen years old, and she does attend a high-school (god, she looks strange in a school uniform). In any case, there won’t be help from Tamako, since she started asking strange questions. Yasako, Haraken and Denpa then decide to just try to move Kunbinaga themselves. The first attempt fails when the Kyuu-chans and Sacchis arrive. Fumie then arrives and decides to help them. They spend the rest of the day, trying to find the best route, while Fumie stalls the construction-workers as much as possible (quite funny, actually ^^;). In the end, the best way turns out to be to use the local river at the time of dawn, when the sun hasn’t reached it yet. That morning, the move can begin, and Kunbinaga has to try and survive beams from the Sacchi, beams of light, coming from the streetlights, the white stripes on the asphalt, and the atmosphere of the new buildings. The children try to help him as much as possible with darkness spray, though he suffers much damage from them. Becuase of this, they run out of time, and reach the river after the dawn had reached the river. Kunbinaga then sees a couple of industrious towers, and thinks that they’re his family; he tries to swim to them, but is overwhelmed by the incoming sunlight, and dies. It’s interesting how Fumie ends up crying along with everyone, even though she once said that Kunbinaga would die soon anyway. Anyway, that scene in particular was awesome, and an excellent closure to the first half of Dennou Coil. Isako is beginning to look like a villain more and more. Not only does she have a huge amount of power, and does she make use of everyone she runs into, she also got her powers from taking them from Illegals, who turned out to be intelligent creatures, just like humans and animals. It’s a miracle that she didn’t run into Kunbinaga. I also believe that the current episodes are not only awesome to watch, but also vital for the final part of this series, as they illustrate that Illegals themselves definitely do have their own problems, and right now we’re really sympathizing with them. The Illegals sometimes remind me of the mushi from Mushishi. They’re all just trying to survive. The Illegals are just taking control of the pets because they really don’t have anywhere to go, and the amount of white fog is decreasing drastically. I believe that the creators are using this as a parallel with our world, where countless of animal species are about to get extinct by the hands of humans.]]>

This episode was wrong on so many levels, but I think everyone can see that by looking at the screenshots. It’s not what it looks like, honestly. ^^; Basically, those hairs are tiny illegals who have settled on the faces of people. It looks quite hilarious and wrong if you don’t know what’s going on. Oh, and Kyoko kissed Daichi and later Denpa. Don’t ask. I do love, though, how she keeps hanging out with Daichi. They do fit each other perfectly, they’re both obnoxious brats who got sent away by the people they look up to. And somehow, I like both of them, Even though the past two episodes have done rather nothing to develop Isako, they did a great job in fleshing out the characters, and introducing new kinds of illegals that just sparkle with imagination. To be honest, Dennou Coil is turning into one of my favourite series at the moment, as it’s currently doing just about everything right, there are no obvious flaws, and it perfectly combines comedy and drama. Especially this episode was hilarious. (Notice the blush on Mega-Baa’s face when she sees Daichi’s new look? She also looks hilarious with her beard on; ^^;) The interesting thing also is: these illegals were perfectly sentient, and they all had a mind of their own. Yasako had some great conversations with them, and we see them actually develop, change and learn in this episode. Especially the final part of the episode was really thought-provoking, when they started to have war with each other. I also love the solution for the problem: transfer all of illegals to the old guy’s head, and the background music that was chosen for it only made it better. So basically, I’m ashamed to say it, but I absolutely loved this episode. ^^;]]>

Remember the very first piece of promo-art that got released for Dennou Coil? The one where we saw Yasako, underwater with strange beasts swimming around her? This episode tries to shed some light on that by showing a new kind of Illegal: a fish who feeds on scenery. This fish has its own surrounding of cyber-water, and the more it eats, the more both it and its environment grow. While the issue was resolved at the end of the episodes, I really hope that we get to see more of these cases, since it was this that originally made me a fan of this series. The story didn’t develop much in this episode, though. Most of it was meant to show a lot of creativity and develop Daichi. Oh, and we learn something interesting about Mega-baa and Tamako (I finally know her name!): they knew each other, and Tamako is member number 2 of the Coil Investigation Agency. I originally thought that all members were children, but now it seems that Mega-baa has been doing business for a considerable amount of years. Something also happened between the two of them in the past, based on the way they talk to each other. The cyber-water also raised an interesting question: to what extend can these glasses manipulate sound? This episode showed (quite humorously, by the way) that you can’t communicate to someone outside of the water when you’re inside the water yourself. The cyber-world keeps surprising me. I also suspect that the metabugs may be more important to the story than they look now. For some reason, Isako doesn’t need the illegals that feed on just scenery. This episode also again showed what a perfect team Daichi and Fumie form. They just aren’t afraid to exploit any of each other’s weaknesses, and I’d love to see the two of them work together. Fumie was downright mean to the poor guy in this episode, but it’s safe to bet that Daichi pulled stunts like that with her in the past as well. I’m just wondering whether they might go too far with their pranks at one time, though.]]>

The building up of the first number of episodes has finally started to pay off. Until episode eight, this was just a show with a large amount of imagination and some interesting fights, but starting with episode 9, I started to really care about the different characters. This episode provided a great aftermath for that action-packed episode, with also lots of new information regarding the characters revealed. Isako really was scary in this episode when she easily took care of the Sacchi, and yet we see a total different side of hers when we suddenly learn that she’s got a big-brother-complex. We also see her visit her grandfather who is in the hospital, and it seems that she dislikes her grandmother, whom we briefly saw visiting him (at least, I think that woman was her grandmother). We should be seeing this brother quite soon now. In fact, something tells me that it’s that suspicious guy we saw at the end of the episode. Another interesting plot development comes from Daichi, when he and Denpa leave Isako. It’s quite surprising, but it does make sense. The look on his face when Isako enrolled him really showed that he’s very impulsive, and doesn’t think the things he does through. In this episode, he became scared of Isako, so he left. It was quite cute to see Denpa follow him. I also wonder what was up with Akira’s pet, who kept following Isako wherever she went, especially since we never see Akira actually controlling it. I’d like to know how he reacts, when she finds out that Isako has a cute side as well. We also see the identity of the mysterious Yonyon nii-san revealed. It was indeed the voice who talks to Yasako in the strange dream she had. It turned out that he helped her when she was young, at the same site as Yasako’s dream, when she lost Densuke. She then was so impressed that she promptly proposed to marry him in the future. I suspect, though, that she never saw him again after that, but this episode showed that the guy still has a huge impact on her, when at one point she wonders whether that guy may be Haraken. Of course he’s not, as he looked much older than Yasako at that time, but the question remains: what kind of relation does he have to Haraken? Since Yonyon is definitely related to both Yasako and Haraken. (By the way, a girl with a big-brother complex, a girl with a mysterious figure in her past who made a big impression on her but whose face she can’t remember? Am I the only one getting Utena-vibes out of this?). The only thing I didn’t manage to follow was the scene between Yasako and Haraken, concerning Kanna’s diary. It seems that the password for Kanna’s diary finally is found, and Yasako accidentally reads it before she can give it back to Haraken. When Haraken reads it, he somehow gets obsessed to find something, but I couldn’t quite understand what that was, and why he’d do that. He looked quite pitiful, though.]]>