I’m currently watching Darker than Black and Coil, two Japanese animated TV shows (aka “anime) available here in the U.S. as file shares translated and subtitled by fans.(”fansubs”).
I’ve watched each episode of Black, a dark tale of enslaved paranormals, and although it’s a good show of its kind, one viewing is enough. (There are six episodes as of this writing.)
I’ve watched the one available episode of Coil, a lighted hearted show with dark undercurrents, about six times now, and there’s things in it that still make me giggle.
I have not been so captivated since Fred Gallagher over at Megatokyo seduced me into anime with a picture of a rather shabbily dressed angel sitting on a terrace smoking a cigarette. Every anime I’ve watched since has basically been filler while I waited for the Next Haibane Renmei. This might be it, at least in terms of characters and world building.
Seymour has spoilerific random thoughts, which will probably make no sense unless you’ve watched the episode. See links at the end for reviews and other resources.
- I want to know why, in the opening credits (”OP”), stairs are so important.
- I love that the kids aren’t exactly playing a game, they’re simply pursuing their own, self-created goals in an virtual environment imposed on the real world. Unlike Lain or .hack/sign, the kids are actually running around, instead of being trapped in front of a monitor. Real-world location relates to cyberworld location.
- Pets, servants, and other cyber entities can enter cyberspace locations which appear as pixilated black patches on walls. Can humans see into those cyberspace locations, or is it only pets and other creatures? Why are those spaces so complex? What are they for?
- I love the gestural user interface. One example is the phone Yuko uses to call technical support: thumb to her ear and little finger to her mouth.
Other gestures include the thumbs-to-forefingers framing gesture used to mark an area to be “scanned”, whatever the hell that means; and the hands-to-ears gesture when you’re trying to “hear” something; the suddenly crooked finger that closes a data-screen, and of course the miming that goes on while using various cyber-objects, such as the fishing-pole.
(I think the miming implies that the glasses aren’t mere heads-up displays; they’re bidirectional neural interfaces that provide tactile feedback. A good example of this is when Yuko bashes a virtual data screen against a wall: at each blow, her hands jolt to a stop.
(Frankly, though, I’m not going to spend a lot of time worrying about this, as long as they’re consistent.)
- When Fumie threatens to give Yuko a hard time, she makes a kung-fooey-ish gesture. What does it invoke when completed?
- I love the posters for missing pets, and the promotional posters for Satchii and “Space Renewal”. I wonder if the posters are visible in the real world.
- What is “Space renewal”, and why is it so important that there are posters about it?
Said posters are apparently propaganda in a surprisingly hot war between the user children and what I think are the adult system moderators and admins.
- I love that when Satchii breaks through a wall, the crumbling debris is random letters and ideographs, not brick shards.
- I love the fact that in this episode, grownups were scarce. I hope that continues.
- I love how war-chalking (and presumably other grafitti) actually has power in this world. I have to wonder if the symbol we see sketched out by Isako, the twin-pony tailed girl who watches the Blob make its first appearance, is related to the Shrine Arch we originally see Hepburn the cybercat under.
- I love how, when Kyoko is playing with Yuko’s cyber-dog, Densuke, in the hamburger shop, she playfully grabs his head by hooking her fingers into his eye-sockets, and he patiently tolerates this.
- I love that Densuko has a butt for a face, and an asshole. I also want to know why he has a lock on his collar, instead of a tag. What happens when he is unlocked?
- I love that he was frightened by Yuko’s youthful enthusiasm when she first saw him, and that she had to gain his trust as she would with a real dog.
- I love that, in a pinch, virtual display screens can be used as weapons.
- There’s some evidence that makes me think that, despite expectations, we’re supposed to develop some sympathy for the Blob-thing. It’s starving to death.)
- I love that Oyaji, Fumie’s servant, gets an instant crush on Yuko. Is it because she thinks of him as a pet, instead of a servant? The idea that the pets and servants can form attachments to people other than their owners is very intriguing.
- I love that Fumie’s t-shirt logo says, “Strike!”, and that it can be viewed as either a person holding their arms over their head, or as an overhead view of a person sitting at a computer screen, or, of course, as a “U”. Clever design, and probably relevant to the War with the Mods.
I love a lot about this show. They better not screw it up.
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I’ve seen several folks compare this to Lain and .hack/sign, but it also reminds me of Kakurenbo, the lavishly animated short about kids playing hide-and-seek in a demon-haunted, adult-free cityscape.
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I’ve seen two fansubs: one from Ureshii and the other from Lunar Anime. My sense is that the Lunar script is a little smoother, with better English, but that the Ureshii script is more fun. (”OK, it’s a deal!”) Ureshii’s text is itself animated in amusing ways in the OP/ED. Also, the Ureshii group translated at least some of the signage, while Lunar didn’t. Advantage: Ureshii for repeat viewing, but at least one viewing of the Lunar sub to clarify meaning. (Note: I am not competent to judge the accuracy of the translation.)
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Other Denno Coil reviews and resources:
Kineska posted the review that got me interested.
Memento has an excellent episode summary, numerous screen shots, a brief review, and several comments.
Anime Pages Daily is posting some detailed episode reviews, apparently from the raws or original broadcast.
Yes, of course there’s a Wiki page.
Cinnamon Ass has a nice review and even a few comments.
The Kawaii Menace has a review up, and agrees with me that the repeat viewability of this series “automatically makes it the coolest show currently being broadcast.”
There’s a Discussion thread running in Megatokyo’s Anime, Manga, and Cosplay forum. I posted the first version of this review there.