Secret Santa 2012 – Dennou Coil

Beware of children with beards! You should run away from Kyoko…

Merry Christmas to all the Metanorn readers! I hope you got lots of cool gifts and filled your stomach with something good to eat! Judging by the title of this post you can already guess that I picked up Dennou Coil to review, but if you are curious to see what other bloggers got you can head on over to Reverse Thieves and check out the massive list along with Overcooled’s Ride Back and lvlln’s Claymore reviews.

The world of Dennou Coil

Look at all the crazy characters!

This series was produced by Madhouse studios with the help of original creator Mitsuo Iso who handled the direction, but with his other projects he worked on mostly key animation for a few series like FLCL, Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire, Evangelion and lots of other random episodes works.

So what is Dennou Coil all about? It revolves around our main character Yuuko Okonogi moving back into an old neighborhood and thanks to a series of events,she meets up with a group of elementary students after she momentary loses her dog Densuke. However, her dog is no ordinary pet because it is a virtual pet only visible to people with special glasses as in augmented reality technology, allowing them to interact with things like pets and other objects (a recent example is Kai’s pokecom device from Robotic;Notes that allows him to talk to Airi). While that does sounds like a dull premise to a series, it gets really interesting after they introduce us to the various virtual creatures called “illegals”, which are basically dangerous living computer viruses that come from a computer like world, the “other side”. That said halfway through the series you soon discover that not all of those illegal creatures are dangerous because I started to feel really bad for them after seeing a few characters getting attached to them. So let’s get back to our main character for a moment, eventually she has to join a strange “Dennou Coil Investigation Agency” that specializes in anything virtual reality related with her oddball grandma as the official leader.

Interesting characters

Fumie, Yuuko Okonogi and Yuuko Amsawa pose for the camera.

–Yuuko Okonogi: Right off the bat this character is practically shoved into the investigation agency, thanks to her grandma aka Megabaa who uses rare Metatags (sort of like paper talisman to enhance virtual objects) to save Densuke after he gets infected by an illegal. Yuuko is someone I got attached to really quickly because she is a very kind person who really wants to make friends and cares for everyone, but there were plenty of moments when she kind of just stands around doing nothing but asking question after question or simply repeating the last thing someone said to her…I found that to be quite annoying until I remembered she is an elementary student so I quickly got over that. However, near the end she does a few things that makes me take back the whole “standing around doing nothing” comment because she gets involved in some life threatening events, while trying to save her friends or family members.

–Kyoko Okonai: This is Yuuko’s younger sister, but in the beginning I was like “alright, I guess she is the cute sister type?” That is until she shouted poop! I just couldn’t stop laughing, but that is part of her gimmick that makes her a bit crazy. There are several comedic moments with her that make her more than just the cute sister type, also she loves to mess around with Densuke, which means putting make up on him and generally tormenting the poor dog… Honestly, as far as little sister characters go I think Kyoko is by far the best kid character I have seen in a long time, I mean sure she can be annoying sometimes but then again you will get attached to her.

–Fumie Hashimoto: When we see her appear in the first episode she kind of comes off as the ‘HEY, GIVE ME MONEY AND I’LL HELP YOU’ character, but after the first few episodes I was interested in seeing her awesome hacker abilities and her skills with the various metatags. I was calling her a hacking ninja because the way she throws her tags around made it look like she was a ninja! Other than that she has a tomboy personality and quickly becomes friends with our main character. However, near the end I noticed she gets pretty much shoved to the side in favor of Yuuko running off doing her own thing, but I loved watching her interactions with a character named Daichi aka the schools prankster because they have this silly rivalry that cracks me up all the time.

–Yuuko Amasawa: Yes, I know you are like, “Wait, there is another Yuuko?!” While she might share the same name as our main character, she is the complete opposite in terms of personality. For starters she hates people, likes to be alone and has her own set of goals that I can’t really say without spoiling the ending. While she has issues with people, I would say out of the other characters she seems to be the most mature. Then again, she does have the whole “my parents died when I was young” that pushes her to have that kind of maturity? While Fumie is an experienced hacker, Amasawa on the other hand is on totally different hacker level as the “encoder” but she does have a special brain-computer-thing that allows her to access special options for her glasses. I liked Amasawa even though it takes her FOREVER to open up to any of the other characters; however, once you get to that point you will find it was so worth all the waiting.

Amasawa is such a badass character.

Dennou Coil is a series that will keep you guessing until the very end! It really is quite the treasure of an anime series and the technology reminded me a lot of Robotic;Notes, especially with all the augmented reality parts, virtual pets and all the illegals running around. But sadly, I can’t go into a lot of detail because I rather not spoil the fun for those interested in taking a peek at an old series. Besides all of the crazy technical talk, there were lots of episodes that made me cry manly tears because you really will get quite attached to most of them, but I got attached to all of them even the dog, which had a few moments that had me sniffling like a baby. My favorite episode will always be twelve because all of the characters grow living beards after there was an outbreak of facial illegals that get out of hand thanks to Kyoko and Daichi sharing an awkward kiss! Yeah that episode was so damn hilarious! Oh and if you are a Futurama fan you will laugh even more. Overall, if you love anything from Madhouse studios and you have a few days of nothing to watch, you really should take a look at Dennou Coil! Trust me once you get into that series you will be so addicted.

Merry Christmas!