life line by line

Futakoi Alternative… by far the most wonderful piece of anime so far in the Spring 2005 series line-up. I seriously died laughing 10x while watching the whole episode!

Better animation + Kawaii Girls + Guns + Explosions = SUCCESS

I’ll have my thoughts about it later, but for now go over to Matthew’s where he has done an excellent synopsis of the first episode. If you want the best of both worlds, read his review while looking at my 188 screencaps. It’ll be almost the same as watching the anime itself (minus Soujo’s and Sara’s cute voices)!

Opening Sequence (OP)

The Actual Episode

Ending Sequence (ED)

I’m going to try to breakdown the episode into sections, since there were so many mini-storylines in the first episode that all eventually come together. It can get a little confusing while watching…

The Technical
The opening song, “New World” by Be Yumi along with the sequences shown rocked! The beginning of the song along with the girls floating in white had me slightly off-put until the music changed into a fast-pace one… along with some killer girls fighting with guns and swords action All the girls look totally cute and I can’t wait to be re-introduced to everyone to see how they differ in this alternative universe. Ai and Mai as swordwomen… HOT.

Clay animation has never really been a favorite of mine but I must admit the ending sequence was kind of cute. The ending song, “Bokura no Jikan” by eufonius worked well with the scenes and had a very laidback type of feel. I’ll definitely be looking for the OP and ED songs when they become avaliable… and the red string of fate between the three… haha, nice!

Animation… I think the screencaps speak for themselves. Futakoi Alternative is 20x better in terms of animation alone thanks to the fact it’s a different company doing it. Everything is smooth and colorful, with no real noticable lost in quality throughout the whole episode. Futakoi Alternative probably has to be the Top 3 best, in terms of animation quality, from the current Spring 2005 lineup that have already aired. It’s THAT good!

My favorite part, the seiyuu cast. All the girls’ seiyuus from Futakoi repress their roles in this version of the series, so there is little need to say how awesome they all are. On some of the male characters, Tomokazu Seki as Rentarou was a good choice as the man is like the jack-of-trades in the anime voicing business. Really nothing much has to be said about his fine ability to voice act. Also Kankurou voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama rocked. Not only is Nobuyuki great as an comedy seiyuu (one has to look only at his work as Madarame from Genshiken) which works with the Kankurou, but his character looks so much like Ban from GetBackers it’s too obvious not to notice. The only way the staff could have topped the great selection of seiyuus was if they got Nobutoshi Hayashi to play Kankurou instead

All Hail Ecchi-ness
Lulu and Lala’s engagement against the white-blog-like monster. Yes, it made absolutely no sense whatsoever but was still cool to watch; I mean, who wouldn’t want to see girls with guns right? Anyway, one had to love all the fanservice given within the first five minutes of the episode… panties shots plus white-substances! Someone must have taken a page out of m.o.e. studio’s.

The battle scene was a good lead-in to where our main cast is. Wonder how long until Lulu and Lala meet up with Rentarou, Souju, and Sara. Also, will they actually know each other when they do meet or will they be total strangers? hmm… Souju & Sara VS Lulu & Lala action… sweet.

Sara, Fighter Extreme
A portly chinese man is asking for help… he has no one else he can turn too and the people after him are right outside! Sara is his only hope… and for whatever reason, decides to take the case but first has to find a few things. Okay, something about a timer.. and rope..?! Sara’s ready to go as the two all but jump out of the window just as the men after the fat man come in. Sara bororws Gen’s bike as she and the fat chinese man (who’s incidentaly tied via rope to Sara) make their Great Getaway. Just as the group of men after the chinese guy break into the apartment Sara was in, they notice a package… and a ticking sound.. BAM! There goes Rentarou’s apartment ^_^;

What follows is a high-speed chase throughout town as Sara keeps trying to contact both Souju and Rentarou though she can never get through. Some highlights of the chase had to be the use of the rocket booster and slight Sara fanservice Eventually the chase gets too heated as a helicopter is now after their tail… one missile later and Sara and Chinese Man are stuck on the helicopter’s wing as Sara realizes she really needs Rentarou’s help! China Man ask what’s so great about Rentarou and she mentions that when Rentarou has to do something, he’ll do it… but that doesn’t help much after the helicopter gets shot down from one bullet from Crazed Police Officer.

The wreckage somehow lands where Rentarou was having his boxing match and after much destruction, Sara finds Rentarou… and proceeds to bitch him out for not answering his phone Souju shows up a few seconds later…

Iron Chef Souju
Souju is buying some food (croquettes?) at one of the local stores as the manager mentions how it’s kind of sad Rentarou makes Souju do all the work. Souju says it’s okay since she likes doing that kind of stuff when a TV news crew drop by (the female reporter voiced by Kana Ueda!). They’re there to do a story on the manager as the manager steps out to meet them.. until we hear a ear-piercing scream!

Oh no! The manager somehow messed up both of her arms! Now she can’t run her business for today and the TV news crew so wanted to taste some of her croquettes. Don’t worry, Souju-chan is there! She’ll take over for awhile, with the news crew somewhat unbelieved, but when they try her croquettes… it’s like going to heaven itself! *drools*

Next thing we know there’s an crazy arse long line to try out Souju’s cooking. And as for Souju herself, she’s a master at multi-tasking ^_^;; While Souju is working, she never notices her cellphone going off… a little later, Sara with a chinese man on a motorcycle are zooming by as they’re being chased by an helicopter of all things! Souju quickly sees it’s Sara and goes after her, getting a ride with the TV news crew.

Apparently Sara and the chinese man are caught on the helicopter that was chasing them as the news crew goes after them. Sara mentioned something about Rentarou (and how the female reporter her Sara from the ground is beyond me), and the reporter ask Souju what’s so special about him. Souju blushes! Anyway, she mentions that when Rentarou has to do something, he’ll do it…

… Souju eventually meet up with Rentarou and Sara at the damaged boxing ring building…

Rentarou’s Unlucky Day #29842
Our Main hero. Rentarou is already having “one of those days” type of day as we find our hapless man surrounded by various yakuza. I guess having a father that took away the arm of an yakuza (Zenji) would eventually lead anyone into trouble, but in Rentarou’s case only got worse. Also didn’t help that his cat ate Kankurou’s, one of Zenji’s men, pet bird. There must be payment!

Rentarou gets carted off with Kankurou and some of the men to gods know where while his cellphone constantly rings. Much to say, there’s no way he can answer the phone given the situation though the ringing does get on Kankurou’s nerves

Next thing we know, Rentarou is in a boxing ring with Kankurou giving him a “pep talk” of sorts. Rentarou, of course, doesn’t want to fight but there are various reasons he has to ^_^;; Zenji comes down from the VIP box to give Rentarou some advice: the guy he’s fighting is strong… and don’t forget to lose. Rentarou aftering hearing this… let’s just say he’s seriously doubting his chances of surviving. The boxing match begins and for the most part, Rentarou is avoiding getting his arse handed to him but really needs some advice. Kankurou shouts something about guarding, but that’s it… eventually, cornered and having little choice Rentarou gets explosive and out of nowhere kicks the Huge Boxer’s arse to kingdom come! Victory is Rentarou’s!

… unfortunately Zenji and his associates had place bets of him losing. Not good. Once again, Rentarou is surrounded at gun point by the yakuza as Zenji mentions, “sorry but please die.” BAM! The roof of the boxing ring has fallen on everyone but luckily no one was seriously hurt. Rentarou comes out of the destruction non-worse-for-wear but an very angry Sara might change that! She laid it on him thick for not answering his cellphone and whatnot. In along comes Souju happy the two are okay… Rentarou questions what the heck just has happened… but it all ends with the three eating croquettes

That night, back at their newly ruined apartment thanks to Sara the three are trying to clean up the place but to no avail. Rentarou makes a few jabs at Sara for blowing up the place as he crashes on the only surviving bed… he pats the sides telling the two girls to join him. Souju and Sara are much pleased The three end up sleeping together (not that way!), though Souju and Sara do some mild soul searching saying everything will be fine as long as it’s the three of them together.

Just totally awesome as there aren’t enough words to describe how much Futakoi Alternative rocked my socks off! Sure it was high-speed action and an total 180 from the fall series but it’s because of that Futakoi Alternative works so well. I do hope, however, the staff will move forward to more drama as implied in their trailers as high-pace actions with the girls can only go for so long. We’ll all just have to wait until the next episode (less than seven days and counting) to see where the lives of Souju, Sara, and Rentarou will take us.