I watched the first two episodes of this. I probably won't watch any more, though.

The basic conceit is that there's a kingdom (in the middle of Japan) and the King is a bit eccentric. He and his queen have 9 kids (6 girls, 3 boys) and want to give them a more normal upbringing. So they have a pretty regular house in the city where they all live. The King commutes to the castle in order to do his job and then returns to the house.

None of this is secret, far from it. He's declared that in about a year there's going to be an election where the people of the kingdom will chose one of his nine kids to succeed him. He will abdicate in favor of whichever one the people choose.

Just to make things even more interesting, each of the nine kids has a super power. From oldest to youngest:

Aoi (girl, perfect memory)
Shuu (boy, teleportation)
Kanade (girl, matter creation)
Akane (girl, flight)
Misaki (girl, self duplication)
Haruka (boy, perfect calculation of probabilities)
Hikari (girl, plant control)
Teru (boy, super strength)
Shiori (girl, speak to animals and the inanimate)

So, lots of competition within the family, right? Well actually, no. And no sibling rivalry at all. Everyone gets along great, and no one seems jealous of anyone else, and no one is mean to anyone else. No dirty tricks, no attempts to embarass each other. It's a very loving and comfortable family; about the only everyday problem is a shortage of bathrooms.

So, incest harem show for the oldest boy Shu (the teleporter), right? Well, not that either. He isn't the central character of the show. The central character is the third daughter, Akane, the one that can fly.

And it turns out that they are all living in a reality TV show. Inside their house is private, as are their schools, but the entire area around there is lousy with surveillance cameras, in part to provide security to them all but more importantly to provide material for a 24-hour live cable channel, so that the citizens can observe all the kids in their "everyday" lives.

Our main character, Akane, hates that. The other kids seem OK with it, but she hates every bit of it. She also doesn't like her ability to fly. Actually, she's fine with that part. Her problem is that when she does the security cameras get to see her panties, and she's mortified. You'd think that having lived with that surveillance all her life she'd be used to it, like all of the other eight, but she isn't. (Oh, and just in passing: the cameras and various citizens get to see her panties but we don't.)

You'd also think she could figure out the Railgun solution: wear short pants under the skirt. Then there isn't anything to see. But she doesn't.

That's Akane just after she captured a purse snatcher while going home from school. The purse snatcher saw her panties just before she knocked him cold.

The series turns out to be "day in the life". Each episode is divided into two or three parts with separate titles telling a relatively complete story, not necessarily about Akane. The second story in the second episode was Shu; a girl he knew in grade school confesses to him, and it turns out he kind of likes her too.

To the extent that there is any kind of overall story line for the series it's about the eventual election and royal succession, and that was the basis for the second story of the first episode: there was a competition for all 9, heavily televised, to begin from the bottom of a tall building. On the top were a large number of plushies, and the contest was for each of them to collect as many plushies as possible, ideally using their super powers to do so, and whoever loses has to clean all the toilets in the castle. (So it's what the Japanese call a "punishment game".)

Teru (superstrength) starts climbing the outside of the building. Shiori (who can talk to the inanimate) finds out from a fire hydrant that there's an express elevator.

My verdict? This show is dull. At first look there would seem to be plenty of potential here, and it's to their credit that they aren't descending into tropes, such as "incest harem" for Shu, or lots of sibling rivalry. But they aren't really developing that potential. When I watched the second episode I ended up doing a lot of skipping because the pace was slow and nothing was happening.

And once I really look at the whole concept, then after they eliminate sibling rivalry and incest teasing, just what kinds of stories can they really tell? I imagine for a while we'll be getting "sibling of the week" stories, but eventually they'll run out of siblings and then they'll have to tell us some other story.

They won't be telling me; I've already lost interest.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 12:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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