So that's the cast. And the big surprise here is that the original idea for this came from Akamatsu Ken, who was behind Love Hina and Negima!

He didn't do the manga, though; he's just credited with the concept. It's not clear just how much he did contribute; what is clear is that he's listed as one of the copyright holders.

The girl in the middle with the pink hair is Mao. She, and her two friends, are in second grade. The man standing behind Mao is her grandfather, who is the chief of staff for the Japanese Army Japan Self Defense ground forces.

To her right, with black hair, is Sylvia. Standing behind her is her grandfather, who is German, and is the chief of staff of the JSD naval forces. To Mao's left, with purple hair, is Misora, and her grandfather who is the chief of staff of the JSD air forces.

On the far left is Mao's grade school teacher, Kagome, who is 27 and has an IQ of 250. For some reason she's in love with Mao's grandfather, but he doesn't know it. And the two older girls on the right side are Yuriko (red hair) and Chinami, who are shown in the OP wearing animal ears. Your guess is as good as mine; I have no clue who they are or how they relate.

UPDATE: End of the first episode, and it's very, very silly. Looks like it uses the quarter-hour format, and they made 26 eps.

Mao, Misora, and Sylvie's jobs are not secret. At the beginning of the episode we see Mao coming out of her school, and she gets a call from top command telling her to activate. Her pet tank, Mi-kun, is there to pick her up and take her where she's needed.

It seems that Japan is being invaded by kawaii aliens, and feels it has to fight kawaii with kawaii. But each of the services is jealous about their turf, as it were, even if it isn't turf.

All the turf belongs to the ground forces, and Mao is routed to the place where the alien is expected to land. The alien turns out to be a giant kitten; it comes in inside a transparent capsule, which opens and releases it under a parachute.

But because Mao is ground forces, she can't attack until it's on the ground. And a gust of wind blows it up and away from her. Nothing for it; she has to stand there and watch.

Fortunately, Misora too has been activated. She flies in sitting on the wing of a Harrier which is painted red. But before she can attack, the alien giant kitten splashes into the water. Too bad.

Sylvie shows up in her submersible. She uses manipulators to push the alien cat to shore, but Mao and Misore can't really do anything to it, either. They all start to cry -- on camera, since this is being viewed everywhere in Japan. The people watching all start to cry, too.

At which point the prime minister authorizes them to use their heavy weapon, which is also very expensive. However, they blow it because Mao runs like a snail dragging a brick, and can't get to where she's supposed to be in time. The result is a big uncontrolled explosion which vaporizes the alien, creates a huge crater, and leaves our three girls charred but otherwise unharmed, sitting on the ground, crying and apologizing. First episode wraps.

I don't know if the joke can be sustained, or how much else there may be to it. But I laughed a lot while watching the first episode. It was handled really well; there was enough going on that was weird to keep me interested.

And there may be enough to this story to last for 26 quarter-hour episodes. The next episode is a flashback about how Mao-chan first got involved. And there's some sort of story about those high-school girls. Chinami calls Yuriko "President", and was worried when Yuriko's ears popped out by accident. I wonder if it'll turn out that they're alien spies.

Oh, and Mao's henshin deck? It's not even slightly ecchi. (Whew!)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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