Today's Mystery Meat is Ichigeki Sacchu!! HoiHoi-san.

I think I recognize a pseudonym...

Some time in the future, cockroaches and other household pests have become immune to all known insecticides. Cockroaches are the consummate survivors; they existed before the dinosaurs and they're likely to outlive us, too. With chemical weapons useless, humanity turns to robotics.

Hoihoi-san is a combat meido android designed to hunt cockroaches and other insects. She's five inches tall and carries a couple of SMGs. If you have problems with cockroaches in your home, you buy a HoiHoi-san, and plug the charging unit into the wall. She will monitor the environment, and when she detects insects, she sorties and destroys them. Then she returns to her charging unit.

HoiHoi-san becomes very popular, so they design a second one called Combat-san. Combat-san is a heavy weapons frame... And there are lots of upgrades available, and it's like a warped version of "Angelic Layer". Very warped.

This apparently was a game. (UPDATE: no, it was a manga.) The video is only 10 minutes long and I think it's like the original Strike Witches OVA, created as a bonus to be included with the product (in this case, the game). There was, at one point, a rumor that they were going to turn it into a TV series, but that didn't pay off.

So you can't really tell a lot of story in 10 minutes, and they don't try. Most of the story takes place in the apartment of one geeky guy, who owns both units. He's been upgrading his Combat-san, but since he doesn't have a lot of money, he's been buying unofficial after-market parts, and the upshot is that Combat-san's programming has been altered. She thinks she's supposed to hunt HoiHoi-san rather than insects.

The other aspect of the story is a girl named Kimiko, who works at a drugstore. In addition to all the normal stuff you'd expect a drugstore to carry, they also sell HoiHoi-san and Combat-san plus upgrades, and it's a significant part of their business. When HoiHoi-san first came out, Kimiko thought it was cute, and bought one. Next morning she had a shock.

Since then she's completely soured on the entire concept, and dies a little inside every time she sells one. Her friend Mutsumi comes to visit her to show off her units, wearing itty bitty yukata. Kimiko starts musing about a doll she'd owned when she was a kid. Mutsumi interrupts her; the units are gone.

Then they hear the sound of combat from a trashcan. Seems that her HoiHoi-san and Combat-san detected bugs in it and activated. Kimiko dies inside again.

UPDATE: No, it was a manga. There was discussion of making a full TV series, but they didn't do it, and apparently there was also early interest in making a game out of it, but that didn't happen either.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 12:26 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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