I was reminded of Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures by going through Ubu's review list, and since I don't really have a lot to blog about these days, I figured it would make a decent Mystery Meat post.

It's something of a standard mecha story, and in general I really don't like Mecha stories, so I figured I'd get one ep into it, give up, and then write a scathing put-down.

But you know what? It ain't half bad. I just finished ep 3, and I may even watch more of it.

It suffers from the same problem that the Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki series (from the same author) did, in that it can't really make up its mind whether it is comedy or not. The first ep is loaded with scenes which I could tell were supposed to make me chuckle, though none of them did.

What actually caught me by surprise was the extent to which it seems to be ripping off Evangelion. In fact, at this point I'm tempted to say that it's a deliberate parody. But it could also be thought of as "Evangelion done right."

It isn't pretentious, for one thing. That's one really huge thing. And unlike Shinji, Kazuki is sympathetic and likeable. So far, little or no angst. And considering the spots of comedy that keep being interspersed with the action, I assume it'll stay that way.

There was one huge logic error that came out in ep 2. Mitsuki was there when Kazuki got sent to the other universe, yet the Mitsuki who meets him there said she'd been there a month. Did she go through after him but arrive before? Or was it just a stupid writing mistake? Or a plot point which will get explained in time?

Anyway, other improvements: Gendo was repulsive, but Ken isn't. Rei was creepy, but D isn't, at least so far. Asuka was also repulsive, but Mitsuki isn't. In fact the only character we've seen so far who is even slightly repulsive is the UN inspector, and she's being played for laughs.

Kazuki's voice seemed familiar, so I looked it up. The same seiyuu did the voice of Kazuya in Hand Maid May. (He was also Arc in Petite Princess Yucie, and I never would have made that connection.)

The "bizarre loser of a guy who turns out to have an extraordinary skill with a mech that surprises everyone" trope is a common one: Vandread and Martian Successor Nadesico spring to mind. This is another. In this case they've taken it one step further: before Kazuki showed up, it was thought that only girls could run them. (That one is being recycled in an upcoming Winter series.)

The Ken character is being handled in an interesting way. The first Ken (which we only see in the first episode) is a mad scientist, a complete loonytune. The second Ken, in the alternate world, is still eccentric, but he's a lot more responsible, and even admirable. I think the reason the UN inspector is obnoxious is so that when Ken bedevils her (which he does a lot of) the audience is sympathetic to him, and likes him for it. It's certainly that way for me.

He's fun. He certainly isn't a flaming son-of-a-bitch like Gendo is. And in general, Dual leaves out all the horror which was the foundation of so much in Evangelion. For instance, D's background story isn't the nightmare that Rei's was.

The mechs look a lot like the mechs in Evangelion, though they don't drag around power cords. One is red, one is blue, and one is white, but they mixed some of the colors up. My memory of Eva is getting a bit dim, but it seems to me that Asuka was red, Shinji was blue, and Rei was white. In this one, Kazuki's got the white one and D is in the blue one.

Evangelion was supposed to challenge us, involve us, make us think, make us feel. For a lot of people all it made them feel was, "Why am I wasting my time on this drek?", or "Why is this director so full of himself?"

Dual doesn't have such high aspirations. It's just trying to entertain, with the huge benefit of all the winks to people who had seen Evangelion and weren't impressed by it. And that's fine with me, because I'm one of them.

I may well watch more of it. Haven't really decided yet.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 07:08 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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