Pita-ten : An odd little story about an apprentice angel, her apprentice
devil roommate and the grade school kids they interact with. Better than it
"should" be, mainly due to endearing characters and a very nice mix of
"casual strangeness". - Rating B+ (Dave Baranyi)
This is turning out to be a season for odd shounen "cute girl" series. First there was "Rizelmine"; now there is "Pita Ten". "Pita Ten" is a new TV Osaka produced series based upon a Dengeki Comics manga and is co-produced by Mad House. The opening animation has a typical Mad House look about it, but the rest of the animation is very sparse, almost primitive looking, particularly the character designs.
The show starts with the crack of dawn over a city. On the top of a tall building a girl with feathered wings stands and stretches. The scene then switches to an apartment where a boy named Kotaro is finishing breakfast with his Dad. Kotaro is in 6th grade and lives alone with his father in the apartment. Kotaro's mother died saving his life when he was a baby. Kotaro's father leaves for work and Kotaro cleans up before leaving for school. Just as Kotaro leaves the apartment the girl with the wings from the opening scene pops up next to him and loudly introduces herself as Misha and tells Kotaro that she just moved next door. Misha is very hyper, has pink hair and is obviously older than Kotaro.
Kotaro panics and runs off.
When he gets to school he is first greeted by a girl in his class, Koboshi, who is small, blond and wears cat-ear hair clips. Koboshi wants to talk to Kotaro, but a guy from their class, Ten-chan, pushes her out of the way and wants to talk to Kotaro first. Koboshi and Ten-chan fight for a few moments, then the bell rings and they all go to class, with Kotaro lingering for a bit and looking behind himself into the distance.
After school, Koboshi wants Kotaro to wait for her and walk home together and Kotaro agrees. But as Kotaro waits in front of the middle school next door he hears a familiar voice and is horrified to see Misha there, registering as a student in the middle school. Kotaro runs off as fast as he can, standing up Koboshi. But when Kotaro gets home Misha pops up again and insists on sticking around, despite accidents galore. She also finds out that Kotaro's mother is dead and announces that she wants to become Kotaro's Mom, which upsets Kotaro badly.
The next morning Misha shows up at Kotaro's doorstep again, this time in a middle school uniform. She grabs Kotaro and hangs on to him all the way to school. When they reach school they run into Koboshi, who is furious at this older girl who is draping herself all over Kotaro. Later during the day Misha keeps on popping up unexpectedly and inconveniently and finally gets all beaten up by stopping soccer balls from hitting Kotaro. ( She has no idea of what a soccer game is and is trying to protect Kotaro. )
That evening, Kotaro's Dad has to work late, so Kotaro eats alone and plays video games after supper. He then falls asleep and is awakened by Misha who takes him out to the balcony and flies off with him over the city. Misha finally does a power dive and Kotaro panics. At this point he wakes up and decides that it was just a dream. Then, as he leaves his apartment in the morning Misha appears again to drape herself all over him.
It's hard to really give the flavor of this show in a synopsis like I wrote above. Misha is a very strange character - her constant "tee hee hee" giggle at everything is both bizarre and irritating. It's refreshing that Misha doesn't want to be either a "wife" or a "maid" for Kotaro, but the situation is still very odd. I can't figure out what they are going to do with this series to keep it original, particularly if it goes 26 episodes as Anime Daisuki says. I'll watch it for a while to see where it goes, but I don't have a lot of hopes for this series in the long run unless something really changes.
BTW - the story is by some of the Koge Donbo who did Digit Charat and Sugar, so folks who are fans of those series may well like "Pita Ten" more than me.
(Dave Baranyi)
"Pitaten" - Another show that is exceeding its material - this is not just
another "AMG" or "Mamotte Shugogetten" clone, and the resemblance to
"Risky/Safety" is getting weaker with each episode. Instead, I have the
feeling that we are going to see a turnabout in the story line, similar in
tenor to what happened half way through "Tenshi ni Narumon". (Dave Baranyi)
I've seen the first episode and thought it was quite fun, though I've no plans to acquire any more of it. (GC)
