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Information

Title (English) Tokyo Underground

Title (Japanese) Tokyo Underground

Advertising
Fantasy Novel

Notes

Classification -

Synopsis

Review A package of tapes that my friend in Japan sent late last week arrived unexpectedly quickly today and it contained a couple of the new April anime, so I "jumped the line" of other tapes that I received in the past few days and put the tape with the new TV Tokyo shounen series "Tokyo Underground" on first. And I'm glad that I did, because this is an entertaining series with a lot of promise. From the ads on during the breaks, it appears that "Tokyo Underground" is running in one of the "Gangan" mangas, which is a good sign from my point of view, since last year's very entertaining "Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu" ran in Shounen Gangan. The episode starts out with two girls running through what appears to be an abandoned subway tunnel. They get trapped at a dead end and are faced by a tall, red-haired young guy with a nasty look on his face, who is controlling a bunch of humanoid robots with very wicked looking long claws. The taller of the two girls, a blond, has her name framed around her face for a moment - her name is Chelsea Rorec. Chelsea stands in front of the other, smaller girl who has light blue hair and is called Ruri. The tall bad guy demands that the girls give up and he refers to Ruri as the "Inochi no Miko" ( Miko of Life ). Chelsea forms a blue power ball in her hands in front of her, and the bad guy responds with a red power ball in his hands. But Chelsea doesn't throw her power ball at the bad guy, instead she directs it overhead to cause the water pipes to burst, which dismays the bad guy who concedes temporary defeat. The opening theme then starts, which is a relatively unmemorable generic J-pop song. ( I actually like the theme song that is played during the Gangan ad for the manga version of the series a lot more. )
Then we switch scenes to a teenaged boy named Rumina who is dreaming of a beautiful girl asking to be his girl friend. Rumina's alarm wakes him from the dream, and he immediately has to jump out of bed and start to duck and fight off all sorts of booby traps that are set for him around his house. It turns out that Rumina lives with his grandfather in a large temple ( or maybe a Doujo ) and the booby traps are there to aid in Rumina's training. But Rumina's grandfather has gone off to some hot springs resort and has the booby traps on "auto pilot".
Rumina's classmate Ginnosuke ( who wears thick, opaque eyeglasses ) shows up and they go to school.
On the way to school Rumina beats up a bunch of punks that he things are molesting a girl, but it is a case of mistaken identity and instead he ends up looking like an idiot and a bully to everyone. So when he and Ginnosuke get back to Rumina's house at the end of the day, Rumina is still in a bad mood. They then hear some sounds from the house that they assume are from robbers. Ginnosuke wants to run, but Rumina insists on finding out and capturing whoever is there. Of course, it turns out to be Chelsea and Ruri. Chelsea is injured from their previous fight, but Ruri is okay. Chelsea also mistakes Ginnosuke for an enemy and is astounded when Rumina is able to stop a power blast from her with only his kendo stick. Chelsea faints, but not before looking at Rumina in a very strange manner and getting a couple of strong nose bleeds. Ruri asks Rumina if they can stay and if he will help protect them. Rumina suddenly has a memory of his dream from the morning when Ruri holds his hand, then we see Chelsea awaken and when the camera view switches to the outside of the room, we hear Chelsea scream in anger and Rumina yell apologies as "fight" sounds occur. So what we have here is a shounen action/romance/comedy series from what I can guess from the first episode. The direction was very fast and funny. The animation is typical TV Tokyo "early evening" quality, with some 3DCG for some of the backgrounds. ( The opening animation is vaguely reminiscent of the opening animation in "Soul Taker", particularly in the character designs. ) The character designs are similar in style to those in "Fruits Baskets", although there are a lot of "Saiyuuki" alumni in the staff of "Tokyo Underground". The ending theme song is also not terribly memorable, but it isn't bothersome either.
So all-in-all, I enjoyed the opening episode and I'm going to ask my friend to continue to tape "Tokyo Underground" for me.
(Dave Baranyi)
"Tokyo Underground" - Another shounen fight-of-the-week series that is suffering from overly familiar "chase, capture, escape" plotting. Unless this is going to be a very short series, what will happen after Lumina and Chelsea rescue Ruri - another chase? I may give up on this series within the next couple of episodes unless something different starts to occur. (Dave Baranyi)

Credits Creator: Akinobu Uraku (manga)
Series dir: Hayato Date
Voice actors: Tomokazu Seki (Rumina Asagi), Haruhi Terada (Ruri Sarasa), Kaoru Morota (Chelsea Rourke), Souichiro Hoshi (Ginnosuke Isuzu)

Episodes 26

Release

TV Showing See the whole series for free? This series may be syndicated to regional cable, satellite or terrestial TV stations. For Europe click here.

Date 2002 April 2 -

Production

Broadcaster TV Tokyo

Animation Studio Pierrot

References & Help Look up the latest data on this title at:
Richard Llewellyn's Animated Divots, or
Anime News Network (see Encyclopedia section) ,
or in "The Anime Encyclopedia" (Clements & McCarthy, Stone Bridge Press, 2001).
Help & further information.

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Information
Title (English)	Tokyo Underground
Title (Japanese)	Tokyo Underground
Advertising Fantasy Novel
Notes
Classification	-
Synopsis
Review	A package of tapes that my friend in Japan sent late last week arrived unexpectedly quickly today and it contained a couple of the new April anime, so I "jumped the line" of other tapes that I received in the past few days and put the tape with the new TV Tokyo shounen series "Tokyo Underground" on first. And I'm glad that I did, because this is an entertaining series with a lot of promise. From the ads on during the breaks, it appears that "Tokyo Underground" is running in one of the "Gangan" mangas, which is a good sign from my point of view, since last year's very entertaining "Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu" ran in Shounen Gangan. The episode starts out with two girls running through what appears to be an abandoned subway tunnel. They get trapped at a dead end and are faced by a tall, red-haired young guy with a nasty look on his face, who is controlling a bunch of humanoid robots with very wicked looking long claws. The taller of the two girls, a blond, has her name framed around her face for a moment - her name is Chelsea Rorec. Chelsea stands in front of the other, smaller girl who has light blue hair and is called Ruri. The tall bad guy demands that the girls give up and he refers to Ruri as the "Inochi no Miko" ( Miko of Life ). Chelsea forms a blue power ball in her hands in front of her, and the bad guy responds with a red power ball in his hands. But Chelsea doesn't throw her power ball at the bad guy, instead she directs it overhead to cause the water pipes to burst, which dismays the bad guy who concedes temporary defeat. The opening theme then starts, which is a relatively unmemorable generic J-pop song. ( I actually like the theme song that is played during the Gangan ad for the manga version of the series a lot more. ) Then we switch scenes to a teenaged boy named Rumina who is dreaming of a beautiful girl asking to be his girl friend. Rumina's alarm wakes him from the dream, and he immediately has to jump out of bed and start to duck and fight off all sorts of booby traps that are set for him around his house. It turns out that Rumina lives with his grandfather in a large temple ( or maybe a Doujo ) and the booby traps are there to aid in Rumina's training. But Rumina's grandfather has gone off to some hot springs resort and has the booby traps on "auto pilot". Rumina's classmate Ginnosuke ( who wears thick, opaque eyeglasses ) shows up and they go to school. On the way to school Rumina beats up a bunch of punks that he things are molesting a girl, but it is a case of mistaken identity and instead he ends up looking like an idiot and a bully to everyone. So when he and Ginnosuke get back to Rumina's house at the end of the day, Rumina is still in a bad mood. They then hear some sounds from the house that they assume are from robbers. Ginnosuke wants to run, but Rumina insists on finding out and capturing whoever is there. Of course, it turns out to be Chelsea and Ruri. Chelsea is injured from their previous fight, but Ruri is okay. Chelsea also mistakes Ginnosuke for an enemy and is astounded when Rumina is able to stop a power blast from her with only his kendo stick. Chelsea faints, but not before looking at Rumina in a very strange manner and getting a couple of strong nose bleeds. Ruri asks Rumina if they can stay and if he will help protect them. Rumina suddenly has a memory of his dream from the morning when Ruri holds his hand, then we see Chelsea awaken and when the camera view switches to the outside of the room, we hear Chelsea scream in anger and Rumina yell apologies as "fight" sounds occur. So what we have here is a shounen action/romance/comedy series from what I can guess from the first episode. The direction was very fast and funny. The animation is typical TV Tokyo "early evening" quality, with some 3DCG for some of the backgrounds. ( The opening animation is vaguely reminiscent of the opening animation in "Soul Taker", particularly in the character designs. ) The character designs are similar in style to those in "Fruits Baskets", although there are a lot of "Saiyuuki" alumni in the staff of "Tokyo Underground". The ending theme song is also not terribly memorable, but it isn't bothersome either. So all-in-all, I enjoyed the opening episode and I'm going to ask my friend to continue to tape "Tokyo Underground" for me. (Dave Baranyi) "Tokyo Underground" - Another shounen fight-of-the-week series that is suffering from overly familiar "chase, capture, escape" plotting. Unless this is going to be a very short series, what will happen after Lumina and Chelsea rescue Ruri - another chase? I may give up on this series within the next couple of episodes unless something different starts to occur. (Dave Baranyi)
Credits	Creator: Akinobu Uraku (manga) Series dir: Hayato Date Voice actors: Tomokazu Seki (Rumina Asagi), Haruhi Terada (Ruri Sarasa), Kaoru Morota (Chelsea Rourke), Souichiro Hoshi (Ginnosuke Isuzu)
Episodes	26
Release
TV Showing	See the whole series for free? This series may be syndicated to regional cable, satellite or terrestial TV stations. For Europe click here.
Date	2002 April 2 -
Production
Broadcaster	TV Tokyo
Animation	Studio Pierrot
References & Help	Look up the latest data on this title at: Richard Llewellyn's Animated Divots, or Anime News Network (see Encyclopedia section) , or in "The Anime Encyclopedia" (Clements & McCarthy, Stone Bridge Press, 2001). Help & further information.