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Information | |
Title (English) | I'll Be An Angel! |
Title (Japanese) | Tenshi ni naru mon | Advertising Fantasy Novel |
Notes | Genre(s): fantasy, comedy, romance |
Classification | - |
Synopsis | A stork is flying above a wild countryside, carrying a golden egg in a cloth
from its beak, when it is attacked by a vulture. The stork attempts to get
away from the vulture, but the egg falls from the cloth and hits the ground,
splitting into three eggs that bounce away. Such is the enigmatic preamble
to "Tenshi ni Narumon"/ "I'll become an Angel", the strange 26-part fantasy
anime that played on the TV Tokyo network in mid 1999.
The story starts out as teen-aged Yuusuke is adapting to life alone as his parents have moved abroad for business. One day while riding his bike to school Yuusuke stumbles upon a naked girl in the woods and accidentally kisses her. The girl introduces herself as Noelle and promptly declares that she is Yuusuke's 'wife'. Noelle is pretty and very 'genki', but acts very naive. Yuusuke is taken aback by all this and continues on to school, where he is again surprised by reappearance of Noelle who is now a new student in his class. Noelle causes further problems for Yuusuke who is already in trouble with a classmate who he really likes, Natsumi. After school, Yuusuke returns home to find that his house has been transformed into a giant toy-house, with a strange 'family' living there. This turns out to be Noelle's family, who take Yuusuke in as a new 'son-in-law'. Yuusuke's protests fall on deaf ears and he is slowly drawn into the lives of Noelle's very strange family - her father is like a Frankenstein monster, her mother and grandmother are witches, her older brother is a vampire, her older sister is an invisible girl and her younger sister is a mad scientist. In the meanwhile, in some other dimension, Noelle's actions are being monitored by a baroque, spider-like demon called Dispell, who is seemingly in control of a beautiful but almost doll-like girl named Shiruki ( Silky ). Dispell wants to capture Noelle, who has decided that she wants to be an 'Angel', even though she has no idea what that means. (Dave Baranyi) |
Review |
From this set up comes a very odd fantasy indeed, with little being what it
seems. The first half of the series is almost a farce, as Noelle and Yuusuke
combat various menaces that are all variations on toys gone mad. But the
story takes an abrupt about face in the middle, as we find out that the
situation is quite different from what we have been lead to believe, and the
tale becomes a dark fantasy of desires. We also find out that most of the
characters are tied together in a way related to Noelle's dreams of becoming
an angel, and the egg in the prologue to the story.
All-in-all, I found 'Tenshi ni Narumon' to be one of the most memorable
anime on Japanese TV in 1999. The strangeness of the story was complemented
by the subtle realness of the otherwise bizarre characters. The animation
was very good, with the bright, toy-like colors of the first half of the
series balanced out by the use of dark and brooding colors in the second
half.
(Dave Baranyi) It's funny, but not exceptional.(GC)
"Tenshi ni Narumon" is approaching some sort of conclusion, this time it seems to be a real one, as we have pretty much definitively found out who are the three offspring of the split golden egg from the beginning of the series. At the same time, my hat is off to the fan who wrote a while back that he felt that this series might end quite seriously. "TNN" certainly is doing that, and I can't see a simple resolution at this point that will not involve some level of tragedy. This is quite a trip for a show that started out so wonderfully and magically funny. But it is a trip that I wouldn't miss and recommend to all. |
Credits | Series Director: Hiroshi Nishikiori |
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 | 1999 April 7 - 1999 September 29 |
Production | Studio Pierrot |
Broadcaster | |
Animation | |
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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