futakoi alternative

[Futakoi->] was ok, but it seemed that the fans were not quite impressed with the first series. After all, Futakoi is a huge franchise of Dengeki G’s, composed of magazine features, albums, merchandise, and games. Having loved the CG illustrations of Futakoi, they seem to be disappointed with the bland look of the first series. Now, Futakoi Alternative, the second anime series based on the franchise, aims to make disappointed fans believe in the power of the anime medium again. Are they successful?

Futakoi Alternative started off EXPLOSIVE! True to the concept of Alternative, the 6 twins of Futakoi now hold a powerful arsenal of military apparel in the opening sequence. How about that? These are moe~ girls with guns and firepower! Episode 1 was equally powerful, as it pits now featured twins Souju and Sara with this guy named Rentarou in a whole lot of action-packed mess. Really, it was a fast-paced, kick-aaa episode, with high-class animation quality no less. For fans, it is a dream come true already. But the greatness never stops there. While not as action-packed as the first and last few episodes, the middle episodes feature yet another Alternative, dramedy.

The episodes fully describe these three characters, from the main viewpoint of Rentarou. The main theme of this series is “the three of us”, in which Rentarou, Sara and Souju face trials of everyday life as being the three of them, together. Sometimes funny, sometimes filled with sadness, they continually try to survive their everydays. The character development of these three are SO detailed, you might think Gainax helped ufotable in making this anime. Also, Futakoi Alternative seems to hit on anything anime culture had in store, including its [own->futagozuka] and some popular [anime->squid-no-jutsu]. Even Onsokumaru (some yellow ball character in ufotable’s 2×2 Shinobuden) is there in cameos. And as I mentioned, the numerous [Gainax->ufotable-and-gainax] references that seem too good to be true (even a Human Instrumentality Project parody was part of the plot).

This anime also has an incredibly interesting slew of new characters aside from our Futakoi girls. The whole town is filled with interesting people. The craziest policeman in an anime, as well as a generic fat sidekick, then a baker girl, a biker sidekick of Rentarou, a seemingly yakuza leader with a metal arm, and his gang of thugs really colorize this weird but peaceful town of Nikotama. Even a polar bear appears sometimes, and of course the main enemy which is the squid. Wait, are we missing the twins yet? [Kira/Yura->gothloli] and [Lulu/Lala->futagozuka] are the twins with secondary focus in this anime, while Kaoruko/Sumireko, Ai/Mai, and Ui/Koi were seen only in a few. While they have short appearances, theirs are quite meaningful in a variety of levels.

As episodes unfold, “the three of them” are starting to break up because something big is going to happen after Sara and Souju’s 16th birthday. This results in high levels of drama, where the three try to define what really is their relationship to each other. Rentarou, being the immature poor guy who only lived in the shadows of his legendary father, struggling through the everydays with the twins, is often in this monologue. This in effect develops him greatly as a character. This kind of character development is so detailed it’s rare, more so considering he is a male character. Normally we loathe all those dorky male leads in bishoujo animes right? Well well well, this time there’s something to like in this particular one at least.

Having action, comedy and drama in one package requires lots of creative styles, and Futakoi Alternative did not disappoint. From the consistent animation, each variety of [music->musical-surprise], and creative direction. Futakoi Alternative reeks of quality. Never thought something so “alternative” could be so good, and considering the cross-genre boundaries broken by this anime, I’ll be excited to think that anime shows may be getting more innovative these days. We need more anime like this.

This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature

Musical Surprise

There are some times when you feel awesomely about an anime character. Mostly, you feel awe when some shounen character makes some cool new action moves.

Me? I feel awe whenever I see an anime character play a musical instrument.

It’s just my own outlook, but whenever an anime character know some musical expertise, I feel like they put themselves out of character for a little while, and it’s cool. More especially, if I never saw that coming.

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 5:
Welcome anime's acoustic princess... Souju Shirogane
This is Souju in an entirely different aura. This scene of her playing a guitar seems so unbelievably sentimental. You can imagine how Alternative this anime is. One day they run around, do spying, cooking, and cosplaying gothlolis. Then here is Souju, playing guitar. According to the episode, the song is Daisy Fitzgerald’s Unitable Dream. Although I swore I have heard that kind of guitar pattern before, I never knew whether it was a rendition or an original. All I would realize is that in our real world, a novelist named F. Scott Fitzgerald had written a novel called The Great Gatsby, in which one of the main characters was apparently named Daisy.

Taken from Mahoraba 20:
Piano master Megumi Momono Violinist extraordinaire Sayoko Kurosaki
Now this is the surprise. Momono, yup that rowdy girl who drinks beer everyday… a pianist! And hear this… Sayoko, the incompetent and slow mother… a violinist! They played a classical music combo for a school festival… and they are nothing short of amazing! I could still understand Momono, having that sweet soft side at one point of the series, but heck Sayoko. She would have made a living with those l33t violin skillz! What a waste of talent.

It was pretty hard to get the name of their musical piece. Only by watching the scene n times did I realize that the announcer did state the name of the score. But it was pretty hard to make out because while the announcer was speaking, Mahiru’s genki maid was shouting! What did I get? Something that sounds like “Medilsohn”, “violin” and a number “64”. Thanks to [Bagle->]’s amazing search capabilities (hehe), I got directed to the real score… Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64!! Yay me!

Futagozuka

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 8

Cat vs. Crayfish... who loves Billy more?
More ~~curses~~ references from the first Futakoi. Remember Billy the goat? Yea, he was a great goat, he always fights with the lousy main guy of the first anime series.

Taken from Futakoi Alternative 6 and Futakoi 1

Apparently, Futakoi Alternative took funny reference to the first Futakoi series by leaving this special bit by Lulu and Lala:
creepily cute~~~~~ Sure!

And:
Futagozuka itself!

The original Futagozuka (Twins Mound) as shown in Futakoi:
Cursed?

Futakoi

From [Dengeki G’s->], which gave us the [Sister Princess->] and [Happy Lesson->] franchises, comes Futakoi. So, from sisters… to teachers… and now TWINS? With no less than 6 twins as characters, they will be built up much like virtual idols, having features at G’s Magazine, releasing multiple albums, merchandise, games, anime series, and maybe much more that I don’t know about (or wouldn’t want to).

The anime series focuses on introducing all of them, along with our usual dorky male lead always seen in similar harem anime series (they’re like a plague, really). The background story is about a town where mysteriously or coincidentally, many twins reside. There’s also a legend in the city involving twins, and a certain monument to remember that legend. We see the male lead returning to this homeland of his after some years, and meeting his childhood friends Kaoruko and Sumireko, who happens to be twins. Umm… promise twins, anime cliche just doubled. Of course there will be the cliched rivals as well, also twins. Add a handful more twins with levels of friendship and love towards our dorky male lead, and we get our typical harem anime, isn’t it?

Well, not exactly. While this really sounds typical, it’s fun. This anime is surprisingly well-paced. If you stuck with it beyond episode 4 you’ll be in for a treat. Character involvement, development, and actual plot moves up a notch with every episode that passes by. The main highlight is episode 12, with angst reaching [Kimi ga Nozomu Eien->] levels, and maybe beyond (well not too tragic). Of course, with a lot of twins vying for the love of a single person, it’s multiple times the expected angst. I didn’t see too much catfights within the twins themselves though, which was quite bummer, and thus made it lack realism a bit.

The animation is as bishoujo as it gets, although just a faint interpretation of the uber-amazing character illustrations and CGs that I have seen in scans of G’s Magazine. Like Sister Princess, animations are fine, but illustrations… superb. You’ll have to find them yourself because I won’t give any links, but I tell you it’s a worthy find. The OP seemingly doesn’t fit the series at first listen, one might even think it’s similar to RahXephon’s OP (well that’s my impression of it), but generally ok. The ED is fine too, and the rest of the BGM is quite forgettable but complements nonetheless.

The end is, as expected, not complete. Remember that this is a Dengeki G’s series, so they must milk the cash cow further otherwise Futakoi wouldn’t be called a franchise. The next Futakoi anime series, [Futakoi Alternative->], focuses on Souju and Sara. Nice… anyway I hope that there would be a continuation of this first Futakoi anime.

This is a [Summer of Bishoujo->] feature