October 30, 2005

My Secret Shame

I have to admit this. Lord knows I've tried to conceal it, but I can no longer hide my... SECRET SHAME.

I really like the anime series "Please Twins."

If you haven't seen it, it's what I'd call a typical Anime Plotline (tm). To whit:

Our hero, Maiku, is an orphan. He has a picture of him and... someone else, perhaps his long-lost sister, and in the background, a house. He moves into the house and begins to work part-time as a computer programmer while going to school.

But then, his quiet life alone is interrupted by the arrival of Miina, an energetic redhead who has her OWN copy of the photograph and announces that she must be Maiku's sister (they even have the same color eyes)! Shock and surprise!

But then... later, there's a knock on the door. They open the door, and we meet Karen, a shy quiet girl... but only for a second, because she passes out when she sees Maiku and Miina (Karen's a sensitive lass, and neither of them have much in the way of clothing on; she's wearing pajamas, he was pulled out of the tub by the knocking)! As you could probably guess, KAREN has a copy of the picture as well, and SHE has the same color eyes to boot. THREE twins???

The two girls are both orphans as well, of course, and there's no way of knowing from the picture which one is Maiku's sister. With no family in his past, he wouldn't even THINK about tossing them out of his house... he feels responsible for them, being somewhat self-sufficient, and ONE of them IS his sister. Over the course of 12 episodes, their relationship coalesces, with both girls slowly falling for Maiku, but not really being able to do anything about it... "We might be related" is something we hear EVERY episode (my biggest annoyance of the show). He cares strongly for both of them in return, with the same problem.

Eventually, we find out which girl is Maiku's twin and which will be able to confess her love, and while it sounds really kinda dumb, when it finally is revealed which is which, it's handled very well, to the point where one could imagine such a resolution actually occurring.

But there's a catch: the girls become like sisters to each other, and while they both want to know who's Maiku's sister, they realize that when that happens, their friendship will change, and perhaps not for the better. Again, handled very well, and pretty believable.

As this is a sequel of sorts to the better-known "Onegai Teacher," some of the characters from that series show up in "Please Twins," including Mizuho-sensei and her 'husband,' as well as Marie, her starship's computer/Pockyholic.

It's not a great series, but I really like it... to the point that I've managed to collect 20 or so of the random figures of two sets of toys for the show, PLUS the whole range of toys from ANOTHER "Please" series that's only coming out in audiobook form... in JAPANESE, so I won't be knowing THAT story anytime soon.

If you're not in the mood for mecha or violence from your anime, and you ARE in the mood to laugh, I'd say give PLEASE TWINS a try. But for god's sake, don't EVER watch the OAV for the series (aka episode 13). It's horrid; everything that was wrong about the regular series is multiplied 10 times over in the OAV.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:19 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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