Dennou Coil

In the near future, augmented reality has become a key part of daily life. A gentle middle school girl named Yuuko "Yasako" Okonogi and her family have just moved to Daikoku City despite rumors of people disappearing. There, her grandmother, nicknamed "Mega-baa," runs a shop called Megasia that specializes in illegal tools which interact with parts of the virtual world.

Mega-baa also hosts an unofficial detective agency called "Coil," a group of children around Yasako's age who find and handle corruption of the virtual world. Yasako gets involved with the group when Fumie Hashimoto, a playful member of Coil, helps rescue her cyberdog Densuke after getting trapped in virtual space while chasing a mysterious virus. Also investigating these corruptions and viruses is an abrasive hacker named Yuuko Amasawa, who the others take to calling Isako.

Can Coil discover the truths behind the mysterious viruses and corruption, and if they can, at what cost?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amasawa, Yuuko Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Okonogi, Yuuko Main

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Harakawa, Kenichi Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Hashimoto, Fumie Main

Kojima, Sachiko Japanese

Sawaguchi, Daichi Main

Saitou, Rie Japanese

Densuke Supporting

Asou, Tomohisa Japanese

Oyaji Supporting

Yada, Kouji Japanese

Sacchi Supporting

Megabaa Supporting

Suzuki, Reiko Japanese

Mojos Supporting

Maruyama, Masao Producer

Matsumoto, Hisako Producer

Kunisaki, Hisanori Assistant Producer

Shioura, Masakazu Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jul 28, 2009

Venneh

Recommended

TITLE: Dennou Coil

ANIME: Dennou Coil was directed by Mitsuo Iso (well known for his key animation work on early Ghibli movies and Neon Genesis Evangelion) and was produced by Madhouse (well-known for their work on Death Note and Paranoia Agent). It ran on Japanese TV from May 12th, 2007 till December 1st, 2007 and, as of the time of this writing, has not been licensed Stateside.

STORY: The year is 2026, eleven years after the technology to turn the internet into augmented reality by the use of immersive "cyberglasses" was developed. Yuko "Yasako" Okonogi, a young girl in sixth grade, moves to Daikoku City, ... the center of the technology behind the glasses, and is strongarmed by her grandmother into joining her "investigation agency", composed of children with powerful illegal software codes and tools. On her first day in town, she runs into Yuko "Isako" Amasawa, a cold, aloof master hacker chasing a mystery in Daikoku City, that will soon involve both Yukos and their friends...

Dennou Coil is probably one of the best shows I've watched in a good long time. This show has been in development for about ten years, and with the incredible subtlety of this entire show, I can believe it. Every aspect of the technology, how the world works, and every tiny detail that one can think of for this blends together to make the world seem incredibly believable, if not possible in just a few years' time. It's just futuristic enough to seem amazing, yet grounded enough in reality to seem incredibly possible.

The plot and characters in this are incredibly well-constructed as well. Characters are slowly developed through various interactions and their relationships to others in episodes, and even though characters may not take a prominent role for a few episodes, they're always there in the background. And the plot itself is intricately woven; the smallest details from the earliest episodes, which seem like throwaways, come back to play in full force in the last half of the show. The first third of the show establishes the basics of the world and characters, then comes a brief filler arc that slowly brings things to the fore, and then the last third of the show takes everything that's come before and takes it into far darker places than everything up until this point would have you believe was possible. The final episodes of the show are probably some of the darkest I've seen in a show aimed towards a younger audience to date, but, regardless, resolve amazingly well.

ART: Dennou Coil has a bit simpler character design than other shows that Madhouse has done; the kids and adults are a bit more angular, and are a bit less intricately designed than, say, characters from Death Note. However, their traditional realism shows through in the interaction of the virtual environment and the real environment; incredible amounts of detail are put into the various software codes and tools that the children use, along with how they manifest (and yes, some will call similarities on some of the patterns that show in the hackers' codings and the arrays in Fullmetal Alchemist, but really, let's not be nitpicky here).

MUSIC: The background music for this series doesn't particularly stand out, but, regardless, is a well-done score, and worth a listen to. The OP and ED are done by the same singer, Ayako Ikeda, and are some of the best opening and ending songs I've heard in a long while, the OP and its eerieness in general especially.

SEIYUU: Fumiko Orikasa (well-known for her roles in Hellsing as Seras and in Saikano as Chise) takes a starring role in this as Yasako and does an incredible job in the role. Otherwise, all the other seiyuu in this production do a solid job.

LENGTH: Dennou Coil was meticulously planned, I think, to be just the right length; not too long, so that it wouldn't drag, but not too short, so that there wouldn't be information overload. No complaints here, in general, a wonderful job in planning - then again, ten years in development does that to a show.

OVERALL: One of the best shows that I've seen in a good long time, with incredible amounts of detail, and well-constructed plots and characters, and solid background music, art, and seiyuu.

An underappreciated gem of the 2007 season; watch it.

STORY: 10/10
ART: 9/10
MUSIC: 9/10
SEIYUU: 9/10
LENGTH: 10/10

OVERALL: 47/50; 94% (A)

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Oct 17, 2020

lifemare

Mixed Feelings

Interesting story and concept, but very bland execution.

Characters are dull, ranging between being annoying (Kyoko) to lifeless (Yuuko, Kenichi, Denpa), with very little in between. The art, while pleasant on the scenery, is very ugly here giving characters somewhat simian features with horrible pear-shaped heads and ape-like snouts. Only one characters stands out (Megabaa), and it's not for its beauty either. I won't mind a show with visually unappealing characters, but it just adds to the dissatisfaction and when so much of the show revolves around their feelings that stands as an obstacle against relating to them. Were there many redeeming features elsewhere this would've ... been a non-issue.

Then there's the one antagonist, the Searchy (Sacchi) which is constantly showing up to fire lasers at everything, parroting its one line in a horribly annoying voice, designed like a cheap children's toy, little more than a bloated knock-off Mr. Potato Head that never really poses any perceivable threat to the characters, who often just run around a corner to escape it. Again, just bland and uninspired.

The main problem with this show I'd say is its length. It would've been a much better paced and engaging narrative if its interesting parts had been more condensed. Instead it draws out what feels like 10 episodes worth of material into 26, replaying dream sequences and flashbacks over and over and having characters constantly engaging in long retrospective dialogues (retelling their feelings about what happened on screen) or introspective monologues which add almost nothing to the story and don't really inform the viewer on anything except perhaps the character's motivations and state of mind - which are often too predictable to matter and end up feeling like filler.

All this results in a very unimpressive and unmemorable show. I'd actually seen it before and re-watched it with little more than a slight sense of deja vu on a few occasions.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 24, 2008

thefunkhunter

Not Recommended

Denno Coil in my opinion is not a good anime and I cannot recommend the series so therefore it gets a very low 4 rating.

The story borrows heavily from full metal alchemists and the collection of kirabugs to open up to the "otherside" is completely unoriginal.

The art is great in the way it combines cg and cartoon seamlessly however, the colors are not vibrant and the drawings are a bit 2d looking and plain.

Sound is nothing special voice acting is average and the soundtrack is poor despite a great opening theme song.

Characterization has some depth and it tries to be complex, however, one of ... the main characters is the dog, densuke. He is a great character but unfortunately is hardly in the tv-series, he plays a major part later on, but the tv series would of been much better if he played a bigger role throughout.

Overall, I found the series to drag throughout its slow pace and uneventful tv series. The final 3 episiodes are good and emotional, but the characterization is so undercooked that the impact is significantly less impactful than it should have been. I would recommend the final 3 episodes, but the rest of the series was a bore.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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