Tetsuwan Birdy Decode

While pursuing an alien fugitive, Birdy Cephon Altera—a bombastic police officer from the Space Federation—finds herself on Earth. Her target, Geega, has disguised himself as a human and assimilated into the fashion industry, so Birdy follows suit and joins a modeling agency, taking on the identity "Shion Arita." Her position as a rising model has her posing for photo shoots by day and chasing intergalactic criminals by night.

Meanwhile, Tsutomu Senkawa, an average high school student, explores an abandoned building with his friend, and coincidentally, Birdy has tracked down Geega to the same building. Senkawa briefly witnesses the battle before being seized as a hostage by Geega. However, Birdy, oblivious, attacks Geega and accidentally kills Senkawa. Distraught, she quickly decides to save him by integrating his consciousness into her body.

Now, Birdy and Senkawa must not only cohabitate the same body, but also balance Senkawa's high school life, Shion Arita's modeling career, and Birdy's increasingly dangerous job as a Federation officer.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Altera, Birdy Cephon Main

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Senkawa, Tsutomu Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Nakasugi, Sayaka Main

Sakamoto, Maaya Japanese

Tuto Supporting

Kawada, Shinji Japanese

Muroto, Keisuke Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Gomez, George Supporting

Ishizuka, Unshou Japanese

Thetis, Capella Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Megius, Paul Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Scherzo Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Shyamalan, Satyajit Supporting

Suzumura, Kenichi Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Izubuchi, Yutaka Producer

Ochikoshi, Tomonori Producer

Minami, Masae Producer

Reviews

Jan 21, 2022

lamaraptor

Recommended

I thought this was going to be a rehash of the original OVA, but I didn't know going into it that there are actually two versions of the manga as well. The original OVA was based on the older manga, while this one is based on the new series that fleshed out the story a bit more and added some new characters.

I've got some question. Why is M. Night Shyamalan the villain? Were they trying to say that there was going to be a twist ending? Was the twist that he died? He was so convinced that he was creating a perfect society and that ... he would be chosen for it but he was literally the first person to die.

I wasn't really having much fun with this series, it was more of a chore to watch than anything. The ending song slaps, but the rest was pretty mediocre. Needs more Shion Arata and less Birdy alien stuff. 7/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 6, 2024

Szandor

Mixed Feelings

After watching the 90's OVA and finding it pretty good I naturally wanted to watch this as well. The OVA only has 4 episodes so I hoped for a bit more of the same, even though this seemed like a reboot rather than a continuation. Sadly, this series just doesn't cut it and I'm pretty disappointed in it. So what makes this a worse watch than the OVA? Well...

- Story & Theme
The main story has altered, but overall it's the same theme and setting. That's not really a problem, the new story isn't worse or better than the original, and though the story isn't the ... best I've seen it's not too bad either. The body switching problems gets a bit more screentime since there is more time here to address it, but it's still not the main focus of the story and that's fine.

- Characters & Writing
Wow, they really dropped the ball on this one. The characters and the writing for them was great in the OVA, but here we're reduced to seeing the usual tropes and blandness we've seen a hundred times before. The dialogue and behaviour is predictable and cookie cutter and there are no real characters anymore, just vessels for the story. The antagonists parents were a great part of the OVA, but here they go away first thing that happens and while his sister stays behind she doesn't add anything or have a persona beyond "assertive sister". The same can be said for the others; character interaction or development simply isn't a thing in this, only archetypes and tropes. The biggest letdown compared to the OVA for sure.

- Graphics & Style
This too feels like a step back compared to the OVA. The animation is only really fluid when it comes to a few 3D animated scenes, but movements and other animations are choppy and dull. The style is also bland and lacks personality and even the cinematography is boring. It's the bare minimum paint-by-numbers style one can expect from something that isn't obviously bad, but it never really rises above that.

- Music & Sound
Not too bad over all, but the opening and ending themes sound as if they're the same music that's in every other anime from this time. Again, bland and forgettable.

- Conclusion
The whole series seems low effort and if you enjoyed the OVA you will probably not enjoy this. I can see people liking it, but it's really not my cup of tea. It's bland, easily digestible and done more to a formula than it is a labor of love and art. I'd have loved to see a reboot or continuation in the same style as the OVA, but I can't really recommend this as anything but something to watch in the background while you do other things. It's not bad, but it isn't really good either. Watch it or don't. My rating is a solid "meh".

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Feb 25, 2022

Gsarthotegga

Not Recommended

After the original Birdy series was abandoned, the author returned to write a new Birdy series, which Birdy the Mighty: Decode is an adaptation of. The gist of it is more or less the same, but Decode is completed. Although the rating on MAL is pretty decent, I remember this being a series with a fairly lukewarm reception back when it came out—at least the first season, and i can see why.

It starts off well enough. A typical sci-fi action/adventure that sometimes looks merely okay or a bit generic, but the production values shift rapidly to be something more awe inspiring. There's a lot ... of great key animation here, especially coming alive during the numerous action sequences. The problem with a number of "sakuga fests" is that, like Naruto, it's not uncommon for them to be like dumpster dives where you end up swimming through banana peels and sludge, but you at least find a few nice items--in this case, animation--that (hopefully) makes the tedious and/or gross experience worthwhile. Fortunately, all of these slices of nice animation are presented in an isolated format for your viewing pleasure on Youtube, so while dumpster diving may lead to some unique finds, you can forego the diving part and just get right to the good stuff when it comes to anime. Is BM: D like that? Sort of... it's not a slog like Naruto or Bleach or some LONG shounen. It has nice qualities, but it's definitely flawed.

To begin with, it has one of those storylines following an intergalactic police organization. There are many different races populating various far-flung planets, most of which seem far more advanced than earth. Nothing wrong with it as a concept. Though I've personally never seen it pulled off in a truly great way. Birdy tracks down several alien criminals to earth, and while the story doesn't differentiate itself from your average sci-fi anime much, hunting down Geega and Bacillus is quite entertaining, the fights have immense energy and dynamism, the story is well-paced for about 3-4 eps, and there's a mystery slowly unravelling, almost like a detective story.

Then it goes off the rails. Senkawa and Birdy are fused, which leads to an interesting dynamic between the two, but it feels squandered since most of the runtime switches between the main sci-fi plot, and then to the slow dump that is the school-based slice of life segments. Obviously we're going to have school life segments if the two are sharing the same body, but the writing is nothing exceptional in these parts and the pacing is atrocious. Many segments seem like filler. For example, when Senkawa is not present for Nakasugi's party, and we're presented to several scenes... there's really no point to these parts.

The same for the urban exploration scenes. I'm not one of those people who constantly nags if something isn't integral to the plot, but it needs to have interesting thematics or ideas, develop the character in some way, etc. This is literally just padding in almost all instances here. Another awkward bit is how Senkawa's classmates are pestering him to continue with the urban exploration club that Senkawa started in the first place. It might have made sense to introduce this AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW INSTEAD. I mean, we all know what Senkawa is up to at the beginning, and it wouldn't make the fact that the building he randomly picks to explore happens to have a criminal space alien and Birdy--to clumsily advance the plot--any less ridiculous, but still... most of the subplots are also very sloppy, and though the information we learn from these scenes eventually fleshes out aspects of the story, they don't feel well integrated. What is even the point in the serial killer subplot in the subways?! (I'll concede that this might have had a purpose that I missed, but it didn't seem like it did, other than for Capella to have a quick run-in with Birdy and introduce herself to Shyamalan; they could have easily done this without that subplot.)

The villain is basically an Indian version (he looks exactly like every other character, just with darker skin. lol) of Bill Gates, who wants to depopulate the planet, of course, though he poses it as selecting between the "chosen" versus the "chaff," or whatever epithet you prefer--sort of accelerating evolution. This seems to be the no. 1 go to choice when an author doesn't know what to do with his villain. I feel like this is practically every other anime villain nowadays. It's not even a spoiler to confirm that he ends up being the chaff as well, because that's what ALWAYS happens, so the creator can smugly be like "Ha, look at my good boy characters triumphing over this narcissistic elitist eugenicist." I don't know whether to sigh or yawn.

There is also some definite filler when it comes to the sci-fi side of the coin: when Birdy heads back to headquarters, she is embroiled in a conspiracy involving a race of... dog people who are rebelling against the Federation. It has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot, though it introduces a few new characters. Most of the aliens look really, really stupid. Almost the entire show could have just as easily remained on earth, and the only parts we really needed from here would be a quick court sequence and a bit of exposition, the introduction of Nechia Geeze, and a few choice sequences, and we would be better off.

Although there are some enjoyable moments, and occasionally good chemistry between Birdy and the main, a decent opening, etc., it's really the great fight scenes that are the main attraction. Do the surrounding scenes enhance these fight scenes because of character motivation and emotions? Eh... not much, tbh. There are really only 4 or so especially good fight scenes. Aside from the opening action, there is the fight with Geega, two fights with Bacillus, and the fight with Ondine. Other than that, there's some crappy stuff with the dog people... then the ending sequence is good, but it's anti-climatic as an action sequence. If season 2 is better as a series overall in comparison to season 1, then this might be worth trudging through. It's just a pretty average and inconsistent series when there are so many better ones out there. Most of the necessary components for this to succeed are there, it just needed a better writer, I think.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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