DENNOU COIL

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA AdventureDennou Coil

REVIEWS

• 

  Popka

  100/100
  Not very tightly written, but brilliant in every other respect

  You could call it a modern day ghost story, a sci-fi adventure, or a conspiratorial mystery. All of these labels apply equally to Dennou Coil, and all arise from the combination of widespread change and personal loss that takes place in the show.

  Dennou Coil takes place in Daikoku City, a city covered in an experimental layer of cyberspace that can be accessed through the use of augmented reality glasses. The unforeseen risks presented by this new technology soon collide with the cultural shift it creates, and childish games become linked to dangerous conspiracies.

  The cast of Dennou Coil consists of a group of children who are all familiar with the use of the glasses. As is the case with a lot of technology in real life, they've already discovered many uses for them other than what was originally intended. They've built a whole culture around manipulating the cyberspace. They've made and accumulated their own urban legends, ways to litigate and settle conflicts, and even a form of currency.

  The urban legends stem from mysterious bugs in the cyberspace called "illegals", artificial creatures that can corrupt and delete the data kept online. The first ten episodes of the show are centered around exploring all the different possibilities presented by their incipient culture and how it interacts with different characters' personalities. The last twelve episodes reveal the characters' backgrounds and forms a plot around what brought them together and how everything they've been through relates to the origins of Daikoku City's urban legends.

  Each character has suffered some kind of personal loss, and much of the show follows them learning to move on from that loss or helping others to do the same. The show draws a parallel between moving on from loss and the transition from one culture into a new one. While the show has several adult characters whose jobs involve the use of the cyberspace, the show for the most part depicts a generational divide. In general, the adults don't see the new technology the way the children who grew up with it do. They see it as a passing fad, another distraction from reality that kids have taken up for entertainment.

  The transition isn't easy because people of older and newer generations struggle to discuss their problems in a way that both sides can understand. They come from different worlds. The children can't fully comprehend the stakes they're dealing with, which is dangerous; the adults can't fully comprehend the ways in which the children have adapted the technology not just to entertain themselves, but to deepen their relationships and broaden their horizons. As it is with the characters who can't move on from their losses, there's some resistance in the whole culture to leaving the past behind and accepting the conditions of the present. However, until everyone can, the potential for new ways of living can't be realized.

  The show has tons of visual tricks to simulate the fusion of the physical and digital worlds. Virtual objects are rendered with subtle differences from the physical objects depicted around them. The creator and director of the show is a man named Mitsuo Iso, who animated key sequences in Ghost in the Shell, End of Evangelion, and FLCL. In his other work, we see characters moving in heavy, unwieldy ways, ways that really make us think about the task of controlling one's body in physical space. While Iso didn't animate all of Dennou Coil, his emphasis on bodily struggle and control makes a good point of comparison for things we see throughout the show. The camera will often pan quickly toward something but overshoot it a little and adjust. One of my favorite pieces of character animation ever (which is not by Iso) is in the second half of the show, where one character's whole body heaves repeatedly as they try to talk through their tears. These elements introduce into the show the concept of how difficult it can be for children to control themselves when a situation demands it.

  Perhaps the show's biggest weakness is that it uses a lot of its own terminology. The show's dialogue contains a lot of made-up words used to describe the virtual world, and although every term is thoroughly explained, they're used so often that it becomes vital to remember what each one means to make sense of some scenes.

  Dennou Coil starts out as one of the more creative sci-fi adventures out there, with sympathetic characters and cool visuals that never fall short of their purpose. It goes on to become the kind of mystery with so many facets that it seems impossible for them all to be tied off by the end, but they are. If either of these things sound interesting to you, you should give this one a shot.

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• 

  GreenRevue

  80/100
  Dennou Coil is a classic, crafting a thoroughly intriguing sci-fi setting and plot without forgetting emotional payoff

  Dennou Coil is a great show, feeling unique and like a mesh of both the sci-fi and fantasy genres in some ways (in terms of feel), it crafts an incredibly interesting and well realised world and mystery plot. Very ahead of its time conceptually, yet also unafraid to leap out of the constraints its concept and genre might pose to explore a more entertaining direction for its characters and plotting. Thematically its dive into digital technologies such as AR and the internet, using its Dennou glasses, not only crafted the interesting world and felt ahead of its time for its ideas alone, but felt like it understood the split between physical and digital reality well and explored it with subtlety, also including ideas such as escapism and conspiracies spreading.

  The aesthetic is very likable, very early 2000s, but still plenty unique for that period, with strong Honda character designs and a muted grey aesthetic that worked very strongly for its particular world, accented well throughout and switched up into different colours such as yellow and blue/ greens (though remaining consistent palette-wise) when needed for great effect. The strength of the shows overall design also meant this muted aesthetic was utilised to its fullest, with its glitch effects, fog, shadows, and other key design choices and 3D uses meshing well.

  

  The animation is also very good, rarely feeling stiff, and opting for its own style of weight and shape utilising the character designs. I mean you wouldn't expect bad animation from a show helmed by an animator as prolific as Mitsuo Iso (I point in the direction of the Asuka fight in End of Evangelion for the main example of his work that comes to mind for me). I also really like the OP for this, which like plenty of the rest of the show has great camera work, further showing Iso and staff know how to modulate weight and shape.

  ^^^charismatic character animation (from the OP), one of many instances.

  
  ^^^Only a small snippet of the clip I wanted to show, but still kind of illustrates the camera movement adding weight to already tangible animation. Have spoiler tagged this one, as it's a 1 second clip and I don't want it looping and giving anyone a headache etc. It is from the OP, not a spoiler.

  Of course Mitsuo Iso is not just great at animating, this script was his own too, an original project. I've already mentioned how incredible the world, concepts, themes, and mysteries of this gem are, but the characters and plot also have plenty of heart to them.

  The first half is slowly paced and feels more like a slice of life set in this unique world, following the antics of these kids, with mysteries and plot points unfolding in the background. This could turn some off, and at first I was a little unsure about it, but it ultimately felt essential to crafting the characters, and showing the ways in which the technologies have been integrated into their ways of life and all the positives and negatives and so forth this entails. Its' really quite hard to explain how interesting this first half actually feels in retrospect unless you've seen it. It's brand of slice of life and context.

  The second half begins to dive more into the complex lore and mysteries of the world (plus characters and their emotions). It sometimes felt overwhelming to me, and several times I got frustrated at how often it dived into expository technobabble sequences, followed by more expository sequences which added things yet also left previous things with more question marks. However, the plotting comes together quite neatly at the end, and the frustration of the story's complexity feels pretty necessary. Technobabble is probably a bad word to use actually, as each show-specific word had direct meaning attached to it by the end and very clear relevance.

  The second half not only ramps up the plots but dives more into specific characters and their motivations and pasts. Isako and Yasako are particularly great characters with exceptional writing, but I won't go into too much detail, in part because its hard to explain, but also to avoid spoilers. Many other characters are also present throughout the show, and all play their part and role in the whole, with several having interesting stories of their own, such as Harakawa. A lot is shrouded in mystery throughout the show when it comes to most of the characters, and it all unravels very satisfyingly by the end. The more I think about the show the more I like it haha.

  Overall, despite some complaints around its pacing and narrative style, this show was not only unbelievably interesting in so many ways (world, visuals, themes, characters, and unfolding mysteries), but ended on a strong emotional note. That emotional note, while not fully hitting as much as I wanted, likely due to a disconnect caused by the density of (arguably pretty brilliant) plotting and exposition that occurred right beforehand, still hit quite strongly and impressed.

  I highly recommend this show. It's just so interesting and unravels everything very nicely in the end despite some frustrations, yet is also more than just 'interesting'.

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• 

  RebelPanda

  84/100
  An underlooked gem that everyone should watch.

  Taking place in a surprisingly plausible future, Dennou Coil's story revolves around a group of kids struggling to grow up in the first generation of a society influenced by the introduction of AR glasses. The glasses open up another side of reality, not unlike a child's imagination brought to life.

  The show’s shy and squirrelly protagonist Yuuko Okonogi moves to a new city to live with her grandmother, accompanied by her younger sister and her AR dog. On her first day in town, she encounters a high-strung but good-intentioned girl named Fumie. She’s a talented hacker who's skilled at using the tool known as metatags and at avoiding the big red smiling robots known as searchamatons (or sachis) who serve as antivirus for the virtual side. The sachis zap away anything they find in outdated E-Spaces, which makes them an enemy to the kids. Soon we learn she is one of the members of the hacker group known as Coil Denno Investigation Agency. Coincidentally the agency is run by Yuuko’s grandmother.

  Yuuko meets the members of the energetic kids that make up this group and hacking shenanigans ensue. The mood is very fun and goofy for the first half of the show. Some may say the initial twelve episodes are filler because they do little to progress the plot forward. I'd call them slice-of-life. It’s a good kind of SOL because of attention to small details and gradual character development. I quite liked the irreverent slice of life and comedy that populates the first half of the series. The drama during the second half is an intense shift after getting used to the comfy everyday life. If you’re not totally engaged by the halfway point, stick with it.

  The world of Dennou Coil inspires imagination in a similar way as Made in Abyss. If I was a kid living in Daikako city like Yuuko, I’d want to search for the city’s currency ‘metabugs’ with my friends and run from sachis just like the characters in the show do. Not unlike running from our parents to have a few more minutes to be outside to look for treasure.

  While Dennou Coil is targeted at kids, it treats its audience intelligently with attention to detail and thought-provoking themes. There’s a fair bit of passive commentary on how we interact with technology to keep you engaged through the first half. In the second half, the show’s messages are placed in the forefront so they hit with maximum impact during the satisfying conclusions of the show’s greatest arcs. The way we see Yuuko and her sister with their beloved pet AR dog evoke the idea of what the difference between artificial and real is. When Yuuko's mother struggles to understand why she can love a fake dog, the generation gap becomes clear.

  The whole augmented reality aspect of the show is developed well to become easily understood. Just through seeing characters use the tech and try to troubleshoot when they run into any number of problems that result in their experimenting with it shows how interwoven it is in their society. Like all good science fiction, it is clear this world is affected by advanced technology.

  My main point of contention with the story’s structure is the way it cuts off abruptly at the end of each episode. It almost never felt like an episode concluded in a satisfying way. Usually, characters would be cut off mid-conversation then the ending credits and opening credits would follow, and finally the conversation would pick up right where it left off. This wasn’t a huge issue because I binged it, but it hindered the flow of some important conversations. Also, the pace is as I've already mentioned, slow early on. This will bother viewers who aren't too interested in the themes or funny slice of life stuff, but it didn't bother me personally.

  When Dennou Coil released, it flopped. It looks childish and the poster art has quite a muted color palette. The characters themselves are full of energy and have well-defined personalities—so all I have to say is don't judge a book by its cover. There's enough depth to them for you to be able to explain why they act the way they do, what makes up their minor dispositions and mannerisms. For example; the main character has a past of being bullied so it's not surprising that she's shy and closed off.

  Sometimes they do act a bit too mature or too intelligent to be real kids, but when considering the environment they grew up in I can look past these small grievances. With a cast as large as this, it was inevitable we wouldn't see huge changes in them as the story progresses. The story and setting are what get the most development in the show, thankfully they're good enough to make up for the lack of stellar character progression. While the main handful of characters are memorable enough, the minors ones stand out as well because they all have their own distinct mannerisms and expressions.

  Including the character art, the show looks great. Madhouse outdid themselves. To say Dennou Coil is easy on the eyes would be an understatement. Even though it was released over a decade ago it looks better than most shows we see today. The show’s subdued color palette eases you into the mellow tone. This isn’t like the adrenaline-infused color explosion we’d see nowadays for the standard kid-targeted comedies, it’s melancholic but uplifting, slow but engaging, it's even fair to call it even unkempt. Yet in spite of its appearance, it's so realistic.

  Even the opening and ending songs follow this trend of taking care of your senses. The opening especially is foreboding and layered with symbolism that the show gradually reflects with time. Its melancholy song does swell as it goes to become uplifting, inspiring hope for this seemingly bleak future. As for the rest of the soundtrack, it’s quite good. For the most part, it’s just easygoing and simplistic. Sometimes songs only consist of a single acoustic guitar or just piano.

  Dennou Coil isn’t an action show, but the action it has is beautifully done. The moments where the kids had to escape the sachis were exhilarating thanks to the fluid visuals. It was during these moments that the show uses (visually appealing) CGI quite frequently, but in a creative way that deserves praise. A majority of the augmented reality is in CGI as well as the robots that moderate the digital realm. This difference between visual styles might sound jarring, but in actuality, the CGI does a good job of showing what’s digital and what’s real. While looking quite impressive. To complement the fantastic action, the show’s sound effects are impactful and visceral.

  Dennou Coil is a fantastic blend of the in-depth sci-fi, childlike imagination, and fluidly animated visuals you'd expect of a Ghibli film. It lulled me into its mellow atmosphere with subdued colors, misty visuals, and seamless world-building.

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