Teizokurei Daydream OVA 1

July 4, 2004 | 5 Comments

In case you guys wonder why I haven't done a summary for any of the summer anime, it's because I can't seem to find one that I like. I am not a big fan of Samurai genre so that rules out Samurai Champloo and Samurai 7. Kurau Phantom Memory looks okay but the first two episodes didn't impress me and I can't seem to like any of the characters. The last time I got this kind of feeling was when I watched This Ugly and Beautiful World. And I still remember how that one went. So now if I watch a long-running series, I want to make sure that at the very least I like the characters. In the case that the story gone haywired somewhere down the line, at least I still have something that makes me want to continue watching the series until the end. That leaves me with, surprisingly, Teizokurei Daydream. To be honest, there is nothing Earth-shattering about this one. However, the storyline appeals to me and the characters are very endearing in my opinion. I actually want to check out the manga now to see where the storyline differs.

The story is basically about Misaki, a woman who moonlights as a paranormal investigator during daytime and works as a S&M Queen at night. In her day job, she is normally accompanied by Souichirou, a government agent who works at a department called 'livelihood counter-measured'. It is implied that the department specialises in paranormal activity and that Souichirou asks for Misaki's help from time to time to solve certain cases due to her ability to see apparitions of death people. This episode begins with Souchirou asking Misaki for her help in investigating a case where a woman and her daughter are killed inside an apartment. Rumour has it that the woman was abusive to her daughter. One day, she killed the little girl and then ended her own life. At first Misaki refuses because she just had a rough day and some jerk called Mitsuru has been sending unrelenting emails to her mobile phone.

However, when Souichirou trips over and accidentally rips her clothes in the middle of the road, she has no choice but to come to his car to change the clothes. Word of warning, this series contains lot of fanservice and most of them are R-rated but thankfully so far they never interrupt the storyline. Anyway, after considering the case, Misaki agrees to do it. Therefore, the two drives over to the apartment to take a look at the place. And it looks like Misaki arrives just in time because when she enters the house, a creep is trying to rape a high school girl called Ai inside the apartment. Unfortunately, the creep manages to run away. Not long after the incident, the girl explains to Misaki and Souichirou that she believes her sister and her little niece was killed by that man. Souichirou is surprised upon hearing this because the police report mentioned that the woman killed the child and then herself.

The next day, Misaki receives a bunch of photograph from the mysterious Mitsuru. The photographs are pictures of where the creep headed after he run away from the apartment. Later on, Mitsuru also sent a text message to Misaki's mobile telling her the hideout of the creep, who turns out to be a part of a local Yakuza. Because of this, Misaki, Souichirou and Ai come to an abandoned warehouse to find him. While Misaki and Ai confront the killer, Souichiro displays his remarkable fighting skills to the Yakuza's henchmen. Anyway, the creep eventually admits that he did killed the little girl but it was actually more like an accident. He was annoyed by the little girl and thoughtlessly swung her aside with his hand, instantly sending her to to her death. Ai is horrified when she finds out that despite the fact it was an accident, the creep really did wish for the death of her niece. However before Ai or Misaki can do anything, he decides to run out of the warehouse.

Ai then ends up following him to the pier while Misaki has to fight one of the creep's henchmen. Misaki all of a sudden lifts up her skirt to reveal a lasso-like entity that nestled onto the sides of her legs. Upon her command, the entity, which is called Kimu, strangles the henchman until he falls unconscious. Misaki seems to have a hard time controlling the entity afterwards but eventually manages to tell the entity to stop strangling the guy. Together with Souichirou, Misaki then follows Ai to the pier. When they got there, Ai is seen in a confrontation with the creep. Angered by the creep's unrepenting attitude towards the accidental murder of her niece, Ai unwittingly unleashed her ESP-like power on the man which causes him to get fried alive. Ai then gets to see the apparition of her sister and her niece bidding goodbye to her. The episode ends with a revelation that Ai recognises Mitsuru Fujiwara as one of her classmates.

Impression:

This is quite an interesting first episode for an OVA series. There are already many questions imposed by the episode. To begin with, how did Misaki got her power and what is Kimu? Then there is the mystery of the department where Souichirou works and the sort of jobs that he undertakes. Ai, who I originally thought is going to be a peripheral characters also turned out to be one of the principal characters with her own mysterious ability. Finally, there is the mysterious Mitsuru, who seems to have a lot of interest in Misaki beyond her usual gig as a S&M Queen. The series seems to walk a fine line between horror and comedy and strangely it does a good job at it so far. The chemistry between Misaki and Souichirou is spot on. Souichirou is a rather funny character. He has a cool martial arts skill and can take multitude of thugs easily. But he's a scaredy when it comes to dealing with ghosts.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with the way the storyline have been presented thus far. This is probably one of the few series where I can laugh at the comedy in one minute then feel sorry for the characters not long after that. The animation is quite good although I wish I can see more fight movements as opposed to blurry wind sketch lines during Souichirou's fight scenes. The character design is not bad either and the SD moments worth a snicker or two. In fact, I'm still LOL-ing over several scenes in the episode. Bear in mind though that the series contains a lot of fanservice. Having said that, I strangely don't react in volatile manner this time around. Probably because most of the time the fanservice are either for comedy or to support the storyline. They also never get in the way of the plot unlike the ones shown in This Ugly and Beautiful World.

© memento 2003