Figyua 17 Tsubasa & Hikaru (2001-2002) Reviews

Figure 17 is the cute story about a little girl who gets parasitized by an alien who takes her form, stays on her house, eats part of her food, pretends to be her twin, is part of the brainwash of her father to make him think he always had two daughters, becomes better than her at everything at school while becoming more popular there, and makes her fight against horrible dangerous monsters.

There’s this little precious Tsubasa Shiina, a shy and rather quiet girl with clear problems to socialize and lack of self-esteem partly because of the loss of her mother, her dad being away almost all day at work and almost absent for her, and because she recently moved on to a new place and school. She bumps into a crashed spaceship where some eggs of extraterrestrial monsters hatch and scatter over Hokkaido, they fed off of it and evolve that way. At the same time she accidentally fuses with an alien weapon/battle armor/life form thing to fight them, which out of battle takes her form, and thus she begins to live on her house as her new twin sister, Hikaru.

How is any of that cute you may ask? Because of the way it’s presented. Let’s clarify that this show is a cutesy and relaxing slice of life and coming of age story first, and a sci-fi action monster of the week series after. The focus is clearly placed on how Tsubasa no longer feels lonely thanks to her new more optimistic, energetic and extrovert sister who is always by her side, cares for her and encourages her to talk to others, get new friends, try more things, and be more confident with herself, while also fights alongside her and protects her from the aliens they face. Since their father is a baker and they live in a farm, the first thing they learn together is to make some breads and cakes and all that stuff, while also stuff about different animals, particularly cows. Then at school they go to class together, practice and compete in sports together, and rehearse and later star on a stage play together, that kind of usual stuff.

As the series goes on, however, after a tragic event, where the more cynical view of the situation which I began this review with gets acknowledged and addressed, and with the acknowledgment of their inevitable parting once all the monsters are defeated, both girls will be a little more apart of each other and Tsubasa will effectively learn to be more sufficient by herself and less dependent of Hikaru.

But how does the action sci-fi part of the show fits in? Well that’s the thing, initially it doesn’t, it feels tacked on and it even drops the overall quality of the show actually, since those monsters are just horrible things with zero dimensions of personality to them, which exist just to be killed on each episode. Not only that but the fights, despite having some battle choreography and strategies to them, usually start with alien policeman D.D getting defeated, and get resolved by Hikaru convincing Tsubasa to not be scared of the opponents, and they defeat them with one punch, even when the more experienced characters couldn’t win.

Fortunately this appear to have been realized on the writing room at some point, and as the show goes on, the monsters keep evolving and sharing information with the others, gaining new characteristics and forcing the heroes to face them together, form new strategies and use new weapons in order to win, by the end of the show no alien can be defeated by the girls all by themselves, they have to fight alongside the two veteran space police officers in order to win, even survive.

But that’s just an improvement action wise, how it ends up connecting with the main plot? Well, first, by having D.D and the later introduced other officer Oldina have a little, but very little, lives on Earth on their own as well while they gather information about their enemies. Second, by having them changing a little from their cold initial attitude to be more comprehensible and respectful of the things the two sisters go through the show, even letting them out of a few fights and having a few instances where they take the monsters on their own. Although short lived, it was a very welcomed change to have the two veteran space police officers be the ones to kill the aliens. Third, since the majority of the series is dedicated to the slice of life moments on Hokkaido, having all of the characters the girls interact with at stake as the show goes on, makes the following fights to be and feel important. And fourth, part of the growth Tsubasa goes through ends up playing a part as well, since it leads to an improvement on their way of fighting, and she even gets to save Hikaru at some point, an even more welcomed change.

Another way the writing tried to connect the two plot points with each other was with the presence of an investigator who realizes weird stuff is happening in the environment of Hokkaido, even appearing in the final battle. Although this portion of the show is necessary to understand the actual effects that the monsters have, it is universally considered filler, and to be honest everything regarding this character feel as such. Which is a shame since it is something very easy to solve, just have D.D and Oldina be the ones to investigate this stuff, they already use some pseudo-science to learn more stuff about their enemies, might as well have them look into what those monsters are doing to the Earth, that would help them in their own investigation, and give them more screen time to have a little more lives on their own on our planet, and thus have a bit more presence and character outside the action bits. Eventually this investigator ends up getting a catharsis, but like I said, everything about this character feels unnecessary and tacked on.

Another thing worth mentioning is the unexpected but welcomed lack of plot armor, especially with how many times D.D could have died but didn’t in the initial episodes. This I find to be positive, since despite being primarily a slice of life show, Figure 17 still has stakes, and having important characters dying permanently is the proper way to make said stakes feel real and their consequences important for not being taken away. And is not like the deaths come out of nowhere for shock effect, they are properly anticipated and it’s great that the series does not chickens out with them, even leading to a somewhat bittersweet ending.

To continue with the positives, I was surprised by the visual quality of the show, since it is a rather minor production from 2001. There are quality drops and characters go off model when seen from afar, and the designs are simple and generic, even very lookalike to what the designer would do later on Planetes, for example, but still the visuals are usually very good, very good special effects, very little and well rendered CGI for its time, in turn well mixed with the rest, and some of the most beautiful hand drawn backgrounds you’ll get to see on anime. The motions, though not always, are usually pretty good as well, and even the slice of life bits have vivid enough body language to not feel those bits as visually inferior.

As for the sound, the children sound very cute and convincing, every voice fits perfectly and is well performed. The adults however, partially because of their part on the show, sound a bit more typical, not bad, just not special in any way. The background music is good, composed of cute and relaxing themes for the slice of life portion of the series, and heavy rockers for the sci-fi half of it. With that said, the soundtrack ends up coming off as repetitive because some themes have many different versions and are reused in the exact same way every time in similar scenes. The opening is also a cool rock track, and the base for some tracks of the soundtrack, but it almost does not feel like the overall vibe of the show, luckily the more relaxing ending song fits better, and compliments it well, just like the two different genres don’t fit together at first but end up making a proper whole later on. The sound effects are nothing special but they are fine.

And now for the issues of the show, aside from the ones I already mentioned.

-Brainwashing is one of the laziest plot devices to use in writing regardless of what it is used for, thus it is an issue here.

-Although somewhat explained, having just one human notice what’s happening it’s impossible to buy, another major flaw and another reason to get rid of that investigator.

-By the end of the show all memory and track of what happened is erased, except for Tsubasa’s, this way it does not takes away the most relevant aspect of the show, but still makes the ending to feel like very little mattered in the end.

-The sisters are away of all the people they live and interact with everyday every time they get called to fight, and no one notices them going away to fight and get back to their house late at night at times, how convenient.

Despite the minuses, I still found it to be a pretty good slice of life and action hybrid, each genre is ok by itself at first, and they get tied together properly as the series goes on. Plus, it’s a slice of life show with plot continuity, stakes, permanent consequences and actual character growth by the end of it, quite rare within this medium, and somewhat valuable and memorable because of it. It is also one of the atypical and unusual oddities coming from OLM, the Pokémon studio, worthy to check out when they make something outside their comfort zone, like this, or Odd Taxi, or Berserk, to name a few. Still, with each episode being 45 minutes long, the simplicity of its plot and how it takes a while for its two genres to feel like they belong in the same series, I don’t find rewatch value in here, but for a one time experience, it is a good choice.

For similar stuff, there are actually way too many options, but just to name a few:

For the slice of life portion of it

-Gin no Saji, a coming of age series about high school students from the countryside.

-NieA_7, a slice of life comedy about a woman living with an alien.

-Hinamatsuri, a slice of life dramedy about alien girls living on Japan.

For the sci-fi action bit of it

-The Guyver action franchise, about a guy who accidentally fuses with a bio-organic alien armor to fight against extraterrestrial monsters invading Earth.

-Brigadoon, a science fantasy action romance dramedy about a girl being protected by a bio-organic extraterrestrial being from other soldiers like him, as well as many other monsters.

-The Tetsuwan Birdy action franchise, about a guy who for plot reasons shares body with a female space police officer who captures space criminals.

And more, there are a bunch more similar titles out there, damn. Another title that it’s usually recommended along this one is Blue Drop, but as I will explain next time, it’s best to stay far away from it.