DUAL! Parallel Trouble Adventure

OVERVIEW:

Meet Kazuki. He's your typical Japanese High School student. Typical in the sense that he surfs the 'Net in class, has odd daydreams involving giant robots destroying the city, and despite the apparent lack of a social life still manages to attract the attentions of the mysterious new girl in school, Sanada-sempai. Still, his life is rather mudane, and he wonders what would it be like to have an adventure for once...

...Until his chance meeting with Mitsuki's eccentric father Professor Sanada, and is subsequently transported into the world in his daydreams. A Parallel World, torn by endless wars fought with gigantic mecha. With the added fact that every step has suddenly become really dangerous, Kazuki ends up getting more of his fill of trouble and excitement that he would have imagined.

Within the first ten minutes in this world, our reluctant hero inavertedly rescues Commander Yayoi, a pilot of one of the mechas he dreamt of, using abilities he did not know he had before. In doing so, Kazuki becomes embroiled in the fierce fighting between two rival factions and their struggle for domination. Both sides want him and his unique skills on their side of the battlefield. All he wants is to go home.

Kazuki is in for a worse shock when he discovers that in this alternate world he doesn't exist. And that the girl he has a crush on, Mitsuki Sanada, has an alternate version working for the enemy. Kazuki later on finds out that he was been observed by agents of both factions of the war, who knows of the existence of the Parallel World, and are interested in the mysterious power that Kazuki has. The power to traverse both Worlds.

Thus begins the Parallel Trouble Adventure.

COMMENTARIES:

DUAL! Parallel Trouble Adventure is an animé OAV series (by last count, there are only 13 episodes that I know of) by Pioneer, the same animation company and studio that gave us Tenchi Muyo!, El Hazard!, and other popular series. DUAL! PTA can be described as a cross between Escaflowne (alternate world), and EVA (the designs are particularly similar) and given the Pioneer makeover. The series was broadcasted in WOWWOW, an International Japanese Cable Channel that shows anime series on weekday evenings (6 PM local time, 7 PM Tokyo Standard Time).

Like most animé, the plot of DUAL is rather easy to follow, even if you have little knowledge of the language; the animation is expressive and well-paced, and there are few dialogue subtleties that would hamper the enjoyment of watching DUAL otherwise.

Most of the characters of DUAL are mostly hybrids of familiar faces we have seen in recent years, giving us an enjoyable, and in some cases original, mixed bunch. Kazuki, for instance, is our familiar old Keiichi, adding in Shinji's piloting abilities with mecha, Makoto's supernatural powers, and all of their (the guys mention above) tendencies to attract women for no apparent reason at all, without even trying. D, the green-haired bioroid pilot, is a revamped Rei with some parts of Ifurita and Tsunami thrown in for good measure. And so on and so forth.

The cel animation is consistent, what you'd usually expect from a high-quality Pioneer release, but no new ingenious visuals here, just your standard eye-candy. There are a few CGI segments that, although impressive, is far too few to really make an impression of the series.

THE LAST WORD:

Highly recommended. I hope Pioneer Animation would pick this title to release commercially. The series is very fun to watch, and the cast are identifiable and could easily become fan favorites. I'd certainly pick up a translated copy myself, especially if the English version is done well.