Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

A boy in his adolescence. A cousin wrapped in a futon claiming to be an alien. A childish aunt saying nonsense. A hardworking bench-warming basketball player. A classmate wearing fish costumes while playing baseball. A girl in a space suit. Makoto Niwa's life went from normal to filled with craziness the instant he moved to his aunt, and somehow he has to deal with it.

If I had been in my right mind, I would had thrown myself into bed as soon as I finished the last episode of this very great show. But luckily, I'm not and will now spend the next two hours to write about Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko!

So, let's now first get the title straight. Denpa literary means electromagnetic waves, and does also refer to people who have overly active imagination and live in their own world. In other words we're talking about someone insane. Seishun refers to adolescence, but often also implies to the joy of overcoming immaturity and to youthful romances. This means that loosely translated you could translate the title to Insane Girl and Adolescent Boy.

The show revolves around Makoto Niwa and start with him moving into a new town, into his aunt, Meme Touwa's, household. There he meets his cousin Erio for the first time - he didn't even know he had one until that point - who just happens to wrap a futon around herself and say she's an alien.

Makoto is very young-looking...

Makoto is just your normal boy. He does, though, actively count "seishun points" (ie adolescent points) which are based around the concept of seishun, as explained very briefly earlier. These keep track of the quality of his school life and he does actively pursue points. When he hears Erio thought she could fly and had tried to fly on her bike, he takes Erio with him to prove she can't fly. As they are going down the hill the breaks of the bike breaks and they end up falling bike, futon, and humans into the ocean and Makoto breaks an arm. This activity was worth 5 seishun points. (It is not recommended anyone do this though. It's dangerous! This is just an animated show, kids!)

Makoto is quite realistic as well as very sceptic and is an enjoyable character, as he man up when it counts. ("Man" up, haha! He's one of the youngest characters in the show, in my opinion.) You get almost everything from his perspective as he guides you with narration, along with his humour.

Erio Touwa is a serious case of denpa, and she has also dropped out of school, wraps herself into a futon, is a self-proclaimed alien and believes she can fly. Erio went missing for six month and remembers nothing of the time she was gone. She began to believe she had been abducted by aliens, but later it changed to being an alien. After the not-so-epic-falling-into-the-sea-incident, Erio starts changing, going from a hopeless loner to someone who does part time work at a candy store. It is not easy for Erio to find work though, as her reputation is that of the girl wrapped in a futon. The people at school also tries to avoid her, which makes Makoto try to avoid telling anyone he's her cousin.

Makoto's first meeting with Erio was quite a shock.

Meme Touwa is Erio's mother who has given up on Erio's denpa case. She acts like a child and says nonsensical things almost all the time. She is quite the puppet master and influences the other characters to get the story going. She is quite mysterious and you can't really understand what she's thinking, but as part of the audience, you know she's hiding something about Erio's father Elliott. She keeps saying things about Makoto which aren't true and it it annoys Makoto a lot.

Ryuuko Mifune is one of Makoto's classmates and she also finds her love interest in the transfer student. Erio started calling her Ryuushi as it sounded more alien than Ryuuko and to Ryuuko's horror it stuck to her as a nickname even after Erio dropped out of school. She is actively trying to win Makoto over and is the actual heroine of the show. She is quirky, but hard-working, and her speech is just way too cute and goes all too well with her character.

We also have Maekawa, whose first name I sure can't remember if I should know or not, who has apparent feelings for Makoto, and she teases Makoto and Ryuuko a lot. Personality-wise she's more or less Ryuuko's opposite, being analyzing. She sees like a very intelligent characters at first sight, but you can't be sure if she isn't just a weirdo as she wears very weird costumes in every episode.

Finally we have Yashiro Hoshimiya who appeared late in the show in a baseball match Maekawa asked Makoto to be in, but she made quite an impact on both the audience and the story. She claims to be an alien esper and no one believes her, however she showed proof of her powers in a couple of episodes. She says that both Ryuuko and Makoto have esper potential - which, interesting enough, is exactly what Erio said while she still was a serious case of denpa.

This show has many seishun elements, such as running towards the sun (though the variation of biking towards the moon was used), shouting out corny lines in public and working hard on sports, which are all quite cliché. However, these are excellently executed in the series, which makes a huge difference.

Before I say the rating I am giving this show, I will also way the end of it was a definite invitation of hope for a second season. Or fear for one. Because this is a hit or miss anime, with it's very special quirkiness. this quirkiness hit for me right away and even with a pacing that sometimes doesn't work perfectly, this is another great show from the spring season. I certainly hope for a second season and hope it will hold the same 5.5 star rate as I am giving this show.

And as a side note, the denpa theme is taken to the top, with a "denpa" opening. Denpa in music tends to refer to highbeat music with somewhat or very nonsensical lyrics and "cute" voices. This opening has instead very unique music with interesting singing voice, while the lyrics makes a lot of sense. The song is surprisingly addicting.