Fall 2013: Coppelion

Coppelion skirts around a disaster that happened in a Japanese metropolis, but it's not yet addressed directly. Sources say that it was a nuclear meltdown in Odaiba, which is what Wikipedia is telling me about the manga plot. The show was originally due to air in 2011, but the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster held it up. Nonetheless, the show's disaster setting is absolutely gorgeous in its bleakness.

Image source: http://www.vizanime.com/coppelion

The best parts of Coppelion lie in its setting, which is rich in promise and will be undoubtedly built upon , adding layer upon layer of social complexity to an already hot topic in contemporary media. The three main characters, Ibara, Aoi, and Taeko, are set up pretty well throughout this first episode. Thankfully, the show only focuses on these three in its first episode. A wise decision, since you don't want to introduce a glut of characters only for none of them to be memorable.

Ibara is kind of your typical shonen action hero, who will save everyone. But as a stereotype, she works well and her subtle leadership skills throughout the episode are great. Little things like injecting herself with nutrition supplements, seeing that Aoi is (very visibly) bothered by Ibara not eating, and then later eating one of her rice balls was a cool little thing. Aoi is the timid girl who serves as a sort of audience surrogate because she (as she should be) is horrified by this landscape and all it encompasses. She's definitely the most outwardly compassionate, and emotive, of the three and will likely provide good emotion later on.

What I loved about the series was how they referred to the girls as puppets (the technical term being Coppelion, the manga and the show's namesake), because they really are puppets. Since birth, they were literally genetically engineered to live through a nuclear wasteland (they just say "these conditions" in the show) and to be other types of special. Taeko was engineered to have heightened senses, like an animal. While the other two's abilites (if any - though Ibara seems to have some sort of super human strength) have yet to be revealed, they're likely the same kind of subtle enhancement rather than electricity bursting out of their hands or something.

There have only been four shows thus far in the season, and Samurai Flamenco and Kill la Kill have yet to be released, but Coppelion is undoubtedly the standout of the four. Its first episode showed nothing but promise and that could go one of two ways: 1. Amazing show or 2. Disappointing show. I'm leaning, tentatively, to the former.

Rating: 4/5