#84: Abunai Sisters: Koko & Mika (2009)

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Director: Hiroyuki Nakao

Screenplay: Hiroyuki Nakao

Voice Acting: ???

Viewed in English

Synopsis: The Abunai sisters Mika and Koko are two female secret agents who must protect the "Booby Stone" [sic] from Paparazzi Matsumoto and his evil boss Madam Hokuroda.

Urgh...if, after Gunbuster (1988-1989) and the myriad of good anime I've covered, this is my decision to surf the drain downwards further than even the M.D. Geist double bill. Even by my standards, this is a low bar, practically on the floor, and with the added menace that even Japan didn't want it in the end. The story goes that Production I.G., who are famous from great productions like Ghost in the Shell (1995), worked on a project with the Kano Sisters, who had the desire to have a production that would be of international interest starring them, at least in the sense that the pair even travelled to the 2008 Otakon anime convention in Baltimore USA to promote the project.

The Kano Sisters, before the reader asks who exactly they area, are the half sisters Kyoko and Miko who are professional celebrities, in the exact same way for Japan at that time that Paris Hilton and the Kardashians are in the USA. Unfortunately, the Abunai Sisters series never had any success and only two episodes were ever aired in Japan on channel AT-X, the rest of the eight mini-episodes seemingly lost to a void even obscurer anime of better regard survived from thanks to bit torrent. Thankfully, or unthankfully depending on your viewpoint, Abunai Sisters resurfaced or hence this review wouldn't have even existed.

From https://www.watchcartoononline.io/thumbs/
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Consisting of ten x three minute episodes, it's not a surprise who it's been covered up as it's a garish CGI animated series with an utterly lobotomised sense of humour and probably more filthier to sit through than ecchi anime. The premise, just because of the series McGuffin being literally a Booby Stone, is enough of a warning alongside the minimal quality of the animation. The Kano sisters, openly using plastic surgery in real life, are unflatteringly depicted as two lewd caricatures made of plastic and treated at times as being air headed; surprisingly dubbed in English in squeaky voices (though that is likely a change from the original pitch of the recording), with no Japanese VA track in existence, they're in a vague position of being celebrities but clearly having licences to kill as they pack pistols.

In terms of super abilities, the noticeable buoyancy of our leads is a deliberate theme as, designed like Jessica Rabbit in portions, (I kid you not) not only do their well endowed chests vibrate at any sign of danger like Spider Senses tingling but can expand in size as a literal pair of personal air bags or a nice super punch. The last episode even ends with their secret super weapon being the fact their own nipples are detachable grenades, just adding to this weirdness. In comparison, their enemies are just as odd, an older woman who surprisingly looks like Yubaba from Hayao Miyazaki's Yubabawith her geeky bespectacled male henchman dubbed Paparazzi, constantly doomed to his mistress's displeasure to be distracted by the sisters' figures rather than complete his goals. These villains, the ten episodes set around the same recycled beach house, are doomed like Hanna Barbara cartoon villains to constantly try to capture the Booby Stone and fail.

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They even follow the Hanna Barbara style of having ridiculous plans, starting the series off with a giant mechanical shark which fires machine gun bullets from its maw. Eventually it gets to Paparazzi wearing a handsome masseuse mask or dressed as a Chinese food vendor with a stereotypical accent trying to lure the sisters to eat a pair of poisoned meatballs that get used in an improvised table tennis game. This would actually be funny or at least compellingly weird weren't it not for the fact that, like a lame Saturday morning cartoon with blatant sexual references, it's the most generic of slapstick that's awkward and sluggish, these figures drawn ugly and cheaply animated, in generic slapstick scenes that usually would be pandered to five year olds against their wishes.

And honestly, that's the real issue with these ten episodes, in which they have the bad animation and tone of a bad children's show but also have completely inappropriate to show to such an audience due to the sex humour. Also as Gdgd Fairies (2011-13) proves, "bad" animation is subjective if you can use it to humorous advantage, but that's not the case here; the sexual humour itself is crass as much because it's as asinine, marvelling over the ample figures of the heroines (or showing one using a special butt attack to break open a locked door of a shack) but with the tone of adolescents writing it, without actual explicit sexual content or maturity to it. The repetition, closer to children's television than the view western anime fans have that anime has an ongoing narrative, is that these characters will be doomed to an endless cycle of trying to acquire a McGuffin, an overlarge pink diamond, until someone loses the will to live or when in real life the production gave up after ten episodes.

From https://www.watchcartoononline.io/thumbs/abunai-sisters-
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Arguable why the series vanished even in Japan is that it was just a job for Production I.G. and not one to be particularly proud of; the anime industry is an industry, where even animation companies known for incredible artistic work have to pay for its company and have profit, so they'll work. Many will work other mediums, such as Studio 4°C being known for a lot of commercials and music videos, but other times they're probably forced to churn out rubbish to without enough time to construct it into gold. Neither should one expect all anime to be available, only because of the internet and anime fandom why even a lost title like Abunai Sisters gets out of the animated necropolis.

Irony is once and a while a factor to these mistakes getting another chance (in the West, Chargeman Ken! (1974) getting a Discotek licence after it already developed an infamy in its homeland for example) but if it never gets a cult or a real release, there's the likes of Abunai Sisters which will sink through the cracks until someone is mad enough to put it online and someone else (i.e. myself) to watch it all and review it. Just another job that reminds you the anime industry is one that creates product like any business market especially in the 2000s onwards where more produce was being made to an alarmingly growing extent, not all of it meant to be archived anyway. Now Abunai Sisters has (through bootlegged form) achieved god like form of all things, you still have to deal with the fact the entire series, at less than thirty minutes long, is still more insufferable than a sole episode of one bad anime series because of how bland it is.

The Kanno sisters themselves? As of 2018 cosplaying between them, especially as a lot of female characters whose proportions they themselves can credibly portray, going to anime and manga conventions like AnimeJapan 2018 with the likes of Go Nagai. And in 2017 Mika Kano was even searching for love by way of very provocative Instagram uploads. Honestly, whilst I dismiss the Abunai Sisters anime, I'd never demean myself to cheap attacks at anyone even when it comes to the world of professional celebrities and tabloids, so I'm actually glad they have more interesting things to do; as long as they're happy giving otaku nosebleeds, all the power in the world to the pair and hopefully this series will be a comical side note.

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