Episode Review: RDG: Red Data Girl Episode 1

Synopsis (From MAL) :

A modern fantasy based on Japanese Shinto legends. Suzuhara Izumiko is a 15-year-old girl, who has been raised and protected in a shrine deep in the Kumano mountains. She is quite shy and destroys all the electric devices she touches. When she begins to think about going out of the mountains and moving to the city, her guardian Sagara Yukimasa recommends her to enter a high school in Tokyo and forces his son Miyuki to serve Izumiko for life. Miyuki and Izumiko repel each other but their relationship begins to change when a terrifying accident occurs on the school excursion. Izumiko learns her fate as the last representative (yorishiro) of a Himegami goddess and Miyuki learns of his duty as a guardian Yamabushi of Izumiko.

This new series by PA Works has been streaming on NicoNico for the past three weeks, but I waited until a full HD version was available to do a review, since it is from PA Works and I am a scenery porn addict. I mean, why review something that has horrible resolution and gets all pixelated when you watch it full screen?

The source of the name, Red Data Girl, comes from the “Red Data Book”, which is a book about endangered species. It seems that our heroine is a girl who is an endangered species of some sort. Sounds interesting…
Review:

The first episode of RDG does what it sets out to do well. It introduces the main characters, sets a mood of mystery with a touch of foreboding, and starts the world building off the right way. In my opinion, the pacing and atmosphere of the episode are spot-on. The few main characters we have met all have some amount of mystery about them and they all seem to be very … well flawed, shall we say.

Izumiko Suzuhara, our heroine, is a mousy little waif of a third year middle school girl who doesn't seem to have much backbone, but has a desire to change her life. She also appears to destroy any electronic device she uses. However, at one point she does some seriously strange stuff with the school computers before she totally destroys them, so she seems to be far more than she initially appears. She has been raised the Tamakura Shrine, which is actually part of a World Heritage Site. Her grandfather is the priest there and her parents are AWOL. She has been sheltered and is treated like a bit of a weirdo by her middle school classmates.

Yukimasa Sagara is a “Mountain Monk” or “Mountain Hermit” or “Warrior Monk” depending on how you translate the phrase (Yamabushi). All of them are apt translations. This class of monk were basically ascetic monks that practiced a form of esoteric Buddhism. They believed that isolation in the mountains led to greater enlightenment and mystical, spiritual powers. This, in itself, gives us a good idea of what we're dealing with here…

Miyuki Sagara, our male protagonist, is a jerk. However, he is a jerk that has a jerk for a father and has been dragged out into the middle of nowhere over break with the intent to transfer him to this middle of nowhere school. It is indicated that he has begun his own training as a “mountain monk”, having spent time alone on the mountain when he was 13.

Wamiya Satorou is a classmate of Izumiko who seems to treat her better than many of the others and who she appears to have a bit of a crush on. However, he also gives off about the strongest “creepy” vibe in the world! He just seems wrong!

That's pretty much it for the characters shown in the OP. The real stars of the show are obviously Izumiko and Miyuki, with the others there as supporting characters, in either a positive or negative light.

The art in the show is absolutely wonderful! PA Works has been putting out shows with fantastic background art for several years now and this show does not disappoint in the least. The use of tone and lighting is superb, with a very deep, dark mood set by the use of dark greens and sweeping mountain vistas. One of the wonderful features of the show is their use of these great backgrounds to set the mood and keep the show visually interesting, even when all that is happening is a group of people sitting around talking. They frequently will pan out and show these gorgeous works of art while the characters are talking. This keeps the eyes moving and provides a great deal of atmosphere to the conversations.

The music used in the show is equally good. The OP, ”Small WorlDrop” by Annabel sends shivers down the spine with its swelling strings and somber mood. The ED, ”Yokan” by Masumi Itou, has a very traditional Japanese sound, with lively strings, percussion, and keyboards to go with the wonderful vocals. The art that goes along with the ED is even more special.

The incidental music may stand out more, with a heavy use of chimes and strings. The eerie quality adds to the mood, especially when things get strange.

All in all it looks to be a very promising show, with a palpable sense of a world out of balance, and a sedate, unhurried pace, yet a sense of urgency behind the calm.
Episode Highlights:

The episode opens with Izumiko deciding to make some changes in her life. She starts by cutting her bangs. As she heads to school, everyone seems to take note of her having cut her hair, with quite a bit of shock. I don't think that it is mere coincidence that the words for hair and god are pronounced practically identically. (It appears to be a case of a slightly further back in the mouth placement of the AH sound in “kami”.) On the way to school, we find out that her dad is in America and will miss a parent teacher conference, and that her dad wants her to go to a school in Tokyo for high school, but she wants to stay near home and go to a boarding school that is closer. At school, she finds that her new haircut is also the talk of her classmates.

As her school day continues, we get a feel for how Izumiko's life is, with some of the kids treating her like a weirdo, because of her shrine-maiden vibe, and even her friends making comments about how she needs to “come out of her shell” or “act more like a normal girl” and such. But it appears that there is one kid that doesn't treat her like she is strange, Wamiya.

It also seems she may have a bit of a crush going on here… hmmmmm.

Then it is time to do research for the upcoming class trip to Tokyo, so it is off to the computer lab. Izumiko has already commented to a friend that her new cell phone broke. When it is time to do computer searches, she asks that friend to help.

However, peer pressure lead her to eventually do the research herself, and we are treated to a surreal sequence with the lab filling with water, but only from Izumiko's perspective, and a spectral video chat session with her father in America. Incidentally, her father is just as concerned about her hair.

After she fries all of the computers, the man that her father sent to handle the parent teacher conference for him, Yukimasa Sagara, arrives on a helicopter causing all kinds of fuss.

He is an extremely young looking man, but has a son the same age as Izumiko. He takes her to a hospital for some tests on her brain, and on the way, informs her that the computer conversation may have been because she cut her hair! It seems that her hair is the source of her “spiritual power”. This is all news to Izumiko, who really just cut her hair because she wanted to start taking control of her own life and live like a normal girl. She doesn't seem to have any idea what kind of “power” she has or why she is special.

Back at the shrine, she runs into a boy on one of the mountain paths. This is Miyuki Sagara, the son of Yukimasa, who is here as “reinforcements” according to his father. It is clear that he doesn't get along with daddy dearest and is not too thrilled with being hauled off into the middle of nowhere on his break. He recognizes Izumiko as the mousy little girl he used to know about ten years ago because she still wears her hair in the same braids. The chip on his shoulder is practically another character, it is so large! The three sit down to talk about why Miyuki is here and the kids find out that not only is Miyuki going to transfer into Izumiko's school, but the reason for it is that she doesn't want to go to the high school that Sagara and her father chose for her. Therefore, Miyuki must move to the mountains and attend her schools.

Why? Because he is basically her manservant from birth, or so his father says. It all has to do with Izumiko being the “Himigami”, which nobody has explained yet. But, in a nutshell, she was destined to be protected and sheltered and one of the people charged with that task is Miyuki, whether he likes it or not. He gets a bit huffy, walks out on them and dad follows him outside. While they are out, Izumiko's grandfather informs her that Sagara is a Mountain Monk and it is hinted that Miyuki is also training as one, having spent time alone on the mountain when he was 13. A few minutes later, the two men return and Miyuki looks like he has been thrashed quite thoroughly.

His dad says he “fell down a cliff”, but do we really believe that? I think not! He beat him up, down, and sideways! Regardless, Miyuki is not contrite and will be transferring into Izumiko's school and living at the Shrine. That night, Izumiko sees him in the hallway in obvious pain and asks him why he is transferring if he didn't want to do it. He tells her, basically, that its better than being dead. He also mentions that Yukimasa has a screw loose, at least in Miyuki's opinion. Izumiko remembers some of the last time they met, when Miyuki was bullying her by throwing balls at her.

When she mentions it, we get one of the spots where the translation you are watching makes all the difference. In the first one that I watched, by FFF, Miyuki's response is: “There are some pretty horrible and mean children out there. I thought I'd prepare you for that.” (They were just about to start school at the time.) The Commie translation comes across as much more mean spirited and sarcastic, saying “There was this ugly, dumb girl with braids, so I figured I'd teach her some useful skills.” I can't imagine how these two translations come from the same source material, since one specifically refers to her braids and the other doesn't. If any body wants to enlighten me as to which is more accurate, I'd appreciate it. For now, I'll take the first one I saw, which suggests that, while his methods might have been flawed, even for a 5 year old, Miyuki was not entirely a jerk for his entire life. But at this point, he is not happy about how things are and doesn't understand what makes Izumiko so special. For her part, neither does she.

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