neko's thinkbox

月面兎兵器ミーナ: Getsumen To Heiki Miina, or Moon’s Surface Rabbit Weapon Mina is a pure comedy fantasy backed by a cute original character design by Okama (Himawari!!, Saint October).

What motivated me to watch this series are the few reports over it in the last months’ Megami Magazines – I found the characters to be quite cute (bunny girls = WIN) and yeah, it didn’t look like much fanservice (I HATE excessive fanservice/loli). Also, after comparing it to other series, it appealed to me the most. So I decided to take a look at it. One thing though, I didn’t watch Densha Otoko yet so I probably will neglect a few details and analogies here and there, please do not forget to input them in your comments! Enough talking, here goes my first anime blog entry, hajimari hajimari!

Warning! This is a full episode summary, which means it contains massive spoilers! Continue reading at your own discretion! (I hope I won’t need to repeat that in future.)

Click here to proceed to the thinkbox

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Please note, and this counts also for my future blog entries: As an (inactive) anime translator, I do understand the essential parts of the anime at first watch, yet there still are lots of words and sentences I frequently need to look up (since I am a nub without real knowledge about the Japanese language), which costs me too much time – and my time is limited. So in this short of a time I will try to explain everything how I saw and understood it; and you most probably will have to put up with many misinterpretations and mistakes in my summaries. Please bear with me, and please do not refrain to rectify me if I’m wrong. Thank you for your understanding and your support.

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Synopsis

Our main character, a high-school girl named Tsukuda Miina, is awaited at the Luna Television station to announce a sports talk program called “Spoluna”. But as if it was fated to happen, she arrives late on her first day; while she’s rushing past the security guards at the TV station, Miina desperately tries to memorize her announcement text out of a small notebook. And yes, she’s totally unfamiliar with the studio – she gets lost. Seeing that Miina won’t make it in time, the producer and the other presentators decide to start without her. And two seconds before airing, Miina crashes into the studio in a costume of the program mascot… And the show starts.

Afterwards, the producer scolds Miina for making such an outrageous appearance. Daisuke Kiryuu, the male presenter, laughs it off and tells her to improve, while the other female presenter, Suiren Koushuu, is utterly displeased with Miina’s performance.
The next day, on her way to school, everyone in Miina’s town quarter congratulates her for her TV appearance. And she’s yet again too late for the bus.

Lunchtime, at the school cafeteria. A friend of Miina, Minamo Haibara, tries cheering her up and tells her that no one would blame her if she simply wanted to quit. Miina remembers in a flashback the words “I will give my best until the end”, and vigorously replies that she will never give up. With one huge exception though: carrots. She absolutely dislikes them.
Later in the day, our female protagonist gets to the TV station and informed that she will comment tonight’s baseball game, where a famous baseball player from the US who arrived earlier in the afternoon will make a star appearance. Meanwhile, on the moon, in a base that resembles a rabbit head, some weird rabbit-baby lights up and says “Found you”.

In the evening, right before the baseball game, the Spoluna staff hits the last preparations for the broadcast. A pink-haired girl, Escartin Mutsumune, who had gone green with envy because her announcer position had been snatched away by Miina, takes advantage of our main character’s naivete and fools her by giving her the wrong direction to the dressing room. Miina gets lost again, and will once again be late for the program. After a while, she finds the men’s changing room, but as she enters, the star baseball player, or rather now an alien with pink eyes, blasts the door, knocking Miina over.

Just as it is about to assault her, the alien gets kicked from the side by some bunny woman called Ootsuki Miina who claims to be from the Rabbit Forces. While our main protagonist is wondering why they’re sharing the same name, the rabbit woman tells her that she will evolve very soon. The alien then transforms into a pink slimy substance and escapes through the ventilation duct. In the meantime, Escartine takes benefit of Tsukuda Miina’s absence and is assigned by the producer to replace her. Suddenly, the slimy mass floods the hallways at high speed, inevitably crushing poor Escartine; and then she even gets stepped on by Ootsuki Miina who is chasing the alien. Next stop, the stadium: The alien transforms into a gigantic mecha, and Miina (the bunny one) takes on a fight with it. While she is able to bring it down a tremendous special attack, the mecha just disintegrates into that pink slime and regenerates; Miina is helpless.

Back to our main protagonist, who is still in front of the destroyed changing room looking up in her notebook what to do in such emergency cases. All of a sudden, that rabbit-baby pops out of the blue and explains her that she is one of the “Moon’s Rabbit Weapons Miina” and is part of the Rabbit Force. While she doesn’t really believe that and pinches the baby all over, she is forced to eat a magic carrot that triggers her transformation. She transforms into Tsukishiro Miina, a rabbit girl! On top of that, a special delivery straight from the rabbit moon base is already underway to complete the metamorphosis: she obtains two carrot-like rockets or jet packs that plug into her two rabbit tails, which enables her to fly around. Despite her initial clumsiness with her new ability, she is able to take the enemy mecha on, and with a combo of both Miina’s attacks (our protagonist using her carrots as weapons), they are finally able to exterminate the alien. Minamo Haibara, who had been selling drinks in the ranks, casts a very mischievous glance towards the scenery…

In the end, the whole Sporna staff celebrates the happening in a bar. Miina spits her juice out, and guess what it was? Carrot juice…

Thinkbox mode: on

Well yeah, I found this first episode to be very enjoyable, although I must say it doesn’t really deliver. The story is quite amusing, bunny girls from the moon, why not? Sounds original and fun. I had a few laughs at the funny facial expressions, and speaking of which, it seems like this Okama style is booming: Saint October and Himawari have the same original character designer, and those three series are currently simultaneously airing in Japan. Personally, I like it, because it’s damn cute. The 3D CG animation on the other hand was a disappointing, no fluent movements at all (15 fps or less) except in the ending animation, but what’s the point?? It looks very unprofessional. I really expected more of their advanced CGing technology.

Fanservice, well… there was some fanservice, yes. But not as blunt as, let’s say, Tonagura or Simoun (I guess not so, I rushed my judgement a bit ._. sorry) Shuffle! – behold, I haven’t watched any of those series, but from what I saw in Megami Magazine, I can certainly say that I will never watch them because of excessive boobs, panty/lingerie shots and what-not. No offense to anyone who actually likes those series though, this is merely a very subjective thought of mine. Back to Getsumen: Boobs. Well, I noticed Miina’s breast size at least doubled during the transformation… And yeah, Ootsuki Miina’s bags do bounce a lot… I’m probably contradicting myself, but anyway, I’ll just pretend that it’s still within my tolerance range.

This episode also lacks a lot of essential details, for instance, who is their enemy? Why does it suddenly appear in a baseball game, why is it attacking people, what is their goal, etc. Also, one of Miina’s friends I didn’t mention in the synopsis, Hazemi Kanchi, made a cameo appearance in the cafeteria. I guess he’s one of her childhood friends or some classmate – and if he really is, he should have gotten more screen time, or at least a short intro. The producer (Onoue is his name I think? Or is he nameless?) resembles a bit Gendo Ikari in his behavior: Always sitting behind a desk, giving orders once in a while and acting cool (notice the stylish lighting on his glasses, it happened at least 3 times in this episode).

What is killing me is that the girls from the Rabbit Force will probably all be named Miina… which will be a real pain in the neck to differenciate between each other in my future summaries. Concluding with a trivial fact: from what I can see in the ending, each member of the Rabbit Force has a characteristic vegetable: Tsukishiro Miina -> Carrots, Ootsuki Miina -> Turnips (looked like Aubergines to me though), who’s next? We’ll find that out in the next episode, otanoshimi ni! Thanks for reading!

(It took me over 3 hours to get this written, oh my god. I will need to speed up if I want to keep this up x_x but then again, it’s only the first episode, maybe it’ll be less in future…)