Plot Summary
Ran and Rui are childhood friends and just became freshmen in junior high. In addition to being introduced to new classmates, Ran also discovers that she has telepathic powers, which initially terrifies her. Most of the telepathic feedback originates from a new transfer student named Midori, who is adept at her powers and had been trying to test how powerful Ran’s powers are. Although initially they cross paths as antagonists, Ran’s kind-hearted nature appeals to Midori and they join forces against their homeroom teacher, who is also a telepath and had been trying to psychically subvert the whole school (said teacher, Momoko Ohara, would later resurface as a a recurring villain).
Ran, Rui and Midori, joined by Ran’s elder brother Rin (on whom Midori has a crush) form an ersatz psychic investigation team, as various mystic people and creatures are attracted to Ran’s ESP. Simultaneously, Ran and Midory keep struggling to come to terms with their powers and how they differentiate them from the rest of humanity. Initially fearing that normal humans would treat them as freaks, their roles are eventually inversed when a great telepathic force of nature converts humans into totemic animals as a means of backlash to all evils mankind has brought to the world. Fortunately, through Ran’s kindness and perseverence, she and Midori manage to stave off the threat and restore the status of humanity.
Review
I had great expectations from Telepathy Shoujo Ran. The detective / mystery genre is one of my favourite, even among anime. And I think that psychic and ESP powers can make a detective story even better, by discovering and explaining elements of the mystery which would otherwise require luck of suspension of disbelief in order to be found and narrated on screen.
Sadly, and in spite of the aforementioned interesting blend of elements, this series falls short in terms of plot quality. All mysteries narrated throughout the series are traced back to supernatural beings and events, which need some psychic coaxing in order to surface and resolve their problems. That itself is not a bad pattern, although personally I think that interspersing some mundane riddles and mystery arcs would have made the series appear more varied. But more importantly, this modus operandi prevents the characters from using their observational skills and deductive methods, as is almost universally the case in detective stories, in order to further the plot and resolve the mystery. After all, the rules of deductive reasoning are not necessarily applicable to the supernatural. Instead, we must patiently wait for one of the protagonists to have a stroke of genius or remember a piece of folk trivia that will help them identify the mystical being du jour in order to defeat it or help it move on.
That basic weakness of the plot could have been at least partially alleviated if the characters were rich enough in order to display a wide range of reactions and behaviours in order to keep the viewer occupied. But that is not true either; the first arc displays some interesting character conflicts and interactions, but those are resolved by the end of the arc, and from then on all the characters devolve into stereotypes. Especially Midori’s character, who is initially introduced as mysterious and has some interesting subplots throughout the series, is summarily loaded with several absurd character traits in order to serve as comic relief. By and large, all of the characters’ actions and emotional responses are predictable to the point of boredom, which makes the various “daily life” arcs and scenes all the more disappointing.
Design is definitely at its best when displaying characters of traditional japanese folklore and other kinds of fantastic creatures, with interesting colour palettes and some fancy auras and animation to spice things up. Likewise, the on-screen effect of Ran and Midori’s powers is fairly nicely animated, even though it’s fairly standard and unvarying by today’s standards (granted, there are only so many ways one can show the effect of telekinesis or telepathy, and it’s better to use a familiar effect rather than have the viewers wonder what is going on). But when the animation returns to the depiction of slice-of-life characters and environments, it is plain and uninspiring. Judging from their recent work, it seems that the artists at TMS are best suited to animating over-the-top battles and events, and for the most part Telepathy Shoujo Ran is too downbeat and plain for them; one can almost imagine their fingers itching to draw swirling auras and blasts of psychic force, and glossing over more mundane scenes such as Ran’s school banters.
The tone of the soundtrack focuses on the “daily life” portion of the series for the most part, with audibly bright and upbeat tunes. There are also some riffs used for mysterious ambience and climatic events, but they are mostly uninspiring. Overall, the score is competent but it never aspires to become more than that. The character voices also get the job done, but they are not noteworthy; the only exception being Midori’s thick kansai-ben, which voice acress Kana Ueda reproduces pretty faithfully and to good (i.e. funny) effect.
In retrospect, the depth of the characters and plot (or lack thereof) make the series more suited to young children than any other target audience. Especially the ending arc, which exhibits some huge leaps of logic and suspension of disbelief, all nicely bundled in a pro-ecological message, seems geared to a much younger audience than the initial arc would have led us to believe. In short, don’t get your hopes up; this series starts out pretty powerfully but peters out shortly afterwards.
Stats
Type: Series
Length: 26 X 20 min
Rating
Production: 7/10
Plot: 6/10
Setting: 6/10
Characters: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
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