| Title: | Battle Programmer Shirase |
| Episode: | 1: Introducing BPS! I-Mode vs. Supercomputer! Also Introducing King Of America (parts 1-3) |
| Synopsis |
| At the Seattle-Tacoma airport headquarters of international shipping company BHL, a customer service representative is startled by a strange image on her computer screen. While she is going for help, the manifest on her screen is altered. BHL delivers a large crate to "Oze Rintarou" (and laughter follows). Back in Japan, Mr. Akizuki, of "Eibin Electronics Corporation" comes looking for Battle Programmer Shirase in a modest diner. He can't believe the person the cook points out is really "BPS", but is warned of what's liable to happen if he rubs him the wrong way. Akizuki produces a unique item as payment if BPS agrees to do a job, which has the desired effect. Later, schoolgirl Amano Misao pays a visit to "Onii-chan"s dingy apartment. Akira (aka BPS) crawls out of his futon to leer at Misao, who gladly handles the household chores in his apartment (he is described to Misao as her "Mama's uncle", even though he's younger than Mama is). An earthquake-like tremor shakes the apartment, leading to Mr. Akizuki bursting in to find Akira and Misao in an embarassing situation. Akizuki chooses to ignore what he has seen, and as they drive to his office building he explains to BPS that an Eibin supercomputer has gone missing while in transit to the US. What's more, Eibin has gotten a threatening e-mail from someone who calls himself "King of America". This person claims to have the missing supercomputer, and says he'll use it to "do lots of bad things in your company's name". His curious demands are only that Eibin reintroduce the discontinued X68 PC. Today is his deadline, and Akizuki begs BPS to take swift action to "punish" this person... |
| Comments |
| Well, the individual segments was over almost before they begin, but I find this show to be intriguing. Misao reminds me of Hanaukyo Maids Tai. OP and ED Music are actually pretty neat and I have saved them for a new homemade CD. Going in, I was wondering if BPS would become a character I could sympathize with, or, as I've heard, would he be too weird and perverted? He definitely finds Misao-chan to be fascinating, but doesn't do anything that would hurt her, so I don't mind. I think any character who posesses superhuman skills needs a significant flaw to counterbalance them, in order to be likeable. I had assumed that "King of America" would be a sort of villain-of-the-week who would be gone after this first plot arc concluded, but it looks like we haven't seen the last of him. His reaction to the outcome of his cyber-duel with BPS was interesting... |
