Futakoi Alternative

Title:Futakoi Alternative
Futakoi 2
Twin Love 2
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - UFOTable
Having dropped out of college, Rentarou has settled on running private detective agency, with the assistance of Souju and Sara, two twin high school students. While Rentarou is out dealing with an angry issue of trying to explain how his cat ate a Yakuza bosses favorite bird, Souju is making croquettes at a local shop, and Sara sets off an explosive device in the office to help a new client escape from a group of heavily armed and murderous debt collectors.

This is NOT the same Futakoi of the first season! It is a complete redo.

13 TV episodes
Produced by KingRecords, Lantis, Media Works (& others)
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 8 8 8 7 8 8 Ggultra2764 [series:1013#1552]
Futakoi Alternative is a surprisingly engaging show in spite of its bizarre and over-the-top story elements. From what I gather, the series is a spinoff of an anime that is based on a dating sim whose gimmick was a male lead having a harem involving several sets of twin girls attracted to him. While that would seem to make the original Futakoi anime rather forgettable and typical fare, Futakoi Alternative is a whole different beast as it takes many of the characters from the original series and goes in a completely different story direction that mashes up sci-fi action, manic comedy, and romantic drama in its focus on freelance detective Rentaro and his assistants, twin high school students Sara and Soju.

Before I get to the core of the series, I suppose I should explore the major element of the series that will make or break your enjoyment and that is in the form of its multiple genre mash-ups mentioned from the prior paragraph. I suppose a comparable series you could think of this to be like would be FLCL with parodies of some anime tropes, gun-action, tangling with yakuza, and a final battle with a secret society making mutant squids (seriously), though Futakoi Alternative does not get as ridiculously over-the-top as Gainax's famous title. The comedy does lead its major characters to take on a super-deformed state at points when things get ridiculous. The manic elements of the series did have their moments where they had me snickering at the lunacy of events playing out, though it did have its moments that did not click with me.

At the core of the series though, Futakoi Alternative focuses on the polyamorous love involving Rentaro, Sara, and Soju. The twins clearly have a strong amount of affection for the young man and while Rentaro does care a good deal for them, he does have his reservations for wanting to go to another level with their relationship due to a harsh past and struggling financially to support himself and the twins. Whereas many titles would try to fetishize this sort of romance, Futakoi Alternative instead chooses to seriously explore the developments of the relationship as all three are considerate of the feelings of one another and think carefully about more intimate elements of pursuing a romantic relationship, including considering intercourse. When one of the twins wind up leaving during the second half of the anime, Rentaro and the remaining twin understandably feel a hole in their lives without the other twin and come to grips with wanting her to return to their regular living routine.

With these two different sides to Futakoi Alternative, it would be easy for many titles to fall apart in quality since they can't properly balance focus on manic comedy and serious drama. But the series manages to effectively balance these story elements effectively well as it knows when to get silly and when to dial back the comedy to seriously focus on the developments in the polyamorous love between Rentaro, Sara, and Soju. Still, there are some who have been turned off by this genre mash-up in the same vain as FLCL and I can see where this may not be everybody's cup of tea if they are looking for a series more geared toward a specific genre. In addition to this, the focus on a polyamorous relationship may offend some conservative viewers if they are into more traditional male-female relationship pairings.

Overall, Futakoi Alternative made for a surprisingly engaging series with its effective mix of manic comedy and romantic drama focused on its main threesome of Rentaro, Sara, and Soju. The genre mash-up and focus on polyamorous love may not be everybody's cup of tea. But if you can look past both of these matters, you will find yourself enjoying this hidden 2000s gem.

Last updated Saturday, March 10 2018. Created Saturday, March 10 2018.
Watch 8 7 8 7 8 8 Dreamer [series:1013#2279]
Completely different! This "version" is completely different and nothing like the title bearing he same name.

Art, Animation & Character Design
The art and animation was about average. Character designs were good and definitely not as "cute" as that from the original Futakoi.

Music
The OP was interesting. It started off with trumpets... which almost at first gave the impression the music piece might be a dramatic orchestra-like song... but then it does a 180 and turns out to be a high-paced hard rock piece with a female grunge voice. Not bad at all.

Series and Episode Story
I don't know what to make of this. At first, it started off with an action packed opening scene that involved a tenticled monster battling a pair of twins, then somehow we ended up a plot with the yakuza a minute later. This anime goes everywhere throughout the whole series. It didn't seem to have any real definitive plot or story line. It was a mash of different and crazy things that somehow, made some sense and was..... enjoyable. There's also some elements of parody, some echhi and and wacky action.

Overall, it's crazy, unpredictable and fun. It's not linear for sure and you might be a bit lost or confused, but it still makes for some fun watching.

Last updated Sunday, April 12 2009. Created Sunday, April 12 2009.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:1013#628]
(Four episodes watched):

"Spastic" is the word which came to mind while watching episode one of this show. Action and comedy bounce wildly about (plus a healthy dose of fanservice)--this is definitely radically different from the original Futakoi, which didn't seem to have much other than overflowing cuteness going for it. The animation here is vastly better, including somewhat more detailed character designs. It looked like a winner to me! Having watched a few additional episodes, I am confused... what happened to the wildness of episode one? I was hoping the series as a whole would go that way, but episodes two and three seem drab and uninteresting in comparison--are they trying to parody a different anime genre in each episode? Number four gets back on track with the amusing "Gothiloli Sisters", but I won't dare to guess where things will go from here. Still, I wish a few other shows would be given the "alternate" treatment...

Last updated Tuesday, August 15 2006. Created Tuesday, August 08 2006.
Rent Forbin [series:1013#1573]
Drama : Low
Comedy : High
Action : HIGH
SciFi : Med
Ecchi : HIGH (Revised from None! LOL)

8 Episodes Watched
Wow this is defintely not Futakoi. Same Characters , Same Voices, but boy is the plot taken a 180. This is all action starring our favorite characters from Futakoi. But add in Excel Saga. I will add parody because all the other main characters are stolen from other Animes. Example the #2 guy in the Gumi (Yakuza) is a dead ringer for Ban Midou from Getbackers and the Lady who bakes croquettes is from GTO or Angel Tales. It's really just a way for the Animators to blow off some of that steam when they made Futakoi and just let the characters go.

I'm definitely going to watch this, it should prove a good laugh.
Edit : 7/21/05 - Wow I wanna punch the makers of FA! They tell me it's a major action anime and it turns out it's a very good drama! I feel cheated and happy at exactly the same time. UFO did a wonderful job with this. The secret of why Sara and Souju are at Rentaro's is finally out.
The saddest story is the one with the teachers Ai and Mai. It was very good and very sad.

Last updated Friday, July 22 2005. Created Tuesday, April 19 2005.
Unevaluated Jan-Chan [series:1013#967]
With an opening scene reminiscent of Full Metal Panic, the twin middle school amazon warriors, Lulu and Lala are having to defend their airborne AWAC plane from a tentacled marshmellow monster. With skirts flying, they try using fully automatic rifles, 45 pistols, RPGs (in an aircraft?) and even grenades to unsuccessfully stop the monster. With the airplane fully trashed and in flames, they bale out over Japan and parachute down into the city of Futagotomagawa.

Rentarou has set up his private detective agency in the city of Futagotomagawa, where he runs his business with the help of two twin high school students. Rentarou has his hands full dealing with an angry Yakuza boss over a little issue of his dead bird. Souju ends up helping out an injured friend by running her croquette shop. Sara decides to accept a new client who is escaping punishment (murder) by a group of gangster debt collectors, who are pounding at the office door. To cover their escape, she sets off a bomb, while she and the client jump out of the second story window and flee on her motorbike. The gangsters set off after them in a screaming car chase, but as her motorbike has a rocket-propelled-over-drive, she is able to elude them, at least until they bring in a rented Apache Helicopter to chase them down.

As this is Futakoi (Twin Love), I am going to suspect that Rentarou is going to have a lot of problems with cute twins in this series. But based on the opening credits and the first episode, they might all be bloodthirsty amazon warriors with special forces training, armed to the teeth with all sorts of nasty and lethal toys.

The first episode of this series is pretty funny, with lots of SD characters and scenes. I will say that it is A LOT MORE FUN that the lame first season. Lets see if can keep this tempo, or if it just dies a wimpering death due to a dull story line.

Last updated Saturday, April 16 2005. Created Saturday, April 16 2005.

Other Sites
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Official Series Web Site http://www.ufotable.com/2koi/

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