sexy voice and robo
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Tagged: sexy voice and robo
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This post has love, courage, and justice. I will write!
(Sometimes, I feel like writing a post that’ll appeal to a whole four people. This isn’t one of them. I’m thinking three for this one.)
I do enjoy my share of j-dramas, and, recently, I got myself hooked on the live action version of Sexy Voice and Robo. From a cursory standpoint, Sexy Voice and Robo is fairly simple. Based off of the manga of the same name (which I have not read), the series follows the exploits of a fourteen year old middle school girl (Sexy Voice/Niko) who has an unique ability to distinguish voices as well as mimic voices and a twenty-something skirt-chasing otaku loser (Robo) who has the unique ability to talk about giant robots at the most inopportune times. (I think the only reason Niko hangs around him is that he as a car and his own apartment.)
Almost all of the stories are episodic and feature the typical j-drama WATFO type scenarios, like Niko has to find a “ghost,” and this “ghost” just happens to attack her mom… plus this “ghost” was joyriding with Robo earlier. There’s a few easily-figured out plot twists, but mostly the show is carried by Niko and Robo. If one approaches Sexy Voice and Robo thinking it is just about what happens, it’s not the right approach. It’s more like Mushishi where it’s not just about what happens but the thought of how we got here. There’s an overbearing theme of life and existence, and it is as much about that as it is about Sexy Voice and Robo solving their next predicament.
For example, the first episode centers around a man who only remembers the past three days of his life, and when Niko and Robo first run into him, he was carrying a bag of receipts, empty cups, and other junk like how I hold my special edition Powered Natsumi (yes, I sound like Robo there, don’t I?)… to him, because of his memory, that is proof of his life. If you want to focus on what the show explicitly acts out, you can, or you can think of what it else it is trying to convey… what is the proof of our life? Like Mushishi, there’s a lot of thinking that the viewer could do, if the viewer chose to dwell on some of the things. Continuing along with the example, juxtaposed with the man without memory, the episode has a minor plot involving her dad collecting milk caps. In the end, her dad decided that it wasn’t that past milk caps that he was interested in but that he wanted to collect more because that would mean he would be alive longer. It was, in a way, his pu-roo-fu of his existence.
For people who don’t want to be bothered with the deeper workings of Sexy Voice and Robo, there is a good deal of comedy, most of which is perpetuated by the robot otaku, Robo. Robo is portrayed very well by Matsuyama Ken’ichi, or, for people who have seen live action Death Note, he’s L. Now I can’t watch Death Note without thinking that L should have a Max Robo plastic model around him at all times. Robo is pretty funny when he goes into his otaku mode and start shouting “MAX PUNCH!” or “MAX DASH!” as she starts doing stuff, kinda like robot anime back in the 1970s. He also manages to defuse a few tense situations by relating them to collecting robot models… sadly, I think this is why Niko keeps hanging around him, because anyone capable of using anime to talk people out of suicide or killing someone is someone to be reckononed with… even if he cries like a little girl every twenty minutes.
Robo comes off as the childish one, stuck in his own world. The more mature one, of course, is Sexy Voice, the middle school girl. She’s the one who seems wise beyond her years and takes pause to reflect on life, albeit briefly before the chaos around her sucks her back in. She’s also, kinda, Robo’s boss. I was thinking, wow, Niko is cute, until I hopped on Drama Wiki and saw that the actress who plays her, Ohgo Suzuka, is 14. OTL. This is like Natalie Portman in Beautiful Girls all over again. But let’s give Ohgo a, “We’ll be watching your career with interest” irregardless. Did I mention that her, “Eh… EH!?!” face is adorable? Her older sister, Kasumi, isn’t bad either… wait, back on track… back on track… as I mentioned before, Niko is able to distinguish voices as well as imitate various voices. She’s also not repulsed by Robo, who manages to repulse basically every other female on the show with his manly otakuness.
(Definitely one of the bigger WATFO is that Niko hangs around Robo more than Haruhi hangs around Kyon, and, well, isn’t leaving a fourteen year old girl with a twenty-something robot otaku a bad idea jeans commercial waiting to happen? A slightly lesser WATFO is that Robo has a robot fanboy club where they judge robots like Miss USA and that one of his friends is an old black guy. I think we’ll see Mike Vick doing PETA commercials before we’ll see a multicultural plastic robot summit.)
There’s a lot of solid moments, from the “you just want to cheer” type like when a girl that Niko and Robo helps realizes that one’s value in life is not counted by the money one has to the “just can’t stop laughing” like when Niko and Robo pretend to be high school students… only to end up with Kasumi as a student teacher. Each episode wraps up nicely, but I feel disappointed at the ending. Maybe it’s because the manga didn’t have one, but the way this version concludes, well, you just get the feeling that there have been more. Then again, when a drama is well done, 11 episodes just seems too short (see GTO; H2).
At first glance, Sexy Voice and Robo a lightweight series with some comedy, but ultimately, thinking more about it, it’s a lot deeper and darker than I expected. While it’s not a serious show by any means, it does encourage the viewer to think about life and what we get from life a little more. I enjoyed the ride. For people who want some love, courage, and justice in their live action schoolgirl drama fix, it’s time deploy the Robo.
19 Responses to “sexy voice and robo”
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Damn it! i knew I should’ve downloaded this.
Well, let’s hope for seeds…
After having watched GTO Live and Gokusen, i might just give this a try…
Im kinda surprised this series got its own post here since i was under the impression only me and my friends watched this series… >_>
anyway, this is a really good watch, mainly because of Robo’s otakuness… and the occasional contrast he shows in how he acts sometimes, speaking something bout growing up that Niko actually takes to heart.. like when at the end of the episode where they help a reformed female assassin, Robo talks about growing up and eventually leaving your family with Niko
Id say go for this and Liar Game as some must-watch jdramas this season
I’ve read the manga and I loved it. I must check this out.
I lost all faith in Japanese acting after I watched Death Note the Movie.
I’ve been wathcing this show JUST for Robo…….though now that you tell me that he’s L, i’ll never be able to look at either of them the same way again.
The thing that I would say is I’m ok with them having the messeges about life and all that. But I feel they pound those messeges into us with a sledgehammer.
Actually, she’s still 13. Funny because my first thought on those pictures was “another 20-something pretending to be still in highschool”. I think now I realize why the age of consent is so low in Japan. It’s too difficult to guess the age of Japanese females younger than 30.
i think i saw this when i was in japan awhile ago :o
One word. ROTFLOL.
Was never a J-Dorama advocator, will never be one. A good indication is that the last time I saw one, it was GTO. Well I liked it though, but I stopped there.
The only J-Acting I can enjoy is when movies involve Samurais (ie. Zatoichi), not stuff about Japanese girls dancing hula lessons (ie. Hula Girls).
I was gonna get this off D-Addicts (Being a J-drama fan myself) but I had too much to watch this season and the plot seems a little… weird but I guess I should give this a try. After I finish the other 28719371130 series I still need to finish.
I was surprised how much I liked this one and yeah, it is viewable on a couple of levels. I made the mistake of watching it with intellectuals. Episode 1 sparked a week log “discussion” of not only what it beens to be alive but how can you prove it. Each episode has been filled with that kind of discussions. Great show, but never again shall I do something as stupid as that again.
this is definitly one of the better j drama i’ve watched
though i prob enjoyed Densha Otoko more
but in my opinion most J dramas are too far away to westerners, even western otakus
[quote comment=”151851″]this is definitly one of the better j drama i’ve watched
though i prob enjoyed Densha Otoko more[/quote]
There are a LOT of people out there that believe the only reason why this got turned into a J-Drama was becouse of how well Densha did.
Haven’t watched any J-Drama since Densha Otoko and GTO before that. (H2 as well, with a friend.) I wonder if it’s about that time again. I need to find a list of recommendations for this, or some kind of comparison. D-Addicts will probably have something…
Question though; is Hana Yori no Dango any good as a live action? I started watching the anime but it just wasn’t my kind of show. (I might eventually go back and finish it though.)
I really liked the manga–unusual, sketchy, almost impressionist art style,and an appealing story that reminded me a little of Harriet the Spy–although it sounds like this deviates more than a little from it. Available in English in a single volume from Viz, I believe, although if I recall correctly they flipped the art.
Is she still a chatline hostess? Is the creepy old guy (Charlie to Niko’s Kelly Garrett, perhaps) still in it?
Anyhow, my resistance to checking this out was based mostly on the fact that I don’t like the way they’ve styled Robo that much. He was a bit hipper-looking in the manga, and although he’s still fundamentally an otaku sad-sack loser, he wasn’t just played for laughs in the book. But now perhaps I will overlook these superficial points of resistance and check it out.
Oh, and yeah, random lurker, long time reader, enjoy the blog.
i,ve been watching this attentively evry single week when it comes out…i just love the combo of robo+niko…how both characters add up to each other…at first it started out as really funny…then the themes got deeper n darker…i would hav prefered if the stroy sticked to the lighter stories like the first few eps tho.. even so this is one great jdrama =)
^hana yori dango is a great live action drama….esp for girls….dunno wat the guys think of it tho
I’ve seen a few jdrama shows, and this one is on my list to watch now. Only I can’t find english subs of it. Am I just looking in the wrong places?
Thanks
You can watch this series at http://www.mysoju.com
I really wanna like this series. While I didnt hate it, It wasnt that interesting to me. I love the plot and supporting cast and the guests, but the plot is too exstistential so the humor doesnt balance out.
Robo reminds me of Nodame.
kenichi matsuyama is so cool, i hope i can meet him >.<