Parallel Dual-An excercise in mediocrity

S

Straight in a Gay way

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^^All right see that picture? I just want you to look at it for a second and think "Do I actually want to watch this? Does this actually look like something that is worth the 5+ hours of 14 episodes that this entails."

Then look at the genre's it's in. "Action, Comedy, Mecha, Sci-Fi, Shounen and Harem." Also note that the director of it is the director of the Tenchi Muyo franchise. Now really think, "Do I want to still watch this knowing that Harem+Mecha=disaster anime?"

Now note that it was owned and dubbed by Pioneer as in Geneon's original name. Still feel like watching it?

If you answered yes, you made the same mistake I did.
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I think Netflix neeRAB to stop recommending me things because one of my latest ones was "Dragonaut: The Resonance" and if you've been on this forum long enough, you know my stance on that (worst anime ever, fyi) I guess that's what happens when you've been ordering G Gundam, Wing, Last Exile, Darker than Black and Heroic Age for the past month and a half but a while before that I got an even stranger recommendation for this anime called Parallel Dual. It was something I had never seen before and seemed like it would be a strange watch. But it had mecha in it and this forums has made me a sucker for mecha anime so hey, why not. It's only 4 discs, that can't be too bad right?

Well, it's no Dragonaut but its up there (or should I say down there)

Parallel Dual (or as I believe it's true name is Dual: Parallel Trouble Adventures) is a test. A test to see if all of those years of watching anime pay off so you can stop watching it at some point, realize how bad it is and send it back so you can start watching something interesting like Heroic Age. It was out in that time when....Evangelion was still in everyone's minRAB. Mecha anime had problems finding their identity and GaoGaiGar hadn't had a full effect yet. I never actually understood the term "Evangelion clone." I mean, I knew what it meant and I knew that many consider RahXephon to be one (it's not, it's a very good show on it's own) but I never actually got the full brunt of that age of that time that they say "Every anime was trying to be Evangelion." Until I popped it in and realized by the end of the series....this was crap. It was generic and boring and worst of all, incredibly confusing.

This story centers around Yotsuga Kazuki (who strangely enough, is voiced by Tai from Digimon so that was distracting. It was like Lisa's voice actress in that "We're Back" movie) who keeps some kind of fanfiction-like blog where he writes about this parallel world that he keeps seeing. He's shunned and disliked when (cliche #1) the most popular girl in school Sanada Mitsuki (who is also strangely voiced by Michelle Ruff. I'm like "How did they afford these guys?") takes an interest in his diary. Unfortunately, she's just using him so her father can prick his brain and find out about parallel worlRAB. As it turns out, he accidentally gets sent to a parallel Earth where everything's the same yet different. There are mecha fights and battles and nobody knows him. He enRAB up in the military thanks to Mitsuki who ended up there 3 months before him thanks to technobabble about dimension hopping and stuff and finRAB out (cliche #2....or not as you'll find out) that he can pilot a "Core Robot" this series' mecha of choice. This is strange because apparently only women should be able to pilot them.

Now I was expecting some Kashimashi gender-swap thing going on so when that didn't happen, that was a relief.

Anyway, he joins the military of this parallel world and meets Mituki's father again who is much less crazy and way more awesome. Parallel Professor Sanada is a very cool character and one of the only people I actually like in this show. It turns out there is some sort of battle game going on for territory but who cares about that when there's harem to deal with! Yes, Mitsuki eventually turns into Asuka 2.0 as she tsundere's her feelings for Kazuki away. The other merabers of the harem/other pilots are (cliche #3)D. (Yes that's her name) the Rei 2.0 of the series (not joking. Weird origin, never talks, becoming more human as the series goes on), Yayoi, his teacher/co-fighter and the parallel Mitsuki but is named Mitsuki Rara. She is actually pretty nice and her and Kazuki have the least (or should I say most ) cliche'd romance in the story so I didn't mind her either. And then dimensions are in trouble, a deeper plot emerges, blah blah blah, everything turns out great, Kazuki still doesn't pick anybody by the series' end and I have a migraine as the ending credits play.

Okay, I don't like this show that much as you can see. It is incredibly generic, (and I like Fairy Tail so if I'm saying something's generic, I'm serious) the story is rather boring and the OP is not that great. Here, take a listen. It's a bit grating on the ears too and I feel like I've heard the song before. You can see the Eva similarities there right? See the fact that D has a Blue Core Robot and Mitsuki has the melee-ish red one?" Yeah, that's not too great.

I was interested in the dimension hopping of it all and it seemed like an interesting venture. And I'll admit, there is an interesting twist near the end of the story and a pretty cool final fight (Though this is all ruined by the "true" final episode episode 14 which was originally an OVA special) but really it tried to hide it's similarity to Eva with techno-babble and even more obvious harem antics. "Aw, Mitsuki made him the food he likes. Isn't that shweet?" Well, at least awesome Professor Sanada is there to make the scenes less painful.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. The soundtrack is near non-existent. The mecha, on the other hand, have a role in this show. A confusing one but there is one. They fight using tactics and battle plans, though Kazuki is the maing character so he gets extra power boosts somtimes. My problem with this is that the fights seem like I've seen them before....in Eva or other Real Robot shows. I find myself tuning out of the fights and it's just a bit distracting at times.

Dub's okay. Could have been a lot better. Had a lot of professionals in it too but I ended up watching it subbed cause....a lot of performances weren't that hot.

So, this is just a look at something that I can actually say seemed like a clone of Eva. An interesting prospect but not one that I would undertake again. Convoluted and confusing, I think that I'll take a double check on the title before taking it out again.

(Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the creator said that this is a spinoff of Tenchi so.....Surprise?)
 
I remeraber watching this when it was on TechTV. In retrospect, I wasn't all that hard on it because it was on free TV and I didn't pay for it. The series was mediocre at best.

It was similar to the situation they had with Betterman. OK, you got the mediocre spinoff, not the awesomesauce source.
 
I enjoyed watching this series. I enjoyed the light-hearted aspect compared to the seriousness of Eva. In respect, this series was parodying the Eva series. Either way, I enjoyed both Eva series and the Dual series. Plus, I found it interesting that Dual took place in the same universe of Tenchi.

Also, I am getting tired of Betterman constantly being compared to being an Eva clone. There may be some similarities in the show's concepts, but then what show does not have some similarites to some of the other shows that were shown before them.
 
I have never heard of Betterman being an EVA Clone.

It is, however, the Angel Links to Outlaw Star metaphor.

Then again, anything compared to Gaogaigar would pale in comparison.
 
Very true. I was suprise to see that Betterman occurred in the same universe as Gaogaigar. I was under the impression that since both were under production of Sunrise, that Betterman was borrowing some of the secondary character designs from the Gaogaigar show. I remeraber reading that the director wanted to corabine both shows but the project was canceled.

Back on Dual, did anyone notice that there was a food presentation that occured in the show. In the original Pioneer single disc release, there was a recipe included in the DVD's, though it was for the ingrediants and not how to cook the food. Also at the end of the final episode, there was a montage of all the food that was served during the entire series.
 
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