Remember the first few episodes of the Ranma 1/2 TV series? Remember our ever-illustrious Nabiki? I guess every Japanese anime family needs the smart-alecky older sister, and in poor Tsuotmu's case, he has Hazumi. And like the Takahashi comedy, Tetsuwan Birdy's Hazumi is equally loveable. Actually, the whole family could very well be a paraody of the typical disfunctional Japanese family, except that one member happens to timeshare his body with an interstellar cop.

Even more humourous is Birdy's hijacking of Tsutomu's body. It's bad enough that she unwittingly takes him all over the city, but things do get very uncomfortable for Tsutomu when his body hugs his friend Natsumi. This is quite departure from the angst-riddled comedies of the past, where young would-be boyfriends and girlfriends kept their distance, separated by a wall of tension. How many times did you want to yell at Kyosuke, and get him to give Madoka a hug or a kiss? Well, not to worry -- Birdy can do that for you.

Action sequences in this series is quite remarkable, considering that this isn't a big-budget production. But as in other Kawajiri productions, the martial-arts action is very detailed, and well choreographed, albeit a bit unbelievable. But hey, we're dealing with superhumans here.

The story itself seems a little thin. We're still at the introduction stage of this series, and the writers are being very stingy when it comes to releasing details of the history of Birdy, and who Crystallia really is. Some of the plot leaves a lot of questions unanswered -- for example, why did Gomez not kill Birdy when he had the chance, not once, but twice? Well, so far, I'm not really into this story for the plot. But the humour is worth the watch!
- AN, 1999.04.10