Remember how Kure-nai couldn’t stop fucking around? Shockingly, in the greatest redemption story mankind has ever witnessed, the author of Kure-nai bounced back and wrote Denpa teki na Kanojo. This time he didn’t fuck around one bit. Just look at the cover. There’s rain…a girl with an umbrella…doesn’t look like anything special…and then—
OH SHIT, A BLOODY BASEBALL BAT! Time to draw a superficial connection to Higurashi.
Here’s a comprehensive list of differences between Rena and this other girl:
- They part their hair on opposite sides
- Their eye colors are different
- Their neckerchief colors are different
Everything else is exactly the same. Is it a coincidence that every show with a murderous character who looks like Rena is awesome? Another connection that struck me immediately is that umbrella girl’s voice is the same as Alice Carroll’s. Have you ever wondered what Alice sounds like as she bludgeons people with her paddle? Denpa teki na Kanojo delivers.
Now let’s talk about the crappy title. I subconsciously ignore titles with words I don’t recognize. How is a title supposed to make an impression on you if you don’t know what any of the words mean? All I could deduce was that “Kanojo” means girlfriend. Lame. Then I found out that “Denpa teki” means electromagnetic. Although this can be cool in many contexts, combining “Electromagnetic” with “Girlfriend” makes it sound like some kind of cheesy robots-with-feelings romantic comedy.
They should’ve just called this show The Swooping Descent of the Dark Emissary! The Propagation of Malice. Right off the bat, someone’s getting raped (I suppose that’s fucking around in a literal sense). Then, the first time we see the main character, he’s punching someone in the face.
The main character looks strange at first. He has all these weird shadows and bulges on his arms. You can see both of his eyes when you look at his face. Speaking of his face, it’s uncharacteristically distanced from the ground when he stands up. I was confused. Since when did male high school students in anime have masculine musculature, above-average height, and haircuts without bangs drooping over their eyes? Non-androgyny is so slice-of-life.
If you think his manly appearance means he’s twice as likely to take shit from women, take another look at the title of this post. Denpa teki na Kanojo does not fuck around. In the second episode, some bitch on the student council is trying to harass him. When he tries to walk out on her, she grabs his arm.
Bitch got OWNED
This series is full of violence against women. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s ugly. Never does it fail to entertain.
Denpa teki no Kanojo reminds me of Garden of Sinners (Kara no Kyoukai). Each installment is a dark, violent mystery. There’s an element of supernatural power. The supporting lead has a comical little sister who hates that her elder sibling is all over the main character. This biggest difference between the two shows is that Denpa teki na Kanojo leaves out all the philosophical rambling that bogged down Garden of Sinners. Rather than fucking around with philosophy, Denpa teki na Kanojo just keeps pushing the story along. The one time it did randomly ask a philosophical question, I was actually disappointed that it cut away so quickly. This has never happened before.
Anime has never been so thought-provoking.