#09 : UFO Baby (Daa! Daa! Daa!)

(78 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a comedy shojo manga series.

Characters

Miyu is an ordinary high-school student… except her parents just went and left for the US to work at NASA (Mom’s an astronaut, Dad an engineer). She’s left in the care of a long-time friend of a family. Who’s a monk living in a shrine, because no commute is complete without a ridiculous flight of stairs. Said monk almost immediately lands a ticket for a trip in India he’s longed for all his life, and absconds as well.

This hasn’t been a good day for Miyu.

Kanata, the monk’s son, isn’t especially thrilled to be left alone with this random girl all of a sudden. It’s mild irritation at first sight, and we all know where this leads in a shojo manga.

Ruu is a baby who shows up in a flying saucer that night, just as Miyu was about to leave. It’s obviously going to be the plot device bringing the lead couple together as they must care for it.

Wannya is Ruu’s “sitter pet”, who conveniently explains how the baby got there (random space wedgie), how long it’ll stay (at least a year to fix the navigation system), and presumably will care for it while the teenagers are off to school.

Production Values

The artstyle looks very 90s shojo indeed, and in some ways not dissimilar to the early days of the Sailor Moon anime. The lush pastel backgrounds are certainly pleasant to look at.

Overall Impression

I can easily see how this was successful enough to last for a year and a half : it’s got a fun premise, decent characters, and a good grasp of comedic timing. On the other hand, it’s a bit on the slow side, and not that funny. Also, I’m probably a bit too high above the target age range to really be invested in it.

This is perfectly okay at what it does. But 78 episodes is a bit too much for me to stick with it.

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 2

Published by

Jhiday

I've been kinda blogging about anime for years... but mostly on forums (such as RPG.net's Tangency) and other sites. This site is an archive for all that stuff, just in case.

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