Dennou Coil (Cyber Coil in English), also known as Coil — A Circle of Children, is an Anime First sci-fi series animated by studio Madhouse and made its original run on Japanese television in 2007.Dennou Coil is set Twenty Minutes into the Future (in 2026, to be exact) in the fictional Japanese town of Daikoku, which is the testing ground for an Augmented Reality project that involves crafting a cyberspace that overlaps the town entire. By using specific glasses, people are able to interact with this overlapping cyberspace, allowing them to carry on their normal lives in addition to being permanently connected to the internet through their glasses, essentially concentrating all modern portable media devices (phones, MP3 players, laptop) into one set of non-intrusive glasses. With the appearances of 'glitches' in this augmented reality, a thriving hacker culture soon emerges amongst the children of the city.The anime tells the story of Yuko Okonogi (nicknamed "Yasako"), a girl who moves into Daikoku together with her mother, little sister Kyoko and her virtual pet Densuke (an augmented reality dog that only people with glasses can see) when her father gets a job transfer there. Upon arriving in the town, she finds herself integrated into the glasses community of the local children, and discovers that her shrewd grandmother has become a focal point for a major club of these children, called the Coil Cyberinvestigation Agency. This leads to later encounters with the enigmatic Yuko Amasawa (nicknamed "Isako"), a girl with abnormally powerful hacking skills who seems to be hunting for computer viruses in the system known as "illegals" for her own unknown ends, and discoveries tying the various characters' pasts with the truths behind the city's cyber-network...Dennou Coil could be described as "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone ComplexmeetsHayao Miyazaki"; an extremely charming, high-quality story of children, for children, in a sci-fi setting designed to display the effects of this new technology that still manages to keep some 'magical' aspects. Despite winning several prizes, reaching cult hit status and being critically considered to be one of the best animes of 2007, the series was only licensed in 2011 by Tokuma Shoten for use in an iPhone app.
Justified somewhat, as the use of glasses is mostly a children's fad and most adults do not use them... Though the few that do are usually as competent as the rest of the cast.
Justified somewhat as far as the events of the story are concerned. Much of the plot is due to early adult experiments with cyberglasses.
Subverted towards the end - Mega-Baa and Yasako's dad are crucial for solving the crisis, even though Yasako still has to go to the frontline.
The Atoner: Haraken is this at the ripe old age of 11.
All Myths Are True: There are tons and tons of urban legends and myths kids make up about cyberspace. Many of the ones mentioned throughout the series are proven to be true to some degree.
As You Know: Takeru gets one from his brother, Nekome, and we get some late exposition Nekome's motives in bringing down the company.
Bag of Holding: Fumie has one; justified since the programs she carries in it have no actual physical space requirements.
Beam Spam: Satchii's ultimate attack mode. That it's virtual doesn't make it any less frightening, considering the setting.
Beard of Evil: Kinda-example: An illegal beard shows up halfway through the show. It's infectious. And sentient. The different characters' beards eventually start digi-nuclear warfare with each other using Inter-Facial Ballistic Missiles. I couldn't make this up if I tried.
Even performs a HeelFace Turn after the ensuing holocaust.
The only thing is that the episode becomes a completely anvilicious author tract about war.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Imago, which turns out to cause nerve damage and even heart disease! Isako even explicitly warns Yasako not to overuse it, or else risk death.
Dummied Out: This is what happens to any plot of Cyberspace deemed "obsolete". They're deleted periodically, but if you get to them before that happens, you might find Metabugs—items no longer considered valid, which by some accident are very useful in Item Crafting.
Empathic Environment: In the sleepover episode, during the scary story telling scene, Daichi's ominous words are followed by thunder and lightning, though this was revealed to be his friend's doing. However, when Haraken tells his story, the lightning appears to be real.
Enigmatic Minion: Isako would be a prime candidate for this... If she was the actual minion of someone.
Also self-induced by Isako to make her encode reactor unstable and interfere with Nekome's passage.
Heroic Dog: Densuke. Just Densuke. Considering he fights off a group of Nulls while being badly injured himself to protect Yasako, he's a pretty heroic dog.
Hold the Line: Tamako's task in episode 20, where she has to hold off the scheduled area formatting long enough for Yasako to return from the obsolete space with Haraken.
Hyperlink Story: Oh, yes. With Yasako wandering into Coil Space kicking things off, we have Isako's search for her brother's cure, Tamako and "the incident four years ago", Sousuke and Nekome and their revenge scheme, and Haraken and his investigation on Kana's death. This links to Megabaa and Grandpa Okonogi's backstory and the founding of Coil Space, which loops back to Yasako wandering into Coil Space.
Implacable Man: Satchii, at least from the protagonists' point of view.
Plus, he can be stopped at least temporarily with the use of some hacking.
Important Haircut: Variant: While Isako's hair isn't cut, her hairstyle gets changed at the end of the series to symbolize a break from her dependence on her brother.
Instant Runes: The metatags seem to function a lot like this, even though the setting is non-magical.
Subverted with Isako who actually draws patterns that perform all kinds of functions, like dealing with Satchii.
Locked in a Room: Yasako and Isako are locked inside a storage locker in one episode. Nothing notable happens apart from showing that Isako isn't particularly villainous.
Meaningful Name: Both Yukos, 優子, "kind girl" for Okonogi, and 勇子, "brave girl" for Amasawa. Slightly lampshaded when the first one, "Yasako", explains her nickname and gives the other one hers.
Meganekko: Most of the female cast, for obvious reasons.
Yasako still can be labeled as one though, since her glasses have an ordinary shape, whereas most other girls wear goggles.
The Missingno.: "Illegals" are sentient viruses that subsist on metabugs. They might have been regular cyberpets once, but the material they were made from is no longer valid.
Mohs Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness: While the theory behind the glasses themselves is very plausible, the fantasy elements present in the net are certainly not.
No Infantile Amnesia: Averted, as it's at least part of the reason Yasako and Isako don't completely remember past events from when they were around seven until the end.
Ominous Fog: Of the virtual kind and usually an indication that something doesn't compute.
Once per Episode: Every episode will start with Yasako delivering an update on the latest rumors on the net, which are almost always relevant for the ensuing episode.
One Steve Limit: Averted by the two Yukos, but since most people use their nicknames it doesn't matter anyway.
Opt Out: Fumie, after an encounter with Illegals that almost costs them Kyoko, tells Yasako she doesn't want anything more to do with reseaching them.
Pet the Dog: Almost all of the more morally ambiguous characters have one, to show they're not really bad people. It is a kid's show, after all.
Power Degeneration: Isako using/controlling the Imago along with a encoder is one helluva powerful thing and very few people can manage it, but it does severe damage to your nerves and body.
Rapid-Fire Typing: Pretty much everyone who types, though Isako has a powerful variant: Rapid Eye Clicking
Recap Episode: Episode 14 is mainly this, with some plot in the last minutes.
Ridiculous Future Inflation: Parodied in Mega-baa's store. 10 seconds of Megane-beam costs three million yen (roughly 30,000 US dollars.) Fumie pays with pocket change. Mega-baa's idiosyncrasies are many.
To be clear, Mega-baa is just being weird by multiplying all the numbers she says by ten thousand. She asks for a total of 6.2 million yen, but the register actually says the total is 620 yen (about five dollars), and Fumie pays with recognizable Japanese coins that add up to that amount.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: Isako's henchmen, or Mojo, are a sort of terribly adorable virtual fluff balls. The Micet are unspeakably cute as well.
Spam Attack: Daichi tries to attack Isako by spamming her with email. Isako not only deletes the mail faster than Daichi can send it, but she also spams Daichi back, ultimately crashing his glasses and forcing an expensive restore.
Spanner in the Works: Yasako, her encounter with 4423 inadvertently messed up the therapeutic intent of the Coil Domain and created Miss Michiko
Spirit Advisor: Densuke — being a virtual pet, only people with glasses can see him.
Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: One explanation of what "Miss Michiko" is entails an onryo-ish death and onryo-ish behavior, but as the story is told, a pure black figure is used to represent her ghost instead of typical onryo garb and appearance, probably to liken her to an Illegal.
Taking You with Me: In the last episode, Tama Kamikaze-dives with a Nekome-controlled Satchii 2.0 in negative space.
Tomato in the Mirror: The other urban legend explaining exactly what the mysterious "Miss Michiko" is ends with this.
Title Drop: The phenomenon known as Dennou Coil isn't referred to by name until episode 14.
True Companions: At the end of the series, Isako tells Yasako what basically amounts to "We may have had too many differences to be 'friends,' but we'll always be Nakama."
Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Happens quite a few times in the later episodes,often involving Tamako.
Undisclosed Funds: Virtually every major expense by the children is simply referred to as "x years' worth of otoshidama". Even a single year of otoshidama is a significant amount of money to those without jobs!
Again they are only being half serious. Probably closer to a months allowance.
Unusual User Interface: Some people like Isako can use their glasses without performing any outward physical actions.
The glasses period. The things you can do with them is crazy.
by Tokuma Shoten for use in an iPhone app.
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