Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure:
Visions

Purchasing Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure really paid off for me. I think what really made this investment worth while was the series' having a plot premise that was similar to El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, a series I cannot get enough of. There just seems to be something captivating about an anime based on the idea of a weird boy becoming a hero in an alternative world which has a large population of girls who have some kind of attraction to him. I guess Masaki Kajishima, the writer of Tenchi Muyo! and this series, really knows how to write toward the stereotypical adolescent male's dreams.

Dual!'s great premise leads to good stories, but none of them are as good as the best of Tenchi Muyo! or El-Hazard: The Magnificent World episodes. Some of the attempts to sympathize with the main character make a few of the episodes a little too sappy, and maybe this type of story does not cross over well with giant robots. Fortunately, this series does not seem like it will allow the robot influence to change the light hearted characters, so if you do not want to see the dark, bleak atmosphere of Neon Genesis Evangelion, this series will not feature it.

These robots may not be appropriate with their story premise, but man do they look good. Most of the CGI (computer generated image(s)) are integrated well with the traditional animation and also looks great. And even with the CGI being almost outstanding, the regular hand drawn animation is good enough not to be blown away by it, so the efforts of the many animators with their pencils is not wasted.

Dual! is by no means as funny as El-Hazard: The Magnificent World and Tenchi Muyo, but is unique enough to be enjoyable with its great animation, futuristic giant robot plot, characters with bright personalities, and good use of computer animation. If you dislike the animes that this is similar to, you maybe wasting a couple hours at your job trying to earn enough money to buy this, but as far as I can tell, Dual! is definitely one of the better cutting edge titles which any audience that is suited to see it can enjoy.

Production Credits:

Series Structure: Yosuke Kuroda • Character Design/Animation Director: Atsushi Okuda • Director: Katsutoshi Aiyamak • Mechanical Design: Kenji Teaoka • Assistant Director: Takashi Kobayashi • Art Director: Katsu Sato and Hiroshi Kato • Production in association with: Shaft • Music: Seikou Nagaoka • Original Story: Masaki Kajishima • Producer: Kazuaki Morijiri • Animation Production by: AIC • Produced by: Pioneer LDC