7.8 /10 1 Votes
7.5/10 IMDb | 7.4/10 MyAnimeList 8.4/10 TV Magazine Afternoon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Characters Arumi Asahina, Satoshi Imamiya, Mune-Mune, Eutus Networks Kids Station, Television Kanagawa, Sun Television, Television Saitama, Kyoto Broadcasting System Cast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (アベノ橋魔法☆商店街, Abenobashi Mahō Shōtengai) is a Japanese anime television series created by Gainax. The supernatural comedy drama is directed by Hiroyuki Yamaga.
Contents
- Background
- Plot
- Main characters
- Other Characters
- Hobby World characters
- Design
- Adaptations
- Episodes
- Reception
- References
The series premiered April 4, 2002 on Kids Station. It was licensed in North America by ADV Films. A manga adaptation, authored by Satoru Akahori, was published in English by Tokyopop; the Tokyopop version of the manga is out of print as of August 31, 2009.
Background
During the Heian Era, Abe no Seimei was a close childhood friend of a noble named Masayuki, and his wife, Mune. While he was away from the palace, Masayuki often asked Seimei to stay by his wife's side, guarding her and keeping her company. However, during the time they spent together, Mune and Seimei fell in love and became increasingly romantically involved. Unbeknownst to them, Masayuki soon learned of the affair, and became overcome with grief and jealousy. One day while Seimei was on a trip to Kyoto, Masayuki snapped, murdered Mune and committed suicide. Guided by a premonition, Seimei rushed back to his hometown only to find that he was too late. Overcome with guilt, he decided to perform a forbidden Onmyō ritual that would allow him to resurrect the dead by transferring himself and the bodies of Masayuki and Mune into a completely different world where they were still alive. In doing so, Seimei soon found himself as "Mr. Abe" in mid-20th-century Osaka, where Mune Imamiya and Masayuki Asahina were pre-existing residents of this alternate world. Now, Masayuki was an ambitious, but largely unsuccessful young man who had enlisted Mr. Abe's permission to build the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade. He was also madly in love with Mune (夢音), a local girl whom he tried to woo (with little success) at every possible occasion. It was not long, however, before Mune fell in love with Abe, constantly pursuing him and offering him a home-made lunch. Abe tried for a time to resist her advances, but eventually he was no longer able to contain his feelings, and made love with Mune in his apartment. Unbeknownst to them, an instantly-jealous Masayuki accidentally discovered the truth. The next night he became staggeringly drunk and invited Abe to meet him at the Abeno Shrine, planning to murder him with a hidden butcher knife when he arrived. At first unsuspecting, Abe arrived on the scene, but once he saw the decrepitly drunk Masa he knew what was afoot. He promptly bid Masayuki farewell, then disappeared, going back to his job in the Heian Era, leaving a pregnant Mune behind him; her child is Sasshi's father.
Plot
Childhood friends Arumi and Sasshi are residents of the Abenobashi commercial district in Abeno-ku, Osaka. After an accident, they find themselves transported to an alternate sword and sorcery world. Their attempt to get back to reality finds them traversing a series of nonsensical worlds built on science fiction, war, fantasy, dating sim games and American movies. Each alternate Abenobashi is a surreal manifestation of Sasshi's otaku interests, populated by analogs of the protagonist's relatives and acquaintances and a blue-haired stranger known as Eutus.
Their quest to return home is at core a bildungsroman because the Abenobashi dimensions are mostly hobby worlds of increasing sophistication. Sasshi does not want to go home, and in fact is the sole force propelling them between worlds. While chasing a cat in the first episode, Arumi's grandfather fell off a roof and was hospitalized. With this new trauma pressuring him in addition to his apprehension about the eventual destruction of the shopping arcade and the Asahina's moving away, Sasshi was no longer willing or able to cope with reality, and unbeknownst to even himself, he had caused their dimension to rewrite itself into worlds echoing his escapist obsessions.
Main characters
Other Characters
Hobby World characters
Design
The series is replete with cultural allusions to Japanese media, pop culture, dialects, stereotypes, businesses, games, anime, and even puns and train routes, so much so that the American DVD release includes a special feature which enables pop-up glosses: AD Vid-Notes. The distinctive Osaka dialect is put to comic use throughout the series.
The English dub for the series equates the Osaka dialect with Southern American English. A pamphlet included in the first DVD volume of the series states that a Texan English accent was determined to be the English equivalent of Kansai-ben because of the similarities shared by both districts in terms of cultural significance and portrayal in the media. Further supporting this decision is the "cowboy"-style appearance of Sasshi's hat, as well as the frequent use of banjo music in the soundtrack - all things that Western viewers would, incidentally, associate with Texas.
Adaptations
The manga of the same name was created after the anime was developed, and while the major characters and plot elements remain the same, the overall story arc was (according to the production notes in the first volume) changed to fit the medium better, and a few new characters and subplots are added (i.e. Ochi, a manga only character, is a young landlady who is very taken with Sasshi that receives multiple incarnations throughout the different worlds. Also, Sasshi's feelings for Arumi are much stronger and less ambiguous than they are portrayed in the anime). Furthermore, the manga features more frontal nudity than the anime.
Episodes
Every Abenobashi episode after the first takes place in an alternate Shopping Arcade:
Reception
Magical☆Shopping Arcade Abenobashi received an Excellence Award for animation at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival.