Zettai Karen Children

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Zettai Karen Children
Zettai Karen Children manga volume 1
絶対可憐チルドレン (Zettai Karen Chirudoren)
Genre	Action, Comedy, Harem
Manga
Author	Takashi Shiina
Publisher	Shogakukan
Other publishers: Elex Media Komputindo
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Shōnen Sunday
Original run	2005 – ongoing
Volumes	18
TV anime
Director	Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Studio	SynergySP
Network	TV Tokyo, Animax
Other networks: i-CABLE Children Channel Cartoon Network
Original run	April 6, 2008 – April 14, 2009
Episodes	51 (List of episodes)
Game
Zettai Karen Children DS: Dai-4 no Children
Developer	Konami
Publisher	Konami
Genre	Simulation RPG
Rating	CERO: B
Platform	Nintendo DS
Released	September 4, 2008
Anime and Manga Portal

Zettai Karen Children (絶対可憐チルドレン^?, lit. Absolutely Lovely Children) is a Japanese shōnen manga by Takashi Shiina. The manga started serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Shōnen Sunday in 2005. An anime series began on April 6, 2008 which ran for fifty-one episodes. Shiina developed the series out of a short story he had written in a special issues of Shōnen Sunday. The series was essentially the same, except for the fact that Kōichi Minamoto was named "Hikaru Minamoto", and he also had psychic powers.

[edit] Plot

In the future, people with ESP are becoming more widespread and with it, the necessity of constructively utilizing their unique capabilities. Unfortunately, there are also espers that abuse their powers and wield them to destructive ends. The Japanese government's solution of choice to both challenges is the establishment of the Base of Backing ESP Laboratory (B.A.B.E.L.) for the purpose of appraising, identifying, nurturing, and protecting espers (even if that means apprehending them as if they were criminals). Five decades later, B.A.B.E.L. locates a trio of natural Level 7 (the maximum esper potency designation) espers within Japan and assembles them into the special esper team known as "The Children" in spite of all three having developed questionable attitudes and affinities because of the persecution and ostricization caused by the ignorant fear of their powers. Still, the question during B.A.B.E.L.'s stewardship of the past five years now becomes whether Kaoru Akashi, Shiho Sannomiya, and Aoi Nogami can be refined into young ladies.

[edit] Main Characters

Kaoru Akashi (明石 薫, Akashi Kaoru^?)

Future title: Queen of Catastrophe

Voiced by: Aya Hirano

A ten-year-old Level 7 psychokinetic (the maximum esper potency designation), Kaoru is the reckless and zealous member of "The Children" Special Esper Team alongside Shiho and Aoi that often goes overkill with her psychic powers. It is explained at one point that it was Kaoru that approached Shiho and Aoi in friendship when she was given over to B.A.B.E.L. five years ago and has generally established herself as the leader of the group. Prior to Minamoto coming onto the scene, Kaoru and her teammates have been like a clique that has become a valued asset to B.A.B.E.L. that is its own worst enemy. Under Minamoto's leadership (which she rejected until Minamoto shielded her from her own out-of-control telekinesis shortly after they met), Kaoru has opened up to demonstrate that she is a dynamic tomboy with perverted oyaji-like tendencies that loves to have fun and keep Minamoto all to herself (the latter proclivity being tempered by that of her teammates). Even though the prospect of Minamoto resigning from B.A.B.E.L. and abandoning them causes Shiho's psychometry and Aoi's teleportation to go berserk to frightening effect, this same phenomenon is deadly if it is Kaoru's telekinesis that is going berserk because both her portal limiter and a fully powered-up ESP Counter Measure generator at close range will be overwhelmed and eventually destroyed. Kaoru's nuclear family is her elder sister Yoshimi and her mother Akie who are so devoted to their careers that they neglect to spend time with her because they are frightened of her powers. Even though she has yet to learn how to harbor it without acting upon it, Kaoru's affinity for gravure idol magazines being rooted in her admiration for her mother and elder sister is not unreasonable. Kaoru ages to twelve years old and starts junior high school with the other Children after the two year timeskip at the end of the anime and at the end of volume 15 of the manga. Her appearance changes slightly as she grows her hair longer.

Aoi Nogami (野上 葵, Nogami Aoi^?)

Future title: Lightspeed Goddess

Voiced by: Ryōko Shiraishi

A ten-year-old esper with Level 7 teleportation capability, Aoi is the rational member of "The Children" Special Esper Team alongside Kaoru and Shiho that likes playing video games in her spare time. Like her teammates, Aoi is introduced at series inception as behaving in a somewhat cavalier manner that annoys her adult superiors. In the academic forum, Aoi's resentment of Kaoru and Shiho relying upon her so heavily instead of exerting a sincere effort to help themselves explodes into the fierce but fabricated accusation of being stuck with all of the work but none of the glory during their missions that is only extinguished during a solo mission with Minamoto (who was charged the delivery of a crucial and clandestine payload) that involved a dogfight against a quartet of homing missiles. While she generally understands that having Level 7 telekinesis used as an attack is frightening and very dangerous, Aoi has a hard time understanding the human dark side and why anyone would be apprehensive of espers whose powers are more for investigation/inspection although it is not inane or impossible for her to teleport a person into an inanimate object. It is explained briefly at one point that Aoi sees her origins in Kyoto which has its own local dialect, a feature of which is the honorific -han used in place of the standard -san. When she is angry or dead set on a mission that requires it, Aoi has demonstrated the capability to conduct 12,000 consecutive teleportation jumps before having to pause to recover herself. Unfortunately, this is of no utility against the P.A.N.D.R.A. teleporter Mio who uses distance-displacement portals as well as the conventional position displacement jumps that she herself practices. Aoi ages to twelve years old and starts junior high school with the other Children after the two year timeskip at the end of the anime and at the end of volume 15 of the manga. Comically, Aoi is still concerned about her smaller chest size in comparison to the other two Children.

Shiho Sannomiya (三宮 紫穂, Sannomiya Shiho^?)

Future title: Untouchable Empress

Voiced by: Haruka Tomatsu

A ten-year-old esper with Level 7 psychometry, Shiho is the sarcastic, sharp-tongued and often childishly sadistic member of "The Children" Special Esper Team alongside Kaoru and Aoi. While initially not able to do much during missions aside from gathering information that is not immediately obvious from the environment, Shiho still supports her teammates by doing whatever she can – an act enhanced by wielding a pistol recently given to her by her father, which combined with her powers gives her supernatural accuracy. Keenly aware of the world having a dark side and the folly of accepting everything at face value, Shiho is the first to realize why Minamoto works so well with them (his exclusion from elementary school because of his high intelligence) when she psychometrically probes one of his yearbooks. Her insecurity diminishing under his leadership, Shiho is trying to refrain from psychometrically probing Minamoto as much as she did when she met him (though this is sometimes disregarded when the Children are keen to find out information such as Minamoto's old girlfriends). Shiho generally adds ancillary comments that either explain complex elements of the »Zettai Karen Children« universe or insinuate one person or another (usually Minamoto) into undergoing an embarrassing/painful reprisal (usually Kaoru's telekinesis). Shiho often shows a more grown-up personality than the other children which can sometimes lean toward the dark side. Shiho ages to twelve years old and starts junior high school with the other Children after the two year timeskip at the end of the anime and at the end of volume 15 of the manga. Like Kaoru, Shiho's appearance changes slightly as she grows her hair longer.

Kōichi Minamoto (皆本 光一, Minamoto Kōichi^?)

Voiced by: Yuuichi Nakamura

A normal human with abnormal high intelligence (in the pilot chapter, he is also an esper with level 7 negation of anti-esper powers). He is the first lieutenant workaholic field leader of "The Children" Special Esper Team, tasked with overseeing their day-to-day care and making sure they do not get too carried away when they are doing their jobs. Even as they mistreat him and generally give him super fits, the girls highly esteem Minamoto enough to ask the B.A.B.E.L. chief to be allowed to reside with him after he leads them in their introductory mission and protects Kaoru from her own out-of-control telekinesis. While he is quite courageous and sincere in his belief that the Children are little girls to be protected and cherished before they are Level 7 espers (which Shiho says are treated the same as mass-destruction weapons) and has grown to be very fond of them enough to spend time with them on diurnal outings, Minamoto has a hard time applying those life-equality ideals to Momotarou (who wrecks his apartment when Kaoru decides to nurse him back to health) and refraining from behaving toward his esper charges as if they are a bunch of brats (an accurate but counterproductive assessment). Minamoto generates quite a convoy of female admirers during the course of the series as he works to pre-empt the precognition of a mortal showdown with Kaoru in a war-torn city during Kyousuke's esper-led war against humans a decade in the future. Teaching Kaoru and her teammates to be responsible is one part of the solution and it is not out of the question for that to be said of Minamoto simply enjoying his life. While good-natured and tolerant for the most part, there are times when he is pushed over his limits and comically goes into a Fist of the North Star-inspired personality complete with quotes.

[edit] Media

[edit] Manga

Zettai Karen Children began as a shōnen manga written and illustrated by Takashi Shiina. The manga started serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Shōnen Sunday in 2005. Shiina developed the series out of a short story he had written in a special issues of Shōnen Sunday.

[edit] Anime

An anime adaptation produced by SynergySP began airing in Japan on TV Tokyo on April 6, 2008, and contained fifty-one episodes.^[1] The anime has two pieces of theme music; one opening theme and one ending theme. The first opening theme is "Over The Future" by Karen Girl's, the first ending theme is "Zettai love×love Sengen!!" (絶対love×love宣言!!^?) by "The Children starring Aya Hirano, Ryoko Shiraishi and Haruka Tomatsu"; the second ending theme is "Datte Daihonmei" (DATTE大本命^?), also by Hirano, Shiraishi, and Tomatsu. From episode 27 onwards opening theme has changed to "MY WINGS", once again by Karen Girl's and ending theme changed to "Break+Your+Destiny" by Yuuichi Nakamura, Kishō Taniyama and Kōji Yusa.

[edit] Video game

A video game for the Nintendo DS developed by Konami entitled Zettai Karen Children DS: Dai-4 no Children (絶対可憐チルドレンDS 第4のチルドレン^?) was released on September 4, 2008.^[2]

Kaoru Akashi appears as a fighter character in the fighting game Sunday VS Magazine: Shūketsu! Chōjō Daikessen (サンデー VS マガジン 集結！ 頂上大決戦^?) for Sony's PlayStation Portable. Characters Aoi, Shiho, Minamoto, Fujiko and Hyōbu also make appearances as part of special moves or as support. The game was also developed by Konami and released on March 26, 2009.^[3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Manga official website (Japanese)
• Anime official website (Japanese)
• Video game official website (Japanese)
• Zettai Karen Children (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia