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The
Setup: It's a snowy Christmas Eve in Tokyo, and
inventor Natsume Kyusaku and his son Ryunosuke are
on the run with an inactive android in the back of
their Land Rover. Making a 'comfort stop' in an
alleyway (or, as Kyusaku puts it, 'Hey Ryunosuke!
Have you finished peeing yet?'), Ryu finds an alley
cat he wants to take care of. Kyusaku objects to
this, but they all have to take off in a hurry when
a heavily-armed helicopter swings into sight and
pursues them. Kyusaku drives the Rover into a
junkyard where he accidentally conceals it rather
well by crashing into a pile of dead cars. The
pilot of the helicopter, thinking she's lost them,
fires a volley of shots into the junk heap in
frustration. This rather tense pilot is Arisa. She
and Kyoko report back to Akiko that they can't find
their quarry, and return to base. Kyusaku and
Ryunosuke are fine, but the cat is dead, and
Ryunosuke feels terrible about having brought it
along. Kyusaku tries to comfort his son, and after
a moment bursts into laughter - he's thought of the
best possible Christmas present for
Ryunosuke.
One
year on, and Android NK-1124 (Nuku Nuku to her
friends) is up and running, and about to go to
school for the first time. Her first day isn't
going to be easy, though, because Akiko has finally
found a clue to Ryunosuke's whereabouts and Arisa
and Kyoko are bearing down in the
chopper...
My
Review and Thoughts: Uh, one year on? But it's
not Christmas again yet. It looks more like late
spring. The other weird continuity thing is that in
the opening scenes Kyusaku appears to have black
hair, and for the rest of the series it's brown
like Ryu's. Those minor bits of nitpicking aside,
this is a really cool episode, and an excellent
introduction to the characters. It's fast-paced
with a lot of action, and extremely funny. One of
my favourite moments is Kyusaku trying to pick out
the biggest piece from the bucket of chicken before
Ryu gets to it - then his guilt-stricken reaction
when Ryu comes back to the car. It's a good episode
for Nuku Nuku being tough as well as cute - of
course, she's very cute.
The
first time I went to see the X-Files movie,
Fight the Future (yes, I am a big enough
geek to have seen it more than once), I found
myself having a Nuku Nuku flashback. You
know that scene where Mulder is in a bar drowning
his sorrows, and wants to go to the men's room but
finds it's out of order, so he goes out to the
alley behind the building? It's incredibly similar
to the first scene of Nuku Nuku. When Mulder
hears a movement in the alley, it would've been
extremely cool if it had been a little grey tabby
cat, but instead it was Martin Landau. Which I
think goes to show that Natsume Ryunosuke is far
luckier than Fox Mulder. (Although it would've been
interesting if Scully was out in the street in a
car with the engine running yelling 'Hey MULDER!
Have you finished peeing yet?')
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