Futakoi Alternative

Information of Anime

Futaba Rentaro is a young detective from Futaba Detective Agency.  He's a punk that could care less about things.  Two girls, Sara & Souju Shirogane who are twin sisters, join his agency & become partners.  This is a story about the three members in the Futaba Detective Agency.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Futakoi Alternative is completely different from Futakoi.  There aren't in the same universe.  Although the female twins from Futakoi are all here, the main male character is different & the storyline as well.  Plus, the personalities of the twins are completely different.  For example, Rara & Ruru Hinagiku are some sort of crime fighters with heavy duty weapons in this series.

The series mainly deals with Rentaro & the Shirogane twins' daily detective lives.  From each case, we see a lot of character development & relationship building of the trio.  Around the halfway point, we see why the Shirogane twins joined Futaba Detective Agency.

The parents of the Shirogane twins passed away when they were young & they were adopted by a wealthy family that owns a large company.  There is a proposal that requires the son of the family, Kimihiko, to marry one of the twins of his choice at a certain day.  Failure to do so results in him losing the heir of his family business.  As a result, the Shirogane twins ran away.  In order for them to survive, they need money, food, & shelter.  Thus, they decided to work for Rentaro's business.

Rentaro's the son of a famous detective in the small shopping district he lives in.  With his mother pasted away & his father dead from save the town from a giant squid monster, Rentaro lost hope in life & became a punk.  He had no interest in following his father's footsteps & got himself booted out of university.  It was only until the Shirogane twins decided to work fro him that he reopen Futaba Detective Agency, the business his father ran.

Close to the end of the series, the date of marriage arrived & Rentaro finally met Kimihiko, who discuss the situation with him.  Knowing the truth, Rentaro feels that the Shirogane twins should go back to Kimihiko.  Sara, however, asks Rentaro to make love with her & Souju on the night of the proposed date.  Rejecting her offer, Sara goes back to Kimihiko's place & leaves Souju to him.

Time passes when Sara left & Rentaro & Kimihiko agrees that they should not contact each other in regards on how the Shirogane twins are doing.  As Rentaro starts a new life with Souji, the building where they live & work gets burn down from a fire.  Cause of this, Rentaro & Souju have a hard time starting anew.  Later, we find out the fire was caused by the giant squid monster called Ike Fire that somehow survive the battle with Rentaro's father.  Thus, deja vu happens as the squid tries to burn down the town again.  Trying to move his life forward, Rentaro goes & fights Ike Fire.  He believes that he, Sara, & Souju should stay together as a group of three.  After defeating the squid, he learns that Kimihiko & Sara are getting married in Germany & Rentaro & Souju fly there to get Sara back.

Two things happen as Rentaro & Souju fly in the sky to Germany.  In Germany, Sara & Kimihiko are about to get married as he talks to Sara about how his father's will is unreasonable & thinks that he & Sara will develop their love over time as a married couple.  In the same castle, there is an auction going on that is selling the company's own produced weapons. Back at Rentaro's hometown, the townspeople are fighting off the company that is trying to produce Ike Fires under the town.  Meanwhile, Rentaro & Souju crash into the castle's chapel to get Sara back.  Sara has already been married to Kimihiko, but their wedding rings aren't placed on either of their fingers.  Rentaro tells Kimihiko about one of his companies are responsible in producing the Ike Fires, which shocks Kimihiko.  As he tries to get Sara back, she & Kimihiko are captured as Ike Fires appear out of nowhere & attack Rentaro & Sara.  Captured, Kimihiko & Sara escape from their locked up room & attack some Ike Fires along the way.  In the meantime, Rentaro & Souji are looking for them as they have friends appearing & covering for them.  In the auction room, they set off a bomb to destroy the castle & any evidence that will be used against them.  As the castle starts to crumple, Kimihiko tells Sara to go back to Rentaro & Souju as the three of them belong together.  With the castle falling apart, Rentaro tells Souji to leave as he tries to save Sara.

It turns out the self destruction bomb was actually a device to summon a giant Ike Fire like ship.  While the German army are battling it out, Rentaro tries to save Sara who is about to fall from the broken bridge.  As he tries to save her, Sara tells Rentaro to forget about her & treasure Souju instead as she has finally given up living at two people.  Rentaro refuses & manages to convince Sara that they should be three people.  Souji appears in the plane to save the 2 from falling into the water.  Together as three, they defeat the giant squid.

Three weeks have passed & we see how Rentaro's hometown, Nikotama, has become.  Plus, we see the lives of Rentaro & the Shirogane twins being back to normal.  The sotry ends as Rentaro sums up his past events as a story of love.

My Personal Review

Futakoi Alternative does live up to its name.  It's an alternative to the original Futakoi.  This show is geared more towards a mature older audience.  It's much more deeper than Futakoi in terms of character development.  Although there are some weird comedic moments, the show is more involved in a serious love drama.

Animation

The drawings are quite well done.  There are times, however, where characters' faces are drawn differently.  It's almost if the series had a mix of different drawers in there.  The ending credits uses clay animation drawings though.  Although I didn't like it much in terms of how the characters looked, it was a neat idea as it was a different approach from other anime series.

The background was nice.  The setting sun, the falling rain, etc.  It was drawn well to establish the mood.  The colour tones were used to match that mood well.

Another thing to mention here is the camera angles & shots.  At times, there are used from a distance or focus on a single object when the characters are having a conversation or talking in their heads.  You have to see it to understand.  However, some people may find it boring seeing a coffee cup for 15 seconds while the characters are talking to each other in the background.

The flow of animation is quite natural at times.  It's like the speed we do things in real life normal.  Walking pace, sipping our coffee, etc.  There are times though where the movements are bizarre & unnatural.  It's like watching a wacky children's cartoon where cars fly in the air from driving up a cliff at high speeds.  It's usually done in comedic scenes to relieve the viewers from the stressful situations of the show.

Sound

The sound effect were very good for the drama scenes.  It help establish the shows mood a lot, such as the falling rain.  Even in the comedy scenes, the sound was good, clear, & appropriate.

Not much background music for the show.  In fact, I don't think they are any.  Quite rare in anime these days.  I enjoy listening to the ending theme & there are a lot of remixed versions that are played in the ending credits.

Story

As mentioned , Futakoi Alternative is nothing like Futakoi.  The story is for a mature audience due to it's deep storyline.  The story's pace is quite normal in my view for a 13 episode season.  The heart of the story didn't occur until the midway point.  Because they want to tell a story for all the twins from the Futakoi series, I felt it was ok.  However, some people may find it too slow & boring.  There were times that I felt this way & wished for the episode to finish soon.

To enjoy this series, you must be open-minded & prepare to do a lot of deep thinking.  The story uses a lot of deep ideas that questions the mind & make you feel for Renaro's character.  He goes though a lot of life stages & some of them can be hard to follow at times if you don't open your mind.  Since this is a love drama, there are a lot of deep ideas from the love department.

The story can also be confusing at times.  Some times it's a serious deep love drama, & at the next moment, it becomes some strange out-of-this-world action show.  I'm not sure why the show is made that way.

Overall Conclusion

Futakoi Alternative isn't for everyone, especially for some Futakoi fans that enjoy it for the harem type theme.  This is a serious love drama that requires a lot of deep thinking.  From what I have heard from people, this is in no way related to the game that the first Futakoi anime series was based on.

You don't need to watch Futakoi to understand Futakoi Alternative.  They are two totally different series & you won't be missing out on anything.  Even if you did watch Futakoi, all the things you saw there won't matter for this series.

Futakoi Alternative gets a 7.5/10.  The story is quite deep in terms of love & Rentaro's character development.  However, there were some elements in the story that I found strange, such as the Ike Fire stuff.  Personally, I think that the writers should have stayed with the serious love drama instead than adding all those action elements.  Another bad side is the pace.  Some people will feel that the series is a bit slow.

I would recommend watching this show if you want something with a deep love story & character development without worrying about strange elements appearing in the show.