Tetsuwan Birdy Decode (Birdy the Mighty: Decode)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Tetsuwan Birdy (2008), Birdy the Mighty TV

Japanese: 鉄腕バーディー (2008)

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 5, 2008 to Sep 27, 2008

Premiered: Summer 2008

Broadcast: Saturdays at 01:00 (JST)

Producers: Aniplex, Shogakukan

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: A-1 Pictures

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Demographic: Seinen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.42¹ (scored by 34,316 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1975²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2012

Members: 93,549

Favorites: 384

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Synopsis

While pursuing an alien fugitive, Birdy Cephon Altera—a bombastic police officer from the Space Federation—finds herself on Earth. Her target, Geega, has disguised himself as a human and assimilated into the fashion industry, so Birdy follows suit and joins a modeling agency, taking on the identity "Shion Arita." Her position as a rising model has her posing for photo shoots by day and chasing intergalactic criminals by night.

Meanwhile, Tsutomu Senkawa, an average high school student, explores an abandoned building with his friend, and coincidentally, Birdy has tracked down Geega to the same building. Senkawa briefly witnesses the battle before being seized as a hostage by Geega. However, Birdy, oblivious, attacks Geega and accidentally kills Senkawa. Distraught, she quickly decides to save him by integrating his consciousness into her body.

Now, Birdy and Senkawa must not only cohabitate the same body, but also balance Senkawa's high school life, Shion Arita's modeling career, and Birdy's increasingly dangerous job as a Federation officer.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Tetsuwan Birdy
Alternative version:	Tetsuwan Birdy
Sequel:	Tetsuwan Birdy Decode: The Cipher

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Altera, Birdy Cephon

Main

Chiba, Saeko
Japanese

Senkawa, Tsutomu

Main

Irino, Miyu
Japanese

Nakasugi, Sayaka

Main

Sakamoto, Maaya
Japanese

Tuto

Supporting

Kawada, Shinji
Japanese

Gomez, George

Supporting

Ishizuka, Unshou
Japanese

Muroto, Keisuke

Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji
Japanese

Thetis, Capella

Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori
Japanese

Megius, Paul

Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka
Japanese

Hayamiya, Natsumi

Supporting

Itou, Kanae
Japanese

Weegie

Supporting

Neya, Michiko
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Izubuchi, Yutaka

Producer

Akane, Kazuki

Director

Aketagawa, Jin

Sound Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"Sora" by Hearts Grow

Edit

Ending Theme

"Let's go together" by Afromania

More reviews

Reviews

Jan 31, 2009

Archaeon

Recommended

I will freely admit that I'm a fan of the original Birdy the Mighty. I watched the original OVA back in 1997, and I loved the show for it's surrealistic sci-fi premise. When I heard that the show was being remade into a 13 part TV series, it goes without saying that I was looking forward to it.

The original Tetsuwan Birdy manga was created by Yuuki Masami (who is more well known for his Mobile Police Patlabor series), and ran in Shounen Sunday Super magazine. However, Yuuki's work on Kyuukyoku Chojin R (The Ultimate Esper "R"), for the same magazine eventually led to the manga ... being abandoned. The original manga was received rather well though, which led to it's adaptation as a four part OVA.

It wasn't until a few years later that Yuuki went back to the original Tetsuwan Birdy series, and instead of continuing with the series from the time it was abandoned, he decided to do a complete revision of the series from scratch. The new series, Birdy the Mighty II, began serialisation in Weekly Young Sunday magazine in 2003.

The story for both the original OVA and the new series generally follows the same path. Intergalactic police officer Birdy Cephon Altera and her cyborg partner Tute arrive on Earth in pursuit of a wanted alien criminal and, whilst chasing that criminal, she accidentally kills a high school student named Senkawa Tsutomu. However, this is not the end for Tsutomu as the Federation that Birdy works for will provide him with a new body. In the interests of not causing undue alarm to the people around him (and letting him continue with his life), Tsutomu's "soul" is merged with Birdy's body (allowing them to switch between each other), whilst his new body is made.

In all honesty, I preferred the story in the OVA. The new series, whilst being more in depth, also tends to drag its heels with regards to the plot. The OVA had a much tighter story, and the pacing was far better because of the time constraints. The new series, whilst giving more information, is also guilty of not using the extra time in the series to drive the story forward. Indeed, there are to many occasions in the new series that can only be described as "filler" moments (thankfully though, there's no real filler episodes).

The most noticeable thing about this series is the quality of the artwork and the animation. The character designs are very much in keeping with both manga, however the level of detail in the designs is superior than that of the OVA. The backgrounds are often very well done, and the CG sequences are very smooth, especially during the sequences in space. A-1 pictures have done some excellent work animating the show, and nowhere is this more noticeable than in the various action sequences. The various fights and chases are extremely fluid and surprisingly detailed.

Sound is another big plus for this series, and is definitely better than that of the OVA. The sound effects used throughout the show are generally very good, although some of the effects can be a little odd in their usage. The OP is a pretty good J-rock track by Hearts Grow, entitled Sora. I have to admit that I much prefer the track used for the ED though, as it seems more in keeping with the slightly whimsical nature of the show.

Birdy is actually a pretty good character on the whole. During her time on Earth she moonlights as an up-and-coming idol named Arita Shion. The nice part about giving Birdy a "secret identity" is that it allows more of her playful personality to come to the fore.

Tsutomu, on the other hand, is more of a typical high school boy of the type that appear in many anime. The relationship between Birdy and Tsutomu works surprisingly well however, especially during the time they share one body. There is a definite chemistry between the two characters that was never really developed in the OVA, and the conversations between the two are often lively.

The downside though, is that a number of the other characters aren't developed well (or at all in some cases). Some of the more prominent characters (Nakasugi Sayaka and Satyajit Shyamalan for example), could have received a great deal more development than the show provided, especially in the case of Shyamalan.

That said though, this is still a entertaining series. There's enough going on in the show to keep you interested, although the end of the show was rather predictable. I did enjoy the series on the whole, and whilst it may be superior to the OVA in many respects, it doesn't have the same pacing or the tight storyline of the original.

This is a show that action fans may enjoy, but it may also appeal to those who want to see a strong female lead. If you simply want a show that's got action without being too serious, then it may be worth giving this a try.

Given a choice though, I would go for the OVA before watching this.

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Oct 4, 2008

sanimej2

Recommended

Please bare with me thou this is my first review.

I just finished watching Birdy - Decode and I have to say "Great series". The story itself was good in this series. Maybe they had spread it over 12 ep. instead of just 4 OVA's back then. I remembered watching the "Birdy" first OVA's many moons ago and I was like "eh" about the anime back then. When I saw they were coming out with an 12 episode series, I was willing to give it a try and happy I did. It's refreshing to see a anime thats different ...

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May 19, 2011

itsthatguy

Recommended

I have never seen the original Birdy OVA so I cannot possibly compare between the two series. Therefore this version is going to be reviewed on its own merits.

I actually found this show when it was recommended to me on Netflix. It looked interesting so I gave it a shot. Birdy had a pretty original premise and that was what initially got me hooked. It seemed like it was going to be mostly an action-based series with aliens thrown in, which is exactly what it is at times, but a lot of the fight scenes are pretty intense and fun to watch. ... The story didn't focus entirely on the intergalactic alien hunter aspect of the series though which was nice, call it a pleasant case of Multiple Personality Disorder. It added a little bit of comedy, mystery, and some romance from Tsutomu's part in the series. This worked out to be a nice balance as it gave enough to satisfy the cravings of those action junkies out there while providing general entertainment for those other viewers.

The show climaxed nicely with everything that had been building up and the ending was so bitter-sweet that it actually made me like the series more. However, the ending was far from conclusive for the Birdy franchise as a whole. The last episode left with more questions and mysteries left unsolved than when the season began, working as a nice setup for season 2. Unfortunately I will say that the show has a tendency to drag its heels at times, moving the pace to almost a crawl occasionally. And while no episode is truly filler as something important to the story always happens, there still were a lot of moments that served only to slow the series down.

I thought that the art for Birdy was pretty good, actually really good, which is most likely the result of it being a newer title. There was a pretty nice mix of CGI and animation which helped when combined with the overarcing theme of sci-fi and aliens. The fight scenes were always nice to watch and were nice and dark and gritty. On the flip side when the animators wanted to they came out with some really nice looking peaceful and artistic scenes and some nice everyday animation.

My only problem with the animation was that sometimes things looked TOO nice. It kind of reminded me of watching the special effects that you see from movies in the 70's or 80's in that things didn't look right with the rest of the scene. Sometimes the animation would be so intricate and detailed that the scene or one aspect of the scene would look clunky or awkward in regards to the rest and that took away from the overall experience at times.

All of the characters had extremely unique appearances so there was no possible way of confusing one character with another, I'll chalk that one up to a plus for the animators and animation. The development of these characters was not quite as refined however. Most of the character development in our main twosome is through Birdy by means of various flashbacks and references from other characters, but these are usually left untouched and are a part of the slew of mysteries that were left at the end of the series. Birdy's alter ego Shion Arita, while not making many appearances, served to add a dash of humor to the series at times too. Tsutomu was a pretty average male anime lead but he grew up a bit over the series, apparently dying does that to you, or maybe it's just puberty, I can't say for sure, and there were definitely times where he showed some balls throughout the series.

On a side note this reminds me of another point I wanted to make. Despite the fact that this show is about a teenage boy sharing a body with a hot alien girl, Tsutomu always remains a perfect gentleman and doesn't act weird when he's riding around in Birdy's body. The series refrained from using that plot point as an excuse for having weird ecchi moments with Tsutomu and Birdy for cheap kicks. This show was about as un-ecchi as you can get. Birdy takes like 20 baths over the course of the series but not once does Tsutomu try to say or do something weird or perverted with their body, which makes me give major props to the director of this show for not tailoring to those who only picked up the series because there was a hot alien girl as the main character.

Some of the background characters have important roles in regards to the main story. Others have absolutely no relevance to it at all. And still others appear to have some role but that role is unknown for now and the viewer won't know for sure until...you guessed it, season 2. As for the primary antagonists, they aren't really given a good amount of devlopment either but it doesn't particularly hurt the story in any way.

The opening theme "Sora" wasn't anything unique but it was still pretty good and I liked it while the ending theme "Let's Go Together" is just a fun and peppy "just don't give a fuck" kind of song that was always pretty enjoyable.

This was a pretty good action show. It was a pretty good sci-fi show. It was also a pretty good looking show with some good characters and a good plot. Basically what I'm saying here is that Birdy the Mighty: Decode is a solid show all around and if you don't mind it being a bit slow, I don't see why anyone wouldn't enjoy it. It's diverse in the genres that it throws at the viewer, it's a unique story, and it leaves you wanting more at the end. Overall I would highly recommend this series for action, sci-fi, and overall anime fans in general.

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Nakasugi, Sayaka

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Muroto, Keisuke

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