Tokyo ESP - First Impressions

Studio: Xebec

Genre(s): Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Shounen, Super Power, Supernatural

OP: "Tokyo Zero Hearts" by Faylan

ED: "Kyuusei Argyros" by Yousei Teikoku

Summary: The science fantasy story Tokyo ESP begins with Rinka, an extremely poor high school girl who lives with just her father in modern Tokyo. One day, she is going home from school when she chases a "flying penguin" to the top of New Tokyo Tower—only to have "fish swimming in the air" suddenly appear before her. One of the fish goes through Rinka and gives her extraordinary powers beyond those of normal humans, particularly the ability to slip through solid objects.

(Source: ANN)

The combination of science fiction and fantasy has always been a rather odd mix for me. On one hand we have something that tries to grounded in as much reality as possible, and this includes the "fiction" part of science fiction; and on the other is something that is right out of left field with magic and many other things that wouldn't be probable. So when mixing these two it's almost like the story wants to try to explain something that would normally be improbable to do so, yet still attempt to do it with science.

So going into Tokyo ESP with that kind of mindset, I found myself more curious as to how this anime would explain these ESP powers. As of the first episode, there wasn't much explaining but it was way more diving straight into the conflict. Interestingly enough, there is a mention of the duality of science, where nothing is a miracle, and fantasy, where everything is a miracle. This dichotomy seems to be integrated in the fiction itself and that type of discussion between science and the supernatural actually seems like one of the few way to handle the "science fantasy" genre.

Probably the most clear cases for mixing of these two subjects is the espers use of technology. As far as I can see, they -- the espers -- use science based technology as a tool for further enhancing their own powers; I saw a couple of specific examples that I wish to share, and the first one was a man who has pyrokinesis that only really extends to his fingers. The way he made something like that dangerous is the use a gas canisters attached to his arms, essentially turning him into a living flamethrower. The other isn't as easy to explain but she had aerokinesis and she had some type of turbines to both intensify and better control her own mini hurricane.

It's not clear whether most espers have limits like this, but I find it really interesting that users of ESP have an inherent weakness that gets solved by some type of tool. This dependency on tools really does bring esper back into the context of humans considering that both non-espers and espers have some reliance on tools to do most of their damage.

The other thing that stuck to me is the disdain for esper by the non-ESP users; It reminds me of Wizard Barrister, minus the lawyery bits. The only contrary to this opinion seems to be the "White Girl", which is a pretty awful name be by known by the populous.

Through all the outward complains about espers, at one point I questioned the dehumanization that the people were doing thinking that esper were still most likely humans; sure enough, I get that confirmation and this is where the layer of "us vs them" mentality forms all over again. Only this is, in this case, their complaints are valid considering a group of espers are holding their parliament hostage on the pretence of getting them to worship espers.

With all that put together, I find myself intrigued by most of the subjects covered in Tokyo ESP. This anime is one of the few that I've been hooked in from the first episode alone from this season. There are also a lot of people saying that the first few minutes is a reference to Ga-Rei: Zero, which I haven't watched yet and am considering watching. So this is certainly one close to the top for me, and I am looking forward to seeing how the story develops.

Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: Archived Page