ThatAnimeSnob

Daughter of Twenty Faces is a light mystery/adventure concerning a team of thieves traveling around the world and stealing precious heirlooms. The story plays out in a most romanticized manner, as the thieves have their life’s goal to “liberate” beautiful items from those who don’t deserve them, as well as having a sense of adventure and freedom to do anything they like, liberated themselves from the constrains of their society. This makes the feeling of the show to be bent too much on emotion and ideals and less on pragmatism or reality in general. So in order for someone to enjoy the anime, he or she must not try to rationalize too much whatever is going on in the story but rather take it easy and just enjoy the ride. Which is something I can say about all BONES anime; they always have great production values and premises and always mess up on the story development.

The setting of the show is an alternative world, pretty close to our own but with its own history and countries. Although the thieves are traveling all over the globe, based on clothes and building architecture to the most part it will feel like it takes place somewhere between late 19th and middle 20th century central Europe. This rather exotic and uncommon setting helps the audience to emerge better in the feeling of adventure it emits. I personally found it to be something between Sherlock Holmes and Oliver Twist in the way it tries to depict its imagery. The overall production values are also very good, with consistency throughout the show, usually lively motions, basic choreographies in battle, and far more than a change of clothes to depict when the characters are growing older. Even the CGI feels like it fits perfectly with the 2D animation. As for the soundtrack, it is full of fitting easy going tunes and not extremely emotional J-pop or rock. They also fit with the overall feeling of the series, which is not aiming to make your heart go wild but to subtly portrait the characters and the setting.

Although the band or romantic thieves is big, only the main two members of them are focused a lot and matter in the longrun. One is their leader, the Man of Twenty Faces, and the other is the girl he took under his wings in one of his missions, Chiko or the Daughter of Twenty faces. Their nicknames are based on the fact nobody outside the team knows how they look like in reality and they keep disguising themselves in each mission to make it even harder to have a helpful photo on their wanted poster. Truth is, Chiko is the only one who becomes memorable for her radical change from a weak girl to a dynamic woman (plus because she is voiced by Hirano, the voice actress of Haruhi). Other than that, they are both depicted as highly intelligent, extremely cunning, amazing at disguises and acrobatics. They give off an aura of security and superiority for acting and feeling completely above anyone else.

The truth is though that they are just a bit smarter than the rest, plus the entire world of the series appears to be run by idiots. Although we can excuse it somehow by thinking this is happening in a previous century where most people were ignorant and gullible, you are still made to think that everybody can be fooled with tricks which are child’s play or completely see-through with modern standards. You just have to accept the fact the heroes can put on a wig and a mask and become completely identical to the friends and allies of their opponents. And no, they don’t even do it in a fancy hi-tech way like in the Mission Impossible series. They also have access to super powerful technology, super awesome spy gadgets, super cool disguise kits, and can move around the world in fancy cars or cool zeppelins completely unnoticed. Hell, they can easily destroy everything and buy new ones if they are ever discovered, so it’s like they have endless money and can easily replace anything they waste. So in a way they win most of the time because their opponents are idiots or don’t have equipment from the future. Makes it kinda cheap and anti-climactic to see them constantly winning with childish tricks, full of immature bravado and impractical uses of technology. It is even dumber when the villains constantly make the ridiculous James Bond mistake of trying to imprison the heroes just to explain their plan to them before killing them instead of just killing them. Or they leave the room and assume they will be killed by someone else, something which of course never happens. But as I said you are supposed to like the atmosphere and the characters and not the story and its plausibility. It’s just that in the longrun it makes most of the cast to feel neglected or stupid and thus they are thrown aside for being completely uninteresting to bother remembering.

Speaking of the story, it never manages to be too exciting or memorable in terms of plot. The first part is episodic missions where Chiko slowly learns various tricks to use in their adventures. The second part is about an opposing team of also skilled villains trying to accomplish some devious scheme regarding the war that ended some years ago. Progressively the series becomes less mysterious (because Chiko is learning fast the basics of thievery) and far more action (because she now knows lots of tricks and so do the new enemies). In this regard, the initial feeling of excitement and adventure gives its place to something close to a dull fighting shounen. Although the story becomes more on-going, at the same time it feels like it moves way too fast without much payback in terms of action or character coloring. Especially the finale which is pretty much a snorefest.

Although this anime is in overall very uncommon in the way it tells its story and not following the usual anime clichés too much, down to it lacks the most vital element of any series: Excitement! It doesn’t have much of it and when it attempts to do so all you get is dumb villains, shallow ideology, and dull fighting shounen. Chiko and Man are cool but they are simply not enough to keep you interested in watching for more than a few episodes without something great to look forward to. So nice try but not great in overall.

SUGGESTION LIST
Big O
Pumpkin Scissors
Kino’s Journey
Lupin the 3rd
Alison and Lilia

And now for some excused scorings.

ART SECTION: 7/10
General Artwork 2/2 (interesting setting)
Character Figures 1/2 (nothing amazing but consistent)
Backgrounds 2/2 (detailed and with good CGI)
Animation 1/2 (good but dull)
Visual Effects 1/2 (good but dull)

SOUND SECTION: 7/10
Voice Acting 2/3 (good but rather cheesy on ideology)
Music Themes 3/4 (fitting but not memorable)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)

STORY SECTION: 5/10
Premise 1/2 (cheesy)
Pacing 1/2 (slow)
Complexity 1/2 (too much focus on Chiko)
Plausibility 1/2 (mentally challenged but there)
Conclusion 1/2 (cheesy)

CHARACTER SECTION: 7/10
Presence 2/2 (bold)
Personality 2/2 (rather cheesy but well founded)
Backdrop 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)
Development 1/2 (mostly for Chiko but it’s there)
Catharsis 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)

VALUE SECTION: 4/10
Historical Value 0/3 (none)
Rewatchability 1/3 (small since most episodes are dull)
Memorability 3/4 (generally memorable but could have been much better)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 3/10
Interesting for awhile but the lack of excitement and capable idiots kills it in the longrun.

VERDICT: 5.5/10