Izumiko Suzuhara has a knack for destroying everything electronic. If she just touches a cell phone it sputters and turns into a plastic and metal brick. Growing up at the Kumano Shrine is quite different from the city life the shy Izumiko wants to experience. Her long, twin braids and her lack of basic texting skills makes her the oddball in her high school.
If only her fellow students knew the truth of how odd she really is.
Yukimasa Sagara is a reluctant guardian for the awkward girl in pigtails. He is a monk in training and sworn to protect Izumiko. Never mind the fact she has no clue what she truly is and the havoc she can cause.
Red Data Girl is a fairly typical high school fantasy love story. The story has some pacing issues; it feels a little rushed at times. There are identical triplets in the story (Mayura, Manastu, and Masami) that often swap places with each other. Sometimes this is rather confusing; Masami is a spirit his sister and brother summons to help them fight spirits.
The characters are interesting and show drastic personality changes over the course of the story. Izumiko and Yukimasa show the most pronounced changes. Red Data Girl is an interesting twist on the rather tired high school coming of age story. It is steeped in Shinto folklore and feels very Japanese. Some Western watchers new to anime and Shinto folklore may feel confused and lost. The manga was featured in Shonen Ace, but the story has a shojo feel to it. Most of the story is from Izumiko’s perspective.
So what is my weigh in? RDG is enjoyable enough to hold my attention for the duration of its 12 episodes. The Shinto folklore kept my interest peaked. The characters were interesting if stereotypical. The high school setting negated the sense of danger the story tried to convey. There was far less threat to the characters from my perspective than the story tried to suggest. Much of the conflict felt like a soap opera rather than a serious confrontation between forces. This is mainly because the conflict was framed by high school concerns: student council maneuvers, student festivals, plays, and the like. The “villains” were far from sinister. They were teens after all.
RDG isn’t a show to go out of your way to see or avoid. It is enjoyable and entertaining, but it isn’t all the memorable.
1 thought on “Red Data Girl: RDG”