Tenchi Souzou Design-bu

Have you ever wondered why some animals look so strange and that they have weird and bizarre functions to begin with? And when you research more in details about their habitat and the likes, it gets even stranger and more bizarre! The more you know… I mean, how the f*ck did God design such creatures in the first place?! What was He thinking?! SERIOUSLY?! Well, according to Tenchi Souzou Design-bu, God didn’t exactly created all those creatures on Earth. You see, our Almighty actually outsourced the creation and designing of all the creatures that walk the land, swim the sea and fly the skies to a bunch of designing weirdoes! OMG. Really? So the omnipotent and omniscient God, the one and only God outsourced it to a bunch of whoever these people are? They’re not even angels! Oh man, you telling me God is lazy?! Yeah, maybe creating mankind took a whole lot of energy away from Him. Okay. Jokes aside, let’s see what you creative design pros have got to show.

Episode 1
Ueda introduces new angel, Shimoda to the design team. Yeah, apparently God outsourced the design of animals to these bunch of weirdoes. So we see them deliberate on a few ideas and once done, they have to hand it to Higuchi who is from the engineer department to create a prototype and see if the creature is viable on Earth. Hence Higuchi rejects Tsuchiya’s Pegasus idea because for a horse to fly, it will have to be filled with muscles! Can’t they just overwrite the physics?! Damn reality… Then there is Unabara’s long neck deer. Yeah, having such long neck, the blood won’t flow to the head. So after making some adjustments, looks like God approves this creature we all know as a giraffe! When Mizushima designs a snake, Kanamori is not happy because it keeps eating the eggs of his weaver birds. No chance for survival. He tries to design the egg have harder shell (can’t hatch!) or softer shell (snake still eats it!) but in the end comes up with the idea of weaver birds making hanging nests on trees. But soon, Kanamori is depressed. Despite the weaver birds making a fortress out of the hanging nests, the snakes redouble their attack intensity. Back to square one? With that, Kanamori comes up with a revenge bird. The secretary bird that eats and kicks snakes! Unabara comes up with a prototype of an anteater. To test it out, they head down to Galapagos Island to test and see if it can survive Earth’s conditions. Kimura is interested in eating animals and wonders if they taste good. From his experience, herbivores and those with low muscle mass are delicious! So what’s this moving sausage animal he comes up with?! Yeah, they’re eating it while brainstorming! Unabara fears his animals being eaten just like that so he makes some update to his prototype. And so his anteater becomes an armadillo. Good news for him. God approves both his animals!

Episode 2
A huge dragonfly chases Kanamori. Ueda catches it with her bare hands and sends it back to the insect department. Wow. These Mushi-bu guys are clones? Thank goodness they’re colour coded. It seems they are trying to make it smaller. Shimoda sees Meido creating a poison dart frog. Might look cute on the outside. Wait till you hear its characteristics that Meido has for it. With God wanting an animal that is cute but not cute, Meido takes up that task. Yeah, very nasty ideas she’s got… One of them being some mind controlling parasite but since it is too big, Shimoda takes it to the insect department to shrink it. And hence God approves the horsehair worm! Meido is on a streak as she designs more of that nasty theme. Multiple penises? Eats poison? Young eats mother’s poo? In the end, God approves what we all know as koala bears! Horse lover Tsuchiya is disheartened his unicorn prototype instantly died. Lack of calcium as it mainly went to the horn. How come the elk doesn’t have this problem? Something about their different stomachs. Anyway, he redesigns the horn to be hollow. Still dies! Not enough nutrients to make the horn! Make the unicorn more stupid?! Well, now it got its head stuck in the wall till its horn breaks! After making a few more prototypes, a couple end up fighting till their horns break and die! One got stuck in a tree till its horn fell off and dies! All rejected! Unabara picks up a horn and uses it for an animal he is currently design. God instantly approves his narwhal!!!! Beach episode as the gang has a great time at Galapagos’ beach since God has approved a flurry of their dolphins and whales. Shimoda learns from Unabara that the dolphin designs are actually taken from the hippo and not the seal. Meido created her cuttlefish and is not happy Unabara’s dolphins keep eating them. Hence both enter an animal battle whereby they design upgrades to their animals to see who gets the better of other. From ink squid to echolocation, their animals eventually evolve into a giant squid and sperm whale in which God gladly approves. A small consolation for Tsuchiya as his rejected water kelpie is approved when he redesigned it as a seahorse.

Episode 3
Kanamori and Kimura have Shimoda do some chanting for dramatic effect to summon a dragon! However Mizushima who was the original designer of this rejected piece isn’t too happy. After all, he put his heart and soul into designing it and only to be rejected. Yeah, it still hurts. But what kind of animal can they do since God wants them to make one that flies without wings? Using back the dragon model, it eventually becomes the tail of a giant chicken?! The dragon is the intestines and its mouth actually breathes fire poo and urine?! WTF?! Eventually Mizushima comes up with a better one: A flying snake. And this has God’s approval. Good riddance of that monstrosity. A few days later, God also approves Kimura’s starfish because its mouth is also its anus. WTF, God?! When Higuchi is perplexed that Tsuchiya’s seahorse’s gender is swapped, they realize the writing belongs to Kenta, Tsuchiya’s grandson. So as not to hurt his feelings, they decide to leave it as it is and resolve the minor details. So make the father give birth, huh? When Kenta talks about combining a few animals together, the rest get hyped to combine some of their designs to create… WTF IS THIS MONSTROSITY! Luckily Ueda deletes it. Never speak of it again! Shortly, God approves a design. Since nobody designed something recently, they realize it was Kenta. Oh sh*t, what the heck is this monster locked in Higuchi’s room?! They can’t delete it since God tells them to make it work! As Kenta doesn’t remember what kind of animal he drew (it’s in the room with the monster, by the way), the rest design an animal that could take it down. So after tweaking this giant gorilla of its heatstroke and heavy mass issues, it eventually turns into an elephant. God approves! The elephant is able to get the drawing. Making adjustments to its initial size of 30m to 3cm, hence God approves this marine creature known as hallucigenia.

Episode 4
Kanamori has a personal request from God to make horses fly. Because God isn’t being specific, he is having headaches trying to figure out what He wants. Each time he designs something, God somewhat rejects it and tells him it should be like this and like that. Yeah, should’ve been a little more specific from that start, should He not? After all the drafts and redesigns, finally God accepts this bat creation. More specifically, a horseshoe bat. Thanks to all the redesigning, Kanamori forgot to take out its fake extra nipples. Next, Kanamori dresses to the nines since God tasks him to create a bird that’s like a gem. Kanamori comes up with the hummingbird but some technicalities make it unable to live long or efficient. After doing more research with the Mushi-bu guys and other adjustments, finally God accepts this hummingbird. Kanamori thanks Mizushima for his help but looks like the latter has also helped him with another gem-like bird request. Because it comes out hideous, Kanamori argues with him and starts redesigning. Mizushima also tries to add his touch but during the heat of the dispute, their absurd hybrid design has been approved by God! And that is how the ostrich was born! Kanamori lets Mizushima choose a gem as thanks for his help so he chooses a diamond to give it to Higuchi. Sorry folks, if you think some romance is going to happen. Not going to because he thinks she needs her for her lens material for refracting. Ueda visits the gang only to see them wearing stripes because God wants them to make a more stripy animal and they’re trying to incorporate some camouflage factor into this zebra they’re making. Unabara has his hands full with some stripy animal he needs to come up. Eventually he comes up with a panda that God approves. But it soon starts to act weird. Accidentally, it had a starfish base stuck as its design. It is replicating like mad when you tear its fur off! To stop this madness, Tsuchiya releases tsetse flies to put them to sleep so they can clean up the mess. And good news, God has also approved the zebra. When Ueda reveals she used curses to make the animals sleepy, God strikes her down and expels her to hell! WTF just happened?!

Episode 5
Everyone feels bad that Ueda got sent to hell. One day, a moth with a skull face on its back enters the room, freaking out all. And here comes Ueda to catch it! She explains about the curse to avoid work related deaths and she was sent to hell for a business trip. The lightning was just God’s way of teleporting her there quick. As heaven is collaborating with hell, she introduces Yokota who is in charge of building hell as a theme park. Experience all the pain and rage! He is here since he was impressed with their panda design and wants to commission them to do a mascot for the park. Here’s this 3-headed design to get them started. As the designers question about the viability of other factors, Yokota assures them that hell can make necessary adjustments to the physics so go all out in designing form over function. The designers are happy since they have some details to work on instead of very vague requests. So they split into 2 teams and start designing. One did a 3-headed wolf and the other a 3-headed crocodile. Both have their pros and cons so Yokota accepts both designs. He’ll pay them double and will even buy that moth design with a royalty contract. Damn, I don’t know hell is this good. Well, they say the path to hell is paved with good intentions… During lunch break, Kimura shows his seafood lunch. Live food. His explanation of his lobster design immediately has God’s approval. Unabara also shows his otter design as he has to design an animal that can’t swim well. Too bad the otter gets hooked on Kimura’s seafood. As they both add some other features and test it out, Unabara and Ueda fawn more and more over the little furry cuteness. Don’t care whatever problems. It’s just so cute! They veto whatever Kimura’s suggestions because it would be so uncute. When they test it out on Galapagos, Unabara is disheartened the otters have gum infection from eating too much hard stuffs. How now? If they don’t eat, they die. The smart otters have evolved. They use a rock to break hard things. And with that, God approves of the sea otter. Are we ready to fawn over more otter-ly cuteness?!

Episode 6
Shimoda comes to tell the designers a piece of good news: God approves a 3 day vacation on Galapagos. Basically a company trip? But the designers aren’t welcoming it since they are swamped with work and believe they still have to work while on vacation. But since it comes down to this, they head there right now. Higuchi builds a traditional Japanese hotspring inn for them. The guys take a dip but they’re feeling weird because this rejected design of Kimura is sitting next to them. WTF, this Alien?! Anyway, it proves to be a tasty nabe treat. Shimoda then finds a note with newspaper clippings saying no to leave the room. The designers of course won’t be doing so since they’re already drinking. But later they notice Kimura not around so they have to go out and look for him. Mizushima isn’t fond of the cold so he gives up and heads back to sleep. Meido got inspiration from Higuchi’s tools and creates a sawshark and hammerhead shark in which God instantly approves. This is to help find Kimura who is feared drowned in the ocean. The sharks do find him but how to get him out? Higuchi changes the weather to have the tornado suck him out. Oh sh*t. Sharks flying out too? Sharknado???!!!

Next morning, Kimura is back. He said he died but I guess everyone is immortal here. Or is it? Because they stumble into a murder scene! Mizushima is dead! An ashtray on his head with bloodied footprints walking towards the mirror. Kimura plays detective as he tastes the blood that tastes like milk. Could it be from this flamingo? Kanamori was designing a male bird that nurses its young and the milks is red due to the algae it eats. With that, God approves the flamingo and Kimura deducing Mizushima stepped into the room dark and got shocked he stepped over the red milk and tripped. Yes, of course he isn’t dead. As for the ashtray on his head, Kimura has everyone state their alibis and he suspects Unabara? Of course he denies and explains about this squirrel that eats snakes that he was designing. Noticing the snake around Mizushima is missing, I guess they bug the guy to find it so he makes some adjustments as God approves the rattlesnake and California ground squirrel. Yeah, both start trying to kill each other! But the ashtray? Further deduction points to Shimoda as the culprit. They see him at the cliff’s edge threatening to jump. Until he says it is okay to come over. Emerging from underwater is a large dragon palace for them to rest. Because the designers came to Galapagos a day early, Shimoda was worried this surprise would be exposed as it is still under construction. So that note was just a note and wasn’t meant to sound threatening. During the sharknado, Kimura saw lights at the bottom of the ocean so he played detective just to distract everyone. So what about the ashtray already?! Oh, Shimoda put that on Mizushima’s head because he saw the squirrel was going to bite it (after sensing some snake venom on it). So I guess now the designers can really rest up in this real vacation. Yeah, it’s a really tiring first day already.

Episode 7
Because Unabara felt something watching him while bathing, hence God has a request of making an animal that is watching although it looks like it isn’t there. Basically camouflage? Shimoda thought a chameleon would suffice but Mizushima reminds him the concept of it changing skin colour is because of the light and mood. With Meido suggesting her squid base thingy, a few suggestions and modifications has God accept the creation of the crocodile icefish. This leads to a follow up feature and the creation of a single celled organism with an eye of dinoflagellate. After a visit to the fireworks, Kenta seemed down. Did he meet his first love? Yeah, he scribbled a picture of it. Tsuchiya is going to make his wish come true. Starting with this alien base, they try to interpret Kenta’s drawing. Uh huh. It gets scarier and weirder the more they suggest and modify. Are you sure this abomination alien is Kenta’s first love?! Turns out that Meido was creating the same thing but now smaller. She was at the fireworks with this abomination but it had problems so she went back to fix it. Perhaps Kenta saw it. So this kid’s perception was actually spot on? With all that in place, hence this is how the tarsier was created. Now Kenta is a happy boy again. Tsuchiya uses this alien base for his next design. So he is trying to make hearing as its main feature, huh? Shimoda gets to be the prey to test out this creature’s stealth ability. But each time, Shimoda is able to tell it is coming or pinpoint its location. So after all the modifications from the experiments, can you guess which animal came out from this? Hooray I got it right because it’s an owl!!! So the whole face and skull serves as its parabola for hearing, huh? Hey, I didn’t know that! Later Kanamori adds a few cute touches to it and God approves the horned owl.

Episode 8
This time Kimura is being the animal himself to experiment on using expanding ribs as weapon? So we see the gang discuss and deal with issues like easy to break bones, breathing difficulty and eventually osteoporosis. All the suggestions and fixing leads to the approval of the turtle! With more side suggestions, God also approves variant species of turtles to go with. As for the initial sketch of an animal using its rib bones as weapons, eventually God accepted and approve the Iberian ribbed newt. Shimoda and Unabara see Kanamori in an elaborate feather getup, singing some weird courting song. And this leads to the creation of the long tail manakin. Then they go check the others out and see Mizushima and Kimura in a rap battle. Their lyrics sucks because they don’t understand what they’re saying and even more so Meido couldn’t hear a damn thing because of the loud waterfall noise. Apparently Meido is having them help her out do some experimenting on courting for frogs because their courting is like a rap battle, the fastest croaking wins. The duo continue their rap battle and because it is so intense this time, a boulder almost falls on them. This time Unabara shows his strength to destroy the boulder. Everyone is so impressed of his strength and this has Meido receive an idea about a courting contest to just show off leg muscles. And that is how the staurois frog is born. Unabara hopes that his cute seals will have some cute courting methods too. Since they are sea creatures, he thought expanding their lungs like a balloon would be a good thing. However their nose start to inflate and even more so the red wall of the nose membrane. And just like that, God approves the hooded seal.

Episode 9
God has a request to create an animal that tickles one’s maternal instincts. Since all the designers are busy with their own assignments, the only one willing to take this up is Meido. Oh dear… So she takes advice from the rest and it makes them worry since she claims to have taken some inspiration from the not so charming side of their advice. Whether it is Kimura’s love imprisonment for crabs, Unabara’s bear hibernation and survival policy and Kanamori’s birds eating together as a group. Eventually she comes out with this fluffy thing which is a parasite that will invade the host’s nervous system and make the host believe take care of it, believing it as its own child. And that is how the crustacean, rhizocephala parasite is born. And Kimura’s crabs are the one to bear this parasite… Shimoda hosts a battle between Kimura and Unabara to see whose penguin’s design can survive through the frigid frozen desert. For the first point of catching fish, Kimura designs his penguin to have very long legs. Although it runs faster, however it is inefficient in swimming since too much surface exposure means losing too much heat. Even if Kimura designed its veins to have intertwining blood circulation, Unabara’s design is also similar. Just that the penguin’s legs are in squatting position. Hence, Unabara winning a point. The duo continue to design based on the theme Shimoda throws. Both of them are neck to neck and at a tie as it all comes down to the final question of how it will raise its offspring when there is no food. In the end, God accepts both and hence we got the king penguin and emperor penguin. Double winners, double the cuteness.

Episode 10
Did Shimoda just walk into a breakup drama?! Anyway, the guy is leaving because he doesn’t want to be brainwashed by the queen. Shimoda learns from #213 that this is a perfect society ruled by their queen. She shows him around their utopia and everything. This includes her genderless siblings who are assigned jobs and posts. As her job is to develop some potato cultivation, she thanks the note left by her friend, #72. However at the end of it, there was a note that talked about rebelling against the queen. Safe to say that she might have died as there are bloodstains all over. Then they meet the queen who praise #213 for her hard work and gives her a health supplementary pill to carry on. #213 gives it to Shimoda since she can get another later. She shows him around more like the nursery and how the guards’ role are to be eaten by the enemy. This is when Shimoda remembers her telling him that the queen is chosen by merit and not via hereditary. This causes #213 to feel uneasy because in that case, shouldn’t she be the queen? Without a doubt, the queen appears before her and it seems the pill was a ruse to keep her and others blindly loyal to her. Both fight and in the twist of #213’s victory, she realizes the queen is actually #72! She passes her crown to her. Shimoda then wakes up from a contraption. Seems Higuchi created this VR machine to better peek and observe the lives of animals first hand. And did you guess what animal they were? Naked mole rats! Damn, I thought they were ants!!!

Later, Shimoda walks in to see Tsuchiya summoning a demon lord???!!! He stops him but soon realizes his mistake. Tsuchiya was just delivering this creation of his after he got an order from Yokota. Due to the interruption, now it’s stuck. I guess it’s time to take a break. And then God has an order to make an animal that rejuvenates. This has them talking about aging and death. Shimoda is surprised the rest view this as a blessing and not a curse. Although some animals do not age, this aging thingy is essential for survival. Tsuchiya shows him a mini simulator whereby an animal ages and the other doesn’t. The one that ages looks normal. They breed and the old get eaten by the enemy. As for the ageless one, it is the young that get eaten since they are easier for the enemy to get. So what happens when there are no newer generation and just the same old ones? They all die! Because of the lack of diversity, this makes them susceptible to diseases. Hence this helps in giving more variety and better chance of survival of its species. To fulfil God’s request, Tsuchiya tries to reset his horse and hopes it will turn back into one again. Too bad it becomes a jellyfish. With others pointing out its basic construction and metamorphosis ability, looks like God accepts the creation of the immortal jellyfish! Now it’s time to get the demon lord back to hell. Because Kimura tries to maximize its output and presses some unknown switch, an explosion occurs. Shimoda is shocked to see Tsuchiya has turned into his younger self! Everyone else is missing and the door to Galapagos is open.

Episode 11
Galapagos is like the Amazon jungle? They see a young Mushi-bu and Higuchi. Seems the blast from the time accelerator has turned them young so the same could be deduced for the rest. Tsuchiya remembers Kimura sneaking some bread beforehand. Since that bread was made of lima beans, when attacked, they emit a signal to another insect to eat the predator eating them. Creating a device based on that, they find Kimura. Meanwhile the rest are surrounded by piranhas! But Meido assures them these are herbivore piranhas. WTF?! They just look like the carnivorous ones so that it won’t get eaten. But too bad, Mizushima has designed and thrown crocodiles to help counter the piranha threat. Will they be crocodile chowder now? Kanamori throws some unprocessed root of his that serves as cyanide to crocodiles. Instant death! But their numbers are overwhelming. Mizushima then fakes the sound of a crocodile baby so the female would come. This would lead to other males gathering but the female’s husband will start to chase them away. But how are they going to tackle the lone female? Unabara has no choice but to turn his cute otter into a hideous giant otter to fight it. And God approves this! In the aftermath, everyone returns to their original state. The demon lord has been sent back to hell but Yokota wonders why its body is elongated. Transmission error? Our designers are invited to a party in hell. Unabara doesn’t want to go since he is in a slump and hasn’t finished his assignment. The rest cover for him to have Shimoda report to God that he is unwell and to extend his deadline. So basically they just lied to God, huh? Yokota welcomes to the party as the designers give them gifts that are skull and skeletal remains of animals. Fascinating. Yokota has a request to design something that looks like some devilish imp and works underground. The designers brainstorm and come up with a skeletal structure base on that. Unabara’s depression is enhanced seeing all this so Yokota tells him to design freely and enjoy it. Hence he modifies a little the draft and as a result, a bunny! Since hell isn’t part of God’s domain, Shimoda has to leave to communicate. But Yokota says he has invited God here. Oh sh*t. God coming to hell?! Worse, they’ll find out about Unabara’s lie! Here’s the shiny light coming through the door now!

Episode 12
Behold the Almighty! Oh, it’s just Ueda and a garuda. Apparently God was on His way here but suddenly an urgent business back in heaven made Him go back. So he left this garuda with some congratulatory message. They discuss how this bird was one of Kanamori’s rejected design but since it is good to be use in hell, I guess that’s okay. God speaks through the garuda (although just a recorded message) that he has a new request for them and that is to make an animal that can be used in hell’s attraction as well as one that can be sent to both Earth and hell. The designers thought they’re in deep sh*t when God knows Unabara is not sick. However if that’s the case, they can all get back to work. Oh, God the merciful! Except when it comes to requests… Back to designing… We see the gang design from paradoxical frogs to T-rex. All surprising Shimoda but not Ueda. The one that shocks everybody including her is a bird that could mimic exactly voices it heard. You bet, everybody thought God was around again, eh? Thanks to Kanamori’s design, the superb lyrebird is accepted. Now Yokota can play chuunibyou with it… When Shimoda stumbles upon a very cute animal draft design, he asks the designers about it. They leave him vague hints to guess. When he guesses wrong, they show him the prototype draft of that animal. Like lions, how it was first huge and have wheels and hind legs and deer that initially has tree branches as its horns! Of course with more hints and Shimoda trying to guess (all wrong, still), it’s like trying to test us if we’re paying attention in all previous episodes to some of the animals’ special abilities! OMG! Do you still remember them?! Then some hints that sound like red herring lie antlers as wifi, eyes for scanning and can do printing! But it’s true! This draft is actually Shimoda! Wait, what?! When Ueda was serving them, they thought of coming up with another assistant. However this cute thingy is clumsily bulky and sounds helluva annoying! Hence God created Shimoda just for them! Aww… How sweet. Shimoda will cherish this draft and perhaps make merchandise out of it? Yeah, he’s so cute now, right? And of course, another unreasonable vague request from God to create a bird that doesn’t lay eggs (peacock?). Well, back to work, everyone.

Episode 13 (Special)
Kanamori and Meido design various shark egg shapes. Unlike birds, fish eggs are soft so they can take any unusual shapes. This has Shimoda asking Kanamori about God’s request of a bird who doesn’t lay eggs the other day. Oh dear. Kanamori going into trauma mode. Yeah, he forgot about it. He further argues how that kind of requests, it just doesn’t make a bird, a bird anymore. But I guess he has to stop complaining and just do it. Yeah, he doesn’t care anymore and designs a hamster?! WTF?! What is a bird?! Shimoda tries to help him out by suggesting some bird features like beak and bird legs. After having Higuchi making its prototype, yeah, the way it lays its eggs is just looking so painful. Just when Kanamori psychos himself to cross this bird into the mammal line, however… God approves! He finds the kiwi skeletal structure looking so funny and had to approve it. Kanamori feels exhausted from this farce but accepts the hardship. Yeah, it’s hard being him. Shimoda has orders from God. Each of them are given a (vague) theme to design an animal based on it. In the end, they must combine all that into 1 animal! Oh boy. God is such a sadist… Hence we see the designers going about in their design of their given task. After all the modifications (basically, most of the meddling comes from Mizushima as he places his own design the utmost important), can you guess what kind of animal as traits that include doesn’t sink, can swallow needles, unaffected by the ground that’s painful to stand on, resistant to hot and cold, and can survive with little water? I didn’t really guess it until the penultimate draft and shape of the animal came out. Yup, it’s a camel! God approves! As the designers celebrate their success, Ueda has to rain on their parade because with their success, God will surely hand down more of such orders. F*cking hell…

Planet Zoo: The Making Of
Not sure how long God will be commissioning these designers but considering the insane variety of animals and its subspecies, you can be they’ll be in the job for a very long time. Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, long time. Oh well, as long as they love their job designing and creating all kinds of weird animals, it’ll be like cinch. Sure, God and His unreasonable demands but I guess they know His style of request and would have gotten used to it.

So if you don’t want sleazy fanservice and action to go with your animal titbits (looking at you, Killing Bites) or don’t want stupid high school diversity comedy to go with your animal trivia (looking at you, Murenase! Seton Gakuen), I suppose this series provides a lot more interesting data and facts about the featured animals rather than just one small section somewhere in the episode. This isn’t entirely documentary style but we see discussions from the designers making their arguments why this or that cannot be done. It is either going to be a bore fest (for those who aren’t really interested in such biology stuffs) or it is a really refreshing new take that just looks different than National Geographic or Discovery Channel. Yeah, this is what happens if these giant American TV networks were given the Japanese anime treatment! Weird but entertaining.

While the explanations and discussions of the animal features and the likes are interesting enough, however I feel that you need to have some sort of basic level of science to understand and digest what they are saying. Otherwise, it sounds like hogwash like as though they are pulling out their explanations from thin air. Sometimes I also feel that when they make their arguments why certain features of animals is not sustainable, it is like they’re working backwards from the problem to provide us that feasible explanation. For instance, I still don’t really understand why the unicorn remains a myth in reality. Sure, they did explain why the rhinoceros and moose can have great protruding and majestic horns but it all just feels iffy when they couldn’t apply it to a horse. Sure, there are a lot of other sciences that come into play like physics that play a big part in survival of the fittest, so it’s like confusing casual viewers like me that the animal will die from dehydration or too heavy to support its own weight and things like that. Too bad I’m not a biology or physics student so I just accept everything they say. Hey, they’re the experts, no? But before you laugh at their strange designs, bear in mind that it isn’t easy to come up with something so give these designers some credit where it is due. Especially God being so vague in His requests…

This anime serves not only to discuss and explain all those sciences and even though it seems like one way traffic, viewers can still ‘engage’ in trying to guess what kind of animal is being created. Some are obvious while others aren’t. So the fun part for me was to try and figure out the non-obvious ones, what animal they were trying to design. I got some, I missed some. Okay, make that, I missed many.

But for those who really feel sceptical about all that I’m sure with the advent of the internet can help ascertain these arguments and perhaps surprise you with even more facts that you never knew of. Like koala bears excrete their poo for their young to eat so they could digest the poisonous eucalyptus plants that only their species could eat. Of course this doesn’t really come to a surprise to some of us because those who watched Murenase! Seton Gakuen prior to this would already know this fact. Or you’re a koala bear lover and already did your research on this.

While this series gives an interesting take on animal features and such, the same can’t be said purely for the setting of the anime itself. Yeah, I have a few issues. Firstly, why is God so lazy that He outsourced the designs of animals to these people? One theory of mine is that He has no idea or clue on what to create and thus anything goes. That is why the fickle minded Almighty gives his approval so fast when the designers come up with something or just add a few reasonable features here and there. Which is odd because, these folks have better mind and creativity than God?! THAN GOD?! And hence my other theory is that God already has in mind what kind of creatures he wants. He just wants to see if these people can come out what He has thought of. So when they hit the jackpot, that is why God suddenly gives His stamp of approval. This sounds more reasonable, right? But still, I can’t believe God outsourced this part to them. Ironically, He could create angels. I guess that took all the energy and creativity out of Him, huh?

The other issue to ask, if this designing team and all, was it set before the Earth was created? Obviously, duh. Because it would be just dumb to create animals that already existed! Unless it is for another planet but the synopsis mentioned Earth so that’s that. Unless it’s another alien planet that happen to share the same name with ours. Which I don’t think it’s the case. However I noticed some scenes like that fireworks festival, isn’t that already modern human civilization existing?! So that’s why it feels weird to me as I wonder the timeline of this setting in the first place. It would also be dumb to say that all that is in the future because if they have such clairvoyant powers, why not just copy those animals from the future?! Just too bad when these designers created the animals to survive nature, they didn’t take into account their survival from mankind! Oh damn, this oversight from them that caused several species to go extinct!

Also another thing I find odd is that when the designers explain the feasibility or not of certain traits, sometimes they quote modern human inventions as their examples. So to say, they know about motorbikes and skiing while making such references to animals means the confusion of the timeline on Earth. So why the heck are they creating animals for? If it was a time before humans became advanced, how do they know such inventions existed? Are they from the future? If so, why were they cracking their heads to design animals? Couldn’t they just copy from the future? See how confusing this is? And to think that they’re just designing modern animals and not dinosaurs, this might indicate that those terrible lizards are still roaming Earth and God might want some ideas in His next evolution of life on Earth. Weird. But whatever.

This has me thinking if there are other departments that God outsources His other ideas. Well, it is hinted this is not the only department around although it is not specifically mentioned other departments. Because if this is the animal designing team, I’m sure there is one who designs the plants, trees and other flora. I’ll be damned to think that there is a team for designing virus and bacteria! Yeah, I think evil people are put into this department! And somebody must have designed the physics of planet Earth that our designers have to adjust and adapt its sciences to their designs. All in all, if all these departments actually exist, then God is one lazy motherf*cker because He didn’t create a single living organism! Maybe he stopped at man. Yeah. The first mistake God did… Oops! Maybe that’s why he just screw it and outsource this task.

With the animals being the main stars of this series, there isn’t much character development on the designers who designed them. Sure, they have their characteristics but they stay the same throughout the season. Like the flamboyant trans Kanamori, the gentle giant Unabara, the creepy weirdo Meido, carefree Kimura who just wants to eat things he created, the aloof and stoic Mizushima, the opinionated but hands on Higuchi and old guy Tsuchiya who is the leader of this design team. Shimoda being the rookie angel in charge of supervising this team and communicating their ideas directly to God, sometimes he serves as a guinea pig and the voice of reasoning because of his scepticism of the designers’ creation and logic can really fly. Well, you have got to be crazy and think outside the box if you hope to see some sort of crazy results. Who knows? It might be just crazy enough to actually happen.

So as not to have everyone design everything, it seems I noticed that these designers are specialized in designing certain animals. For example, Kanamori specializes in birds, Unabara in cute furry creatures, Kimura as long as he can eat them, Meido loves creating creepy, twisted and really strange ones, Mizushima has a penchant for dangerous animals like snakes and of course Tsuchiya’s all-time favourite, the horse. As long as it’s not a horse, he just doesn’t put much effort and thought into its design. Whatever will be, will be. With each specializing in certain fields, it helps avoid clashing and also helps draw inspiration from outside your field of expertise.

An annoying personal pet peeve of mine is that they translated the names of these designers into that based on planets. Wow. Characters named after planets that were named after Roman Gods. ROMAN GODS. Although this is what the official English translation did and it is valid since the Japanese kanji of their names do contain a word relating to the planet they are named after, I didn’t really like it. I mean, they started off with the Japanese names but after a few episodes in, they start to change it, which is very annoying. Reminds me of Gyakuten Saiban where they localized the names in the English subtitles for the English speaking communities. It’s just weird and downright irritating to hear them pronounce the Japanese name but the subtitles pop out the planet names. It just doesn’t match. Even if they did this right from the first episode, I would still find it infuriating.

Art and animation are quite okay. Although the general art style looks a bit cartoonish and colourful, the animals are given more detail and well depicted. When I first saw the characters, I thought they were designed by the one who created Nanatsu No Taizai. Sorry, it’s not. Just a huge coincidence that I see Meliodas in Shimoda. I guess this anime saves a lot on backgrounds and sceneries. Unless doing some sort of experiment on Galapagos, the main room is just a big plain room. This is basically the main setting. I guess our attention is focused on the discussion so no fancy room to distract our attention. This animation is done by Asahi Production who did Medaka Box, Wave! Surfing Yappe, Himegoto, Pan De Peace and Onsen Yousei Hakone-chan.

Voice acting, I only recognize Junichi Suwabe as Mizushima and Kikuko Inoue doing a cameo as the queen FKA #72. Because Yuuichirou Umehara wasn’t in his typical brooding voice and not helming a character named after his job, I guess he really sounded different as Kimura. Sounds gay… I guess better than God voiced by Naoki Tatsuta (Bege in One Piece) who sounds like your drunk grandpa. Really! Other casts are Junya Enoki as Shimoda (Jack in Beastars), Daisuke Kishio as Kanamori (Suginami in Da Capo series), Asuna Tomari as Higuchi (Ryuuou in Dorei-ku The Animation), Kazuhiko Inoue as Tsuchiya (Gildarts in Fairy Tail), Ryota Takeuchi as Unabara (Elias in Mahou Tsukai No Yome), Naomi Oozora as Meido (Satania in Gabriel Dropout), Takahiro Mizushima as Mushi-bu (Nagasumi in Seto No Hanayome), Ryota Ohsaka as Yokota (Vali in High School DxD) and Hina Kino as Kenta (Sylvia in Masou Gakuen HxH). Give It Up by 96Neko is cute as it is catchy especially its chorus. However sometimes it feels monotonous due to the excessive use of what sounds like Auto-Tune. The ending theme is Designed By Heaven and by our animal designers. Not as catchy as the opener but still sounds okay as a techno beat and sound effects.

Overall, this series is quite fun and enjoyable edutainment. If National Geographic, Discover Channel or other documentary videos are too heavy for you to digest, this one should help in educating as well as make us understand the likes in a nice, simple and funny way. Who knows? Maybe it’ll spur some interest for some in nature and become the next Steve Irwin! Or spur that creative side of yours by playing retro games of mixing and creating hybrid animals like Impossible Creatures. You people old enough to remember that one? So take back all those drafts and sketches of cool and nifty monsters/creatures you drew as a kid. Others may laugh and you may feel embarrassed as you mature and grow out of these delusional fantasies of your younger days. But imagine if God approved that and turned it into reality, it would’ve been the coolest thing ever. Though, they still didn’t explain why the mythical and majestically epic creatures called Godzilla or King Kong couldn’t exist in this world. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THOSE WERE PURELY CREATED BY FICTION???!!!