Battle Programmer Shirase

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Television series
Original title BPS バ ト ル プ ロ グ ラ マ ー シ ラ セ
Battle Programmer Shirase
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
year 2003
length 12 minutes
Episodes 15 in 1 season
First broadcast October 3, 2003 on TV Kanagawa

Battle Programmer Shirase ( Japanese BPS バ ト ル プ ロ グ ラ マ ー シ ラ セ , Bīpīesu batoru puroguramā Shirase ) is an anime television series that first aired from 2003 to 2004. The science fiction series, which is dedicated to the topic of hacking , comprises five completed stories in three episodes of twelve minutes each, for a total of 15 episodes.

action

Battle Programmer Shirase, BPS for short, is the nickname of the mysterious programmer Akira Shirase ( 白 瀬 慧 , Shirase Akira ). He is best known underground for his outstanding skills as a hacker and computer technician. He is commissioned by various companies and organizations to solve specific problems and threats. Each completed story includes an assignment.

Shirase, who lives as a subtenant with his relatives, does not work for money - his payment mostly consists of rare computer hardware that is no longer manufactured. Shirase has feelings for his underage grandniece Misao Amano ( 天野 美 紗 緒 , Amano Misao ), but cannot admit them.

Akira's clients look alike and are always called Akizuki. When they first meet Akira, they often find him in an ambiguous position with his great-niece Misao, which Akira “stumbled into” shortly before. All incarnations of Akizuki then have a self-talk in which they justify the alleged child abuse by saying that Akira is the only one who can do the job for her. In this self-talk there is always a reference to the French actress Isabelle Adjani .

Origin and publications

The anime studio Anime International Company (AIC) produced the anime based on an idea by Hiroki Hayashi (author of El Hazard ), who also directed it. The title song is called Suddenly and was sung by Naomi Amagata, the credits song Pure Enough was by Yuki Matsuura.

It was first broadcast on Japanese television from October 3, 2003 to January 3, 2004 on TV Kanagawa , until production was prematurely terminated after 15 episodes. In March 2004, all 15 episodes were released on DVD.

In the afterword to the last episode, the producers apologized for the premature ending, not only to viewers in Japan, but specifically to "those overseas who subtitled it without permission" at the time one of the rare cases that anime producers took a public position that their works were made illegally available worldwide as so-called fansubs via the Internet .

backgrounds

Many facts about hacking are presented in an exaggerated or unrealistic way. The superhuman abilities of Shirase are often staged similar to the attacks of a superhero . For example, in the second episode he does a double compile , which enables him to compile several programs at the same time , which is impossible given the speed. Defense against a hacker attack with a mobile phone is also practically impossible, as neither the reaction time nor the technical possibilities are given. But there are also many other such exaggerations. There are also many references to well-known companies. These include, for example, BHL ( DHL ), Ebson ( Epson ) or Kattaku ( Pioneer ). Akira is also a fan of the X68 architecture, which has meanwhile been discontinued in the series, an allusion to the Sharp X68000 .

reception

Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements compared the main character to the title character from Lupine III . They said, "It's a sign of the times that anime audiences are now so sedentary and home-shackled that the latest action hero is a man who sits at a desk and plays with a computer while waiting for someone. who brings him food. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Borland: Anxious times in the cartoon underground. In: www.zdnet.com. February 1, 2005, accessed August 17, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy: The Anime Encyclopedia. Revised & Expanded Edition . P. 74.