Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 01

Summer 2009 looks like it’s going to be a pretty good season for new anime, not least because of the premises that some of them are putting forward. Like this show, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – the story of a huge earthquake hitting Tokyo. It seems simple enough on the face of it, but delve down in to specific characters and there’s great potential there.

The opening, while unlike its peers with flashy and expensive animation, is simple and conveys a real sense of disaster, what with its black and white stills of destroyed landmarks and vegetation growing in their wake, with our future protagonists steadily marching through the whole thing. It won’t win any “Best Opening” awards, though.

The message at the beginning of the show, warning people that this is fictional, based on research, and may be different to the real thing, really focuses the mind – remember that Tokyo is well overdue a massive earthquake and there are regular classes as to what one should do in the event of one. Take in to account that this is being broadcast on Fuji TV’s noitaminA block, which is scheduled between their normal programming and their late night anime as a gateway of sorts. You can tell that they’re trying to appeal to a wide and fearful demographic with this one.

It looks like this has worked – in the anime ratings for the Kanto region (source) for the 6th July – 12th July, the show managed to break in to the top 10 (usually a preserve for daytime shows) at number 9 with an average of 5.8% of households watching – the highest rated “late night” anime.

We’re given a brief glimpse of disaster-stricken Odaiba before we’re introduced to Mirai Onozawa, who appears to be our main everyman character. And is also having a particularly shitty day, the kind that just gets you angry at every little thing.

Apart from the “you need to have round cakes for birthdays” debacle, could this be a rare occasion where anime has accurately portrayed a 12 year old girl? Many will be annoyed by Mirai’s dreary outlook, her desire to be treated like an adult and her generally annoying attitude, but this is much closer to an accurate portrayal than on other shows I’ve seen.

She’s still an annoying kid that can’t express her true feelings yet. Even her brother is less annoying. But I get the feeling that we’ll see what’s what after a nice disaster situation.

While most of the episode was setting up for the main meat of the story in the last few seconds, it set up a base for the characters well enough to take them in to the earthquake. Whether there’s enough decent plot to fill in the cracks (ahem..) we’ll have to see. All in all, I think it was a strong start for what will be a unique anime.