I’ve been rewatching some of my favorite anime series, a list which includes Zettai Karen Children and its remarkable spinoff series, The Unlimited.
I think we Western anime fans find everything Japanese is vibrant and wonderful at first, similar in some ways to American culture and yet so different—in all the right ways. The history, the Tokyo cityscape, the beautiful pastoral landscapes of Japan, samurai, ninja, mecha. The amazing foods, the weird and inexplicable traditions (like drinking coffee milk after bathing at the public baths – how does a tradition like that even get started?).
Then we start noticing the cultural differences that aren’t so, well—funny or colorful or benign. The things we’re shocked by, or really don’t understand, not only because we weren’t raised in Japan but also because our culture is not that way at all.
Zettai Karen Children (Absolutely Lovely Children) is a good case in point.
The series takes place in an alternative universe Earth where two groups exist: humans and espers.
Espers are human beings with various paranormal powers: telepathy, psychometry, enormous strength, etc. The governments of the world—and their citizens—are divided on how to treat espers, whose special powers many regular people find threatening and dangerous.
In many places, espers are treated as second-class citizens or worse, their civil liberties restricted or denied altogether. Espers are often forced to live on the margins of a society that hates and fears them.
Under the guise of “research,” some espers are captured and subjected to experiments, torture and brainwashing by government agencies or other groups seeking to use them as weapons against their enemies.
Against this backdrop, two organizations symbolize the conflict in this alternate Earth: Babel and Pandra.
B.A.B.E.L. (Base of Backing ESP Laboratory) is the Japanese governmental agency tasked with supporting research into espers and their abilities. Headed by Fujiko Tsubomi (more on her later), Babel sponsors three special esper children.
Shiho, the white-haired girl, is a psychometrist: she gathers information by touching objects. Aoi is a telepath who can transport herself and others to another location in an instant.
The main character is Kaoru, the redhaired girl. Kaoru has massive power in her small body, enough to destroy buildings and lift battleships at sea. The primary narrative driver in Zettai Karen Children is the battle between Babel and Pandra for the heart and mind of Kaoru, whose power has been foreseen in a premonition as being the deciding factor in a future war between humans and espers.
Babel employs the three girls called the Children (named so and spoken in English: “the Children”) for investigations and rescue missions, wherever their powers can be used for good purposes. Their supervisor, Koichi Minamoto, is a twenty year-old non-esper human who learns to his shock at the beginning of the series that not only will he supervise the Children at work, but that the three girls will also be living with him.
It’s an outlandish situation—and made even more so by how the creators handle it.
The three girls who make up the Children are ten years old, right at the age where they’re getting curious about sex and romance and all that adult stuff; and here they are, living with Minamoto, a handsome and accomplished research expert at Babel who now is tasked with cooking and cleaning and keeping house for the girls.
All three girls fall in love with Minamoto, but it’s Kaoru, the wildly aggressive tomboy of the three, that constantly goes over the top, flirting with Minamoto and trying to kiss him on the lips. To Minamoto’s credit, he’s a straight arrow on the subject, pulling Kaoru off of him (or he tries to – she has massive strength, remember) and telling her to knock it off; but the joke, such as it is, goes beyond one’s comfort level pretty quickly.
Kaoru is shown to be curious about women’s bodies, too. She grabs women’s breasts at Babel's headquarters, causing Shiho and Aoi to jest about her “ji-ji” tendencies (as if old men grabbing women’s body parts is just an accepted thing in society - yet another thing I’d rather not see as “normal”).
There are many other examples from Zettai Karen Children of what Western audiences would find objectionable and inappropriate, and they occur frequently throughout every episode.
I’m not saying children approaching puberty aren’t curious about sex: of course they are. There’s apparently just a clear-line difference between how Japanese culture handles that and how American culture would handle it, and I guess saying anything more about that would just be one culture judging another culture, and that’s, well - wrong.
I should explain who Pandra is, as they are the opposition force in Zettai Karen Children and the main characters in The Unlimited.
P.A.N.D.R.A. (I cannot find any translation of what the letters stand for...) is a criminal esper organization headed by Kyosuke Hyobu. He’s the world’s most powerful esper, who the premonition states will one day fall to second in power to an adult Kaoru.
He has the short, slender body of a preteen boy, with a bishonen’s face. Kyosuke is actually in his 80s, however. He uses his esper abilities to remain young-looking, with his white hair being the only sign of his real age.
Kyosuke was recruited into a secret esper squad during World War II when he was a boy. At the end of the war, his human commanding officer shot and killed him.
Or he tried to. Somehow Kyosuke survived being shot at point-blank range, and went on in his rage and bitterness to form Pandra, a group that rescues captive espers around the world, and commits crimes in the name of esper rights.
Kyosuke knows of the premonition, and that Kaoru might one day be known as the “Queen of Catastrophe,” the savior of the espers. He seeks to bring Kaoru over to Pandra’s side, frequently addressing her as “Queen,” which confuses her. (The Children don’t find out about the premonition until later in the series.) Sometimes he rescues Kaoru and the other two girls from danger; other times, he’s the instigator of schemes that endanger Minamoto who he particularly hates as the human he sees as the girls’ controller. With Kyosuke’s past, it’s understandable that he hates humans controlling espers in any way.
In fact, a lot of what Pandra does is understandable. Espers are a despised, feared minority with few defenders, and Pandra rescues espers, including orphaned esper children, giving them a place where they’re loved and valued.
It’s easy to want to see Babel as the “good” organization and Pandra as the “bad” one, but fortunately this story universe is more nuanced. When Kyosuke taunts Minamoto about how Babel exploits the Children, and whatever Babel does against esper interests will one day backfire when Kaoru makes her choice who to stand with - the conflict and stakes couldn’t be more clear.
The Unlimited (full Japanese title: Courtesy of Zettai Karen Children – The Unlimited – Hyobu Kyosuke) does a complete tone shift from its parent series. Where Zettai Karen Children is a comedy—sometimes wildly over-the-top and frequently a sex farce to boot—The Unlimited is a drama, a dark, sophisticated take on the same characters and universe, with better visuals, fantastic music and a great set-up for conflict between Kyosuke and Andy Hinomiya, a half-Japanese, half-American esper.
(Incidentally, Zettai Karen Children’s English title is Psychic Squad; The Unlimited's is Psychic Squad: The Unlimited. Sentai Filmworks distributes the DVDs in the U.S.)
The Unlimited is set some time after the end of Zettai Karen Children. Kyosuke plots to get himself arrested and taken to a special island prison for espers where one of his people, Yuugiri, a young esper girl with extraordinary powers, has been taken captive.
He breaks Yuugiri out, frees the esper prisoners and escapes the island, but not before taking with him Andy Hinomiya, an esper with an unusual ability. His power is that he can neutralize or even nullify esper attacks, making him the ultimate defensive weapon for Pandra.
The end of the first episode brings a twist: it’s revealed that Andy Hinomiya is actually a spy for a secret U.S. organization, with a mission to infiltrate Pandra.
The Unlimited is only 12 episodes long, but maintains a taut narrative tension until the very end, even given that two full episodes in the middle are a flashback to World War II, telling the origin story of Kyosuke Hyobu.
At the beginning of the war, Kyosuke was adopted into the Tsubomi family, and the teenaged Fujiko became his older sister. Both are powerful espers even at their young ages, and they’re recruited into a special esper squad headed by Eiji Saotome, a human who values them, the young Kyosuke in particular, for who they are. Kyosuke, used to being hated for being an esper, places his trust in Saotome.
When it becomes clear that Japan is about to lose the war, Saotome tells thirteen year-old Kyosuke that he has to kill him to prevent him and his great powers from falling into the enemy’s hands. As he shoots Kyosuke, he calls him a monster, thus revealing that he actually hated espers all along.
Fujiko is wounded but escapes. Later, she collaborates with the very humans who ordered the special esper squad to be killed, in order to form Babel.
In Zettai Karen Children, Fujiko is almost a joke character, using her sex appeal to manipulate—or try to manipulate—others, and generally being obnoxious. Like Kyosuke, though she’s now in her 90s, she uses her esper powers to appear youthful with her white hair being the only giveaway as to her true age.
Thus we have the sister who founded Babel and the brother who founded Pandra. Though their respective positions have them at each other’s throats in Zettai Karen Children, their relationship is more nuanced in The Unlimited. At one point, Fujiko tells Andy Hinomiya that she turned her back on the idea of avenging Kyosuke and the others in the WWII esper squad in order to achieve the greater good of starting Babel. The regret in her voice makes it clear she understands that Kyosuke saw this as betraying him, and that’s why he can’t forgive her even all these years later.
The Unlimited was produced four years after Zettai Karen Children, but the look of it is completely different. It’s like the production committee had more money and twice the time to do the animation, and the effect is awesome. The character and production designs are gorgeous, and make what is already a great story into a great anime viewing experience.
I could go on and on about The Unlimited, but I’ll finish with this. You know how some anime series end on a flat note? The final episode is sort of a letdown? Well, get ready and fasten your seat belts, because The Unlimited has a killer last episode, one that hits all the right notes in terms of action scenes and emotional payoffs. The climactic scene takes place on a rooftop between Kyosuke and Andy, and it’s unforgettable. When the end credits roll, the only thought in your mind will be: now that’s how you end an anime series.
If my list of completed anime series I’ve watched is accurate, I’ve seen 131 series. I’d easily put The Unlimited in the top 15 of that list. You don’t have to watch Zettai Karen Children first in order to understand The Unlimited: I didn’t. I saw The Unlimited first, and then took out a paid subscription to the Anime Network for a few months to marathon Zettai Karen Children. (I later bought the DVDs for both series.)
And Zettai Karen Children, despite my earlier criticism of it, is really worth watching too. If you can accept and/or look past its wildly inappropriate moments, it’s a fun and entertaining series. It’s fast paced and there’s an irrepressible verve and energy to it.
The world of espers and humans in Zettai Karen Children and The Unlimited is a fascinating one, and I think both series are overlooked by Western fans. So consider giving either or both series a try. I think you’ll be glad you did. :-)
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