Twin Signal

Original Title: TWIN SIGNAL ファミリーゲーム
Romanized: Twin Signal - Family Game
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Dr. Otoi is your average friendly mad scientist: He has a lab in a quiet town, raised a fine young man who has gone on to start his own lab, takes care of his young grandson, Nobuhiko, and has a mysterious nemesis intent on using sinister agents to steal his ideas. Dr. Otoi build himself a nice, friendly super-robot by the name of Signal as a stand-in brother for little Nobuhiko, but thanks to a bug (don'cha hate those?), Signal turns into a chocolate-craving baby whenever Nobuhiko sneezes. Not really an issue, until Dr. Otoi's evil rival steals Signal's brother, Pulse, and decides to get himself some revenge. These siblings do more than fight over chores, and things go from bad to worse when the beautiful robot Elara gets caught in the middle of the feud and Dr. Otoi's assistant decides to build the ultimate fighting robot to "help."

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-06-05

Twin Signal has the potential to be a very funny series. Dumb, inane, cheesy, and unoriginal, but very funny. Sadly, thanks to poor direction, weak writing, and being yet another series trying to distill a comic into a couple of OAVs, all it serves up in the end are a handful of very amusing situations with a lot of overblown drama involving shallow, uninteresting characters in between.

On the positive side, the art is decent, there's a fair amount of passable action, and it certainly serves up some memorable (if simple) jokes. On the negative side, I didn't care nearly enough about the characters to enjoy the heavy-handed drama, the choppy directing only made it worse, and even the good jokes weren't taken full advantage of.

If a light superhero flick sounds like fun, or if you're willing to put up with a lot of lame drama to get to some very funny nuggets of superhero/supervillain parody, then go ahead and give Twin Signal a shot. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

US DVD Review

The bilingual DVD includes the basics, plus an art gallery.

Content Guide

Rated 13-up by Media Blasters for some violence and a couple of mildly off-color comments.

Violence: 1 - Though the fights are straight-faced, the violence is mostly bloodless.

Nudity: 1 - Nothing much worth noting.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - The light romance, little more.

Language: 1 - Fairly clean.

Notes and Trivia

Twin Signal is based on a comic book of the same name by Sachi Ooshimizu, which, as of this writing, isn't available in English.

Availability

Available in the US from Anime Works on bilingual DVD (buy from RightStuf or AnimeNation). Was previously also available on dubbed VHS.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store