Ask John: What is Akihabara Denno Gumi?

Question:
I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the anime Akihabara Denno Gumi AKA: Cyber Team. I am curious as to what it is about. I also notice that the main character in it looks a lot like the character Parfait from Knights of Ramune and was wondering if there is any connection.

Answer:
Akihabara Cyber Team/Cyber Team in Akihabara is quite an odd beast in the regard that it combines so many disparate elements. Originally a television series from 1998, Akihabara Dennou Gumi (literally meaning Akihabara Electric Brain Team) lasted for 26 episodes, and was popular enough to spawn a Dreamcast game and a feature length movie that played as a double feature with the Utena movie. Akihabara Cyber Team was created by, and featured character designs by Tsukasa Kotobuki, perhaps best known to Americans as the character designer behind the Toshinden anime, Saber Marionette J TV series and OAVs, and Kaitouranma OAV series (released by Media Blasters as Samurai: Hunt for the Sword). Akihabara Dennou Gumi’s story is a complex mesh of Greek mythological references, psychoanalytic references from Carl Jung, fictionalized history, magical girls, science fiction, and the Pokemon monster raising influence which was predominantly strong in 1998. The series is ostensibly a Sailormoon-style transforming magical girls adventure comedy intended for pre-adolsecent girls. But the series also includes some very sly anime and Japanese culture parodies and in-jokes, and more than a little ecchi titillation factor for teen and young adult boys. The series also featured a pivotal voice acting role from Megumi Hayashibara and extensive use of music by Masami Okui.

The overt childish, girlish silliness may tend to turn off many viewers, but as it progresses, the series tends to grow darker and more more mature. In fact, the series caused a minor controversy during it’s television broadcast for upsetting sponsors because while its sponsors agreed to finance the production on the assumption that Akihabara Cyber Team was a shoujo children’s show, by the end of the TV series broadcast, statistically the majority of its viewers were teenage boys. The “Summer Vacation 2011” motion picture that followed the TV series is noteworthy for including transformations that never occur during the TV series, but is rather disappointing largely due to the fact that, as the name implies, the movie is essentially the girls’ summer vacation. Since the main story concluded in the TV series, there was simply nothing compelling left to present in the movie, resulting in a rather flat and uninteresting film.

The resemblance between the cute and perky red-haired Parfait of “Knights of Ramune” and the cute and perky red-haired Hibari Hanakoganei may possibly be accounted for by the fact that VS Knight Lamune & 40 Fresh was directed by Yoshitaka Fujimoto only a year before he directed the Akihabara Cyber Team TV animation.

Most of the Akihabara Cyber Team TV series has been fansubbed, and the series will eventually be officially released in America by Bandai Entertainment.