Den-noh Coil

SPOILERS!

**WARNING**: This page contains **spoilers** of the anime! This means heavy plots of the stories are here.If you haven't watched the anime yet, we suggest that you watch the anime first before reading the article.

## Production

### Studio

Madhouse

***Den-noh Coil*** (Japanese: 電脳コイル, Hepburn: *Dennō Koiru*, lit. *Cyber Coil*), also known as ***Coil – A Circle of Children***; is a Japanese science fiction anime television series produced by Madhouse. The series is created, directed and written by Mitsuo Iso, it aired for 26 episodes in Japan on NHK Educational TV between May and December 2007. The story follows a group of children as they use AR glasses to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.

It is a pioneering work that depicts daily life in a world dominated by AR (augmented reality) technology, in which layers created by computer networks are superimposed on the real world. It has received high praise among critics for its fusion of old-fashioned Japanese scenery and urban legends, a modern version of the Japanese folklore Kaidan, with a futuristic worldview, and for its story of children playing in an augmented reality world using a device called "Den-noh Megane" (cyber glasses), as if anticipating the subsequent emergence of smart glasses.

*Den-noh Coil* has won several awards, including the Grand Prize of the 29th Nihon SF Taisho Award, the Best Media of the 39th Seiun Award, both in 2008, and the Excellence Award at the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2007.

## Plot

The year is 2026, and it has been 11 years since the "Den-noh Megane" (cyber glasses), a wearable computer in the form of glasses that uses AR technology, became widespread throughout the world. The glasses allow information from the Den-noh world to be superimposed on and manipulated in the real world. There are pets and tools that use Den-noh technology, and the telephone and Internet are used through Den-noh Megane. Children could no longer remember the time when they could see the world without looking through glasses.

Just before her last summer vacation in elementary school, Yuko Okonogi, a.k.a. Yasako, moves from Kanazawa City, the capital of the prefecture, to Daikoku City, a provincial city with an ancient capital lined with historic shrines and temples, but also equipped with the latest electronic infrastructure. There she meets another Yuko, Yuko Amasawa, also known as Isako, who has the same name and is the same age but is in contrast to her. At her new school, Yasako meets a group of children with rich personalities and experiences a series of strange events that occur in the Den-noh space. Yasako's new classmates, Fumie, Daichi, and Haraken, belong to the Children's Detective Bureau run by her grandmother, and as she investigates urban legends about dangerous beings in Den-noh space with them, she learns that one of their friends may have died because of her pursuit of that being. Most frightening of all, Yasako has lost all memory of her previous time in Daikoku City.

## Characters

Yuko Okonogi (小此木 優子, *Okonogi Yūko*)
Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese); Hilary Haag (English)
Nicknamed Yasako, which is another reading of 優子 meaning "gentle girl". With her sister Kyoko and her two parents, Yasako moves to the city of Daikoku to live with her grandmother, Megabā. Yasako is a sweet and passive girl who follows the lead of Fumie, who eventually initiates her into Megabā's Coil Cyber Detective Agency as its eighth member. Yasako has been to the city of Daikoku seven years ago for her grandfather's funeral. A pair of Den-noheyeglasses and the virtual pet Densuke were left to her as a memento. During her time in Daikoku, she coincidentally wandered into the Coil Domain where she befriended a young boy with the codename 4423. After Yasako returns to live in Daikoku, her hazy memories of that enigmatic friendship gradually return to haunt her. Her father Ichirō works at a Dennou technology company, Megamass, which deploys Searchmaton in Daikoku. Her birthdate is October 12, 2015.
Yuko Amasawa (天沢 勇子, *Amasawa Yūko*)
Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese); Monica Rial (English)
Nicknamed Isako, which is another reading of 勇子 meaning "brave girl", Yuko Amasawa is a powerful type of hacker known as an "encoder" (暗号屋, *angōya*) who is able to manipulate the electronic infrastructure through sophisticated chalk patterns. Rumored to have familial ties to an AR technology company, Isako uses a Brain-Computer Interface to interact with the virtual world—a function hidden inside the hardware of AR visors and eyeglasses. Isako is, on the surface, extremely arrogant and antisocial, perceiving human relationships strictly as hierarchies of power and manipulation. Isako relentlessly chases special illegals in order to collect kirabugs. She is secretly driven to this task in the hopes of finding her brother in "the other side". Her birthdate is April 4, 2015.
Kyoko Okonogi (小此木 京子, *Okonogi Kyōko*)
Voiced by: Akiko Yajima (Japanese); Kira Vincent-Davis (English)
She is the little sister of Yasako. She is young and childish and often gets in the way of danger. She shows a number of fixations; the most common one is the repeated use of the word "poop" when pointing at people and other items of interest (Daichi can even decode her "poop poop" language).
Fumie Hashimoto (橋本 文恵, *Hashimoto Fumie*)
Voiced by: Sachiko Kojima (Japanese); Brittney Karbowski (English)
Fumie is the seventh member of the Coil Den-noh Detective Agency. She befriends Yasako almost immediately, and has a quick-witted, playful nature. She is an experienced hacker and an adept user of metatags, and makes use of her digital pet, Oyaji, in her investigations.
Akira Hashimoto (橋本 アキラ, *Hashimoto Akira*)
Voiced by: Yumiko Kobayashi (Japanese); Kira Vincent-Davis (English)
Akira is the youngest member of the Daikoku Hackers' Club. He agrees to spy on the Daikoku Hackers for his older sister, Fumie, by joining their ranks as a double agent. Akira makes use of his digital pet "Micet", which he illegally patched to unlock its video recording feature.