Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari

'Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari' (デュアル！ぱられルンルン物語, Dual! Parare Runrun Monogatari / Dual Parallel! Trouble Adventures) is a Japanese anime series animated by AIC and created by Masaki Kajishima, best known for the Tenchi Muyo! franchise. It was originally broadcast on Wowow from April to July 1999 and was licensed in the US by Pioneer LDC, later known as Geneon. In addition to the original TV run, an OVA special was added to conclude the series as a de facto "14th episode".

The title refers to the fact that the story takes place in two parallel universes, a concept loosely based on multiverse theory.

Synopsis
Kazuki Yotsuga is your regular average nerd in high-school, except he isn't smart. He has this website which relates to his visions that only he can see. His visions are about robots who keep fighting each other battle after battle. One day he is sent to a "parallel world" where these visions exist and he joins a company to fight back against the devious RaRa, who want to take over the world.

(Source: ANN)

Manga
Yuji Ushida serialized in Fujimi Shobo 『Monthly Dragon Junior』


 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari』

Novel

 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari: Setting Material Complete Works』 Ginga Publishing released in November 1999

CD's

 * 『DUAL!/Real』 HARU & SAYAKA from UNIVERS LD Released on April 23, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari』Released May 28, 1999
 * 『Dual! featuring MITSUKI』 Released on November 26, 1999

Video/LD/DVD
The DVD includes a video bonus that combines the main video and new video.


 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 001』 - June 25, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari vision 002』 - July 23, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 003』 - August 25, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 004』 - September 24, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 005』 - October 22, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 006』 - November 26, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari Vision 007』 - December 22, 1999
 * 『Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari: DVD-BOX』 - March 25, 2005

TV Anime
This work was produced by AIC, and 13 episodes were broadcast on WOWOW every Thursday at 19:00 from April 8, 1999 to July 1, 1999. In addition, episode 14 (OVA) has been released in the final volume of the video. Later, it was broadcast as all 14 episodes on AT-X of CS broadcasting. The English notation is "Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure".

Dual! was inspired by the popularity of Neon Genesis Evangelion when it aired in Japan in the 1990s with the main characters inspired by the dynamics of Shinji, Asuka, Rei and Misato.

Staff

 * Planning - Toru Miura
 * Original work - Masaki Kajishima
 * Director - Katsuhito Akiyama
 * Assistant Director - Takashi Kobayashi
 * Series composition - Yosuke Kuroda
 * Character design/general drawing director - Atsushi Okuda
 * Mechanical Design - Kenji Teraoka
 * Mecha chief animation director - Yasushi Muraki
 * Art Director- Masaru Sato, Hiroshi Kato
 * Color design - Nanae Shinachi
 * Cinematographer - Hitoshi Sato
 * Editing - Junichi Uematsu
 * Sound Director - Hiromi Kikuta
 * Music - Seikou Nagaoka
 * Produced by Kazuaki Morijiri
 * Producers - Akio Matsuda, Kinya Watanabe, Hiroaki Inoue, Mitsutoshi Kubota
 * Animation Production - AIC
 * Production - Pioneer LDC

Media
Dual! was released in Japan via VHS, Laserdisc and DVD from June 25 to December 22, 1999. A Blu-Ray version was released in Japan on October 11, 2018.

Character
22 years ago, a huge alien artifact is found on a construction site by a worker named Yotsuga. The foreman orders that the artifact be broken apart to avoid delays. As Yotsuga walks towards the dumpsters to dispose of a small piece of the artifact, the world splits into two. In one world, Yotsuga tosses away the piece and the artifact is destroyed. In the other world, Yotsuga keeps the artifact, leading to the discovery of extraterrestrial technology that changes history.

In the present, Kazuki Yotsuga is a high school student who is shunned by other students as an otaku and a shy, quiet and awkward everyman; his web site describes battles between giant robots that only he can see, but it is mostly as a result of him being occasionally seen by the other students reacting to their "presence". One day, the most popular girl in school, Mitsuki Sanada, approaches him to tell him that she likes his stories. This is only a ruse; she lures him to her father, Dr. Ken Sanada, who wishes to study Kazuki for his research on parallel worlds.

After being thrown into the other possible world by Dr. Sanada's device (thanks to a careless action by Mitsuki), Kazuki finds himself still in Dr. Sanada's basement, but everything is covered with cobwebs. Kazuki goes home, is distracted by a real battle between two giant robots, one white and the other black. The white robot is knocked down and an injured female figure emerges from inside. When Kazuki goes to her aid, he is trapped inside the robot and somehow manages to activate it and defeat the enemy robot. Afterwards, Kazuki reaches his home, but his parents no longer recognize him. He is found by Mitsuki, who has followed him. Along with a military escort, she takes him to the Earth Defense Force HQ, a paramilitary operation led by this world's Dr. Sanada. After Kazuki learns of this world's situation and the attempted conquest of this world by this world's Dr. Rara (Dr. Sanada's arch-rival) who is using technology developed from the artifact, he volunteers to become a giant robot pilot.

Over the course of the series, Kazuki manages to attract several very different women without even trying, and he becomes a hero. He is later taken prisoner by Dr. Rara, the father of this world's Mitsuki. Mitsuki Rara eventually defects and comes to live with Kazuki and her counterpart. Later on, a new type of robot made from the artifact is deployed that can cause objects and people to be shifted between the alternate worlds. During the battle against it, Kazuki and Mitsuki Sanada are sent back to their original world, and they discover their world's Dr. Sanada covered up their disappearance by claiming that they had eloped. As it turns out, the frequent travel between worlds is taking a toll on the universe itself as the barriers separating them begin to break down; this will eventually lead to both worlds vanishing. A decision must be made; since Kazuki and the alien technology are exclusive to each world, one must be eliminated to halt the destruction. The robots are destroyed, and the worlds combine into one, an expression of Kazuki's wish for all his (girl)friends to continue to stay together with him (even though the action is again caused by Mitsuki's carelessness).

Masaki Kajishima, confirmed that DUAL! is in fact set in the distant past of the Tenchi Muyo! universe.

Abilities
Kazuki possesses incredible fighting power and illogical charisma. As such, he attracts a bevy of beautiful women. After being accidentally sent to the parallel world by Ken and Mitsuki Sanada, Kazuki discovers that he is the only male that can control the mechas. Because of his unbelievable piloting skill, he is commissioned to the Earth Defense Force, or simply the EDF, and becomes the new pilot of the white Core Robot. [CP suit] a pilot suit is worn when boarding the core robot. Wear it over your inner suit. It can protect the Pilot from heat and cold. When Zinv is destroyed, Kazuki's desire for the group to stay together results in the creation of a third possible world, where elements from the parallel universes are combined.

Connections to Tenchi Muyo! Universe
It has been confirmed by the creator of Tenchi Muyo! and Dual! that the two series are related, and in fact occur in the same universe. A mecha, confirmed in the ''Tenchi Muyo! GXP novels to be Zinv, is found during an episode of Tenchi Muyo! GXP which runs parallel with the Tenchi'' OVA Series. The hero of the GXP series, Seina Yamada has been confirmed to be a direct reincarnation of Kazuki Yotsuga and, in a complicated way, several others are basically partial reincarnations of the rest of the cast. In fact, Dual! is so consistently relevant to the GXP novels they can be viewed as a distant sequel.


 * The Great Prehistoric Civilization mentioned in the True Tenchi Muyo! novels is revealed, in the Tenchi Muyo! GXP novels, to be the space-faring civilization begun by the characters at the end of Dual!. It seems to have died out close to a billion years prior to the main Tenchi Muyo timeline. Though not the first or last, this civilization eventually performed the greatest "seeding" program in the galaxy. They seeded proto-planets so that the human genome would replicate itself and somehow even seeded cultural and technological norms so things like handheld telephone designs would repeat throughout the galaxy and similar food dishes, like curry and spaghetti, would continue almost unchanged throughout history. Tenchi's Earth has somehow turned out functionally identical to the earlier Earth. In fact, when the original solar system of the Earth from Dual is found, the entire solar system is found to be basically the same: containing a giant gas planet like Jupiter, a ringed planet like Saturn, etc.
 * Washu explains that at one time in the past, a group of people (Kazuki's group) made such an impact on the universe that their existence had massive effects on the "Astral Sea" (the dimension where a being's "astral self" originates and returns after death) that their astrals basically replicated and continue to revive and form the base of many beings in the universe.
 * Certain astrals are so similar to their past astral selves that they retain vestigial memories of their past life that come to them occasionally like déjà vu. Miki Steinbeck, apparently represents the closest thing to direct reincarnation to Mitsuki Sanada, and her father, Hiroshi Manada (or creator-she was an AI that developed an astral), is physically identical to Ken Sanada (but shares some personality features of Hiroshi Rara as well), a friend and rival of Hiroshi's (named Ken Raraiba Steinbeck) also seems to be the other half of this mixed up duo.
 * By the end of GXP's 14th novel, Miki, another digital AI named Kirche, and D (a direct astral copy of the original D, containing all her memories- but, for unknown reasons, acts like D before she became "Dee") gain pseudo-cabbit bodies that were cloned from Fuku. With Fuku they seem to represent the most direct reincarnations of the original four girls in Dual. When the cabbit group appears in the 5th season of Tenchi Muyo! each had the same voice actors that voiced their respective counterparts from Dual.
 * The Zinv that appears in GXP is the very same as the one in Dual and he immediately recognizes Seina as his partner.
 * Seina represents an almost direct reincarnation of Kazuki and no others seem to share Kazuki's base astral.
 * Other than Miki, Mitsuki Sanada's astral also forms the core of Kiriko Masaki, the Renza agent Karen, Tsukiko Masaki (Kiriko's mother and also the model for the AI that Hiroshi created and became Miki), and others.
 * Other than Fuku, Yayoi Schwael shares her astral pattern with Amane Kaunaq, the Renza agent Gyokuren, Mikami Kuramitsu, and others.
 * Other than Kirche, Mitsuki Rara shares her astral pattern with Ryoko Balta, the Renza agent Suiren, Ringo Tasuki, and others.
 * Other than the D that is her astral copy, D/Dee shares her astral pattern with Neju Na Melmas, the Renza agent Hakuren, and others.
 * When four of the girls that share an astral with their Dual counterpoint join Seina, his bad luck (described as a "biased probability" in the novels) is lessened and can even create good luck.
 * Others that surround Seina, like Airi Masaki and Seto Kamiki Jurai probably represent other primary characters in Dual, such as Akane Yamano, Reika Nanjoin, and Ayuko Rara, but this has not been confirmed. Seto does have a separate "mirror self" called Kuis Panta that has been confirmed to share the D astral, but while they are practically copies of each other- they do not seem to share the same astral pattern.

Cameo appearances

 * Sasami and several other Tenchi Muyo! characters were featured in inserts found in the Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure releases in Japan.
 * Kiyone Makibi, Ramia, and Misao Amano appear in a brief easter egg cameo in the series' OVA special ("Final Frontier", also known as episode 14).

External Link

 * TV Anime "Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari" ─ AIC-work introduction page | Wayback machine (for archived February 2, 2009)
 * Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari ─ Wikipedia  
 * Dual! Parallel Lun-Lun Monogatari ─ Wikipedia  

Trivia
'' to be added. ''

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