The World of Narue doesn’t transcends its young teen fantasy romantic comedy genre. English version © 2004 Tomohiro Marukawa, Kadokawa Shoten/The World of Narue Committee. All rights reserved.

The World of Narue. V.1 - 4.
TV series (12 episodes), 2003. Director: Toyoo Ashida. V.1-4, three episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $79.99 complete boxed set. Distributor: Central Park Media/U.S. Manga Corps.

Any anime about 14-year-old students that includes the boy’s line, “She was a little strange, and an alien ... but I finally have a girlfriend!” is for desperately shy guys who are willing to settle for desperately shy girls rather than trying to win one of the campus beauty queens. The World of Narue (Narue no Sekai, 12 episodes broadcast April 5 - June 28, 2003; animated by Studio Live) is a sweet but uninspired addition to the genre of young teen fantasy romantic comedies.

Narue Nanase, a timid transfer student to the local middle school’s 8th grade, naively says she is from the Galaxy Federation. The other students think she is just desperate for attention. But classmate & neighbor Kazuto Iizuka discovers that she is genuine when she saves him from a monstrous Space Ninja terrorist by clobbering it with her PE-issue baseball bat. It turns out that Narue is the daughter of a spaceman assigned to live disguised among humans while studying Earth’s society. The two lonely teens get talking and, before he knows it, Kazuto invites Narue to go to the movies with him.

Episode #2: Their nervous first date. Should he take her to a sci-fi horror movie, or would that make her think he is stereotyping her instead of thinking of her as an individual? Kazuto helps Narue disguise her alien origins and make friends among their classmates, while Kazuto’s pal Masaki (who fancies himself a budding Great Lover) offers dubious advice on How To Impress A Girl. Sci-fi elements are overlaid onto the genre’s standard elements: Narue’s bratty kid sister is actually twice as old as she is, but is physically only 12 (and emotionally a spoiled 10-year-old) due to a time warp differential.

The Artificial Intelligence controlling one of the GF spaceships decides to desert and go native in the artificial body of a young woman; when she falls in love with a real human, Narue and Kazuto must decide whether to encourage the romance (True Love conquers all differences) or persuade her that it will never work out. Narue is not familiar with anime, so Kazuto and his pals introduce her to the world of fan conventions and cosplaying (see the Comic Party review). The Space Ninja terrorists attack from time to time, and there is a constant danger that Narue’s father will be recalled from Earth and she will have to leave Earth forever with him.

But the basic plots of this 12-episode series are the standard scenarios of teen-comedy anime such as the Summer beach outing, the visit to the hot springs, avoiding being embarrassed (in this case, having Narue’s alien origin carelessly exposed) by the bratty kid sister, the traditional Summer festival with kimonos and fireworks, her first attack of jealousy when he is apparently being seduced by another girl, and cramming for finals despite interruptions. If you are not familiar with the formula, The World of Narue is a pleasantly humorous example of it.

In an unusual marketing strategy, the entire 12 episodes are released only as a $79.99 4-DVD boxed-set collection. There is also a $7.99 “test drive” DVD of the first episode alone with a $10 rebate coupon which purchasers who decide they want the full series can use. So you can buy episode #1 of #12 alone; after that, it’s all or nothing.

Fred Patten has written on anime for fan and professional magazines since the late 1970s. He wrote the liner notes for Rhino Entertainment’s The Best of Anime music CD (1998), and was a contributor to The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, 2nd Edition, ed. by Maurice Horn (1999) and Animation in Asia and the Pacific, ed. by John A. Lent (2001).