Angel’s Tail 2

Tenshi no Shippo Chu!
Also Known As: Angel Tales 2
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Format: 11 Episodes
Allegiance: Tokyo Kids
Director: Norio Kashima
Vintage: 2003
Intelligence Agency Report by: Lady Sage
One year has passed since the events of the original series. Goro has finally found success as an intern at a veterinary office, but other than that, little has changed, and life continues for Mutsumi Goro and his guardian angels.

Field Agent Report by: Lady Sage 
Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio
5.00
6.00
6.00
8.75
7.75
Overall 6.25
(not an average)

Tenshi no Shippo Chu is very much like it predecessor in many ways. The characters, the animation, the music – they’re all virtually identical. However, it lacks two things that the original had: plot and charm.

The original took several harem clichés and danced around them in such a way that although they had clearly been done before, they still had enough freshness about them to be enjoyable. But there’s nothing enjoyable about the clichés prevalent in Chu. Instead there’s a dull and utterly ridiculous variation on the “I love you but I can’t love you” theme.

The characters too are hollow imitations of their original counterpoints. Several actually seemed to have had their personalities surgically removed in the year since the original. Many of the character-centered episodes failed miserably, and only one managed to make me sympathize with the angel it focused on. Furthermore, many characters are pushed to the sidelines. From watching this, you’d think Goro has three or four guardian angels, not a dozen!

The technical qualities are all pretty much more of the same. The theme songs are rather boring and bit grating, but the music and vocal work are…decent. That’s all. Decent. Not bad, but not impressive in the least. Some of the character designs have been altered to show the passage of time. Annoyingly, however, the younger characters whose appearances would be most affected by the one year since the original look exactly the same. And remember how there was virtually no fan service in the original? This time around, Mika is all too happy to provide it in her crop top and booty shorts.

Sequels are rarely as good as the original – it’s an accepted postulate of filmmaking. Nonetheless, I have never seen a sequel that fails so thoroughly to replicate the merits of the original as Tenshi no Shippo Chu. It’s not worth viewing, even by avid fans of the first Tenshi no Shippo.