Read Or Die and R.O.D. the TV - World domination through literature
Do you love books? I mean, do you really love books? Is there barely any room in your home for people because of all the books occupying every cubic inch of available space? Do you go into debt purchasing books? Is attempting to come between you and the book you’re reading grounds for a fight?
If so, then you love books almost as much as a Paper Master loves books.
In an alternate present day where the British Empire remained a world superpower and nations and corporations fight secret battles with superhuman agents, some of the oddest agents on any side are Paper Masters. Gifted with a telekinetic control over anything made of paper, Paper Masters can take ordinary sheets of paper and make them move according to their whim, form into giant constructs, gain razor sharp edges or become hard enough to stop a bullet. With a bit of loose leaf on hand, a skilled Paper Master is a dangerous and versatile combatant.
They are also, almost every one of them, raging bibliomaniacs, utterly obsessed with collecting and reading books. A Paper Master’s apartment is generally stuffed to the gills with piles of books, occasionally resulting in dangerous literary avalanches. They’re eternally shopping for more books, and they can easily be distracted from more important tasks by the pursuit of books. They’re book addicts.
And they fight crime spies.
Such is the premise of Read Or Die, a franchise that began as a series of novels (no surprise there) and then spun off into several forms of media.
The original novels (which sadly have never to my knowledge been translated into English, so this is secondhand information) introduce us to Yomiko Readman-code name “The Paper”-secret agent for the British Library’s Special Operations Unit and possibly the most powerful Paper Master alive. She battles enemy agents in secret missions for the British government. I think some or most of those missions might involve books, which would definitely let her play to her strengths. This soon led to a manga (comic book) series telling a parallel story about some of Yomiko’s other adventures. There also emerged a spin-off manga called Read Or Dream following a different group of characters: three Paper Master sisters who work as freelancers. (The manga have been translated, but I haven’t read them yet.) The franchise then made the jump to animation, first with a three episode Read Or Die OVA (direct-to-video miniseries) in which The Paper and her fellow agents take on a mission to save the world from an evil mastermind, and then it all culminates in R.O.D. the TV, a full-length 26 episode television series tying together every previous part of the franchise.
The OVA has a little bit of a ‘60s spy movie feel, with secret agents battling an evil mastermind who’s trying to take over the world with super-science, and the opening credits play this up entertainingly. There’s a little bit less of that with the series (to begin with), but the opening credits also have an interesting retro vibe.
In the Read Or Die OVA, the nations of the world find themselves under attack from a group called “The Great Men” made up of clones of various historical figures, tricked out with superpowers and steampunk weaponry and turned evil. (Who the hell would think that was a good idea? Well, funny story there… that you won’t get to find out until the TV series.) These Great Men (sadly, Futurama's Evil Lincoln is not among them) have attacked the Library of Congress and stolen the first volume of a book that is somehow key to their evil plans. Luckily, an agent of the British Library Special Operations Unit has gotten to the second volume before they could… not because she knew the fate of the world rested on it, but just because she felt like reading it. And trying to separate Yomiko Readman from a book is trying to separate a mama bear from her cubs, if the bear had superpowers.
The BritLibSpecOps Unit promptly puts together a team of three agents to deal with the Great Men situation.
Yomiko Readman, codename The Paper, is-as we’ve already discussed-a Paper Master capable of controlling paper with her mind. This half-British/half-Japanese veteran agent is a bit of an odd duck. As a “double oh” agent she’s licensed to kill but prefers not to. In conversation she comes off as a cheery, naïve goofball, if she isn’t too engrossed in her books to even notice that you’re talking to her. But when a fight breaks out you suddenly realize that you’re actually dealing with a dangerous and competent combatant, and a damned powerful one. She asks her enemies very politely to please stop what they’re doing and give her book back… and then when they don’t she fucks them up royally. With a suitcase full of paper ever close at hand, she’s a versatile agent who can provide offense or defense, cover or support, or create all manner of useful items. Our main protagonist and the centerpiece of the team, Yomiko takes on the various Great Men in head-to-head battles of grand proportion. She also provides a lot of the humor, with her quirky personality and social awkwardness.
Nancy Makuhari, codename Miss Deep, has the ability to phase through solid matter in a manner not entirely unlike Kitty Pryde, only with more gunplay. More worldly and world-weary than Yomiko, she’s also more standoffish and sarcastic, and while she initially isn’t thrilled at the idea of teaming up with such a goof, she eventually warms to Yomiko and becomes a sort of “big sister” to her. A lot of the fights feature the two as a team, with Nancy using her power to ambush, distract and otherwise back Yomiko up as she attacks more directly. Their personalities are likewise complimentary, with the contrast of Nancy’s irritable pragmatism with Yomiko’s friendly idealism.
Drake Anderson, no codename, is an American ex-soldier and mercenary. He doesn’t have any powers, just lots and lots of guns. He’s a distant third in importance behind the other two, and he’s fine with that so long as he gets paid. It’s not the first time he’s worked with Yomiko, and he can’t stop grumbling about his bad luck at having gotten assigned another mission with the crazy book lady. In a fight, Drake tends to try and provide some support with heavy firepower from afar, or else slip off while everyone else is battling it out to blow up some key piece of equipment. He’s also the pessimistic snarker of the team, constantly griping about how bad the situation is and how all he wants is to live through this so he can use the cash in his pocket to buy his daughter a present.
Meanwhile, back at the British Library, a small army of analysts and technicians keep the team in the field supplied with information and logistical support, lead by the head of the Special Operations Unit, Mr. Joker, and his bright-but-clumsy assistant, Wendy.
The Read Or Die OVA is enjoyable, but very strange. At only 90 minutes long, it doesn’t have much time to spend on explaining the backstory. They don’t tell us ahead of time what Yomiko’s powers are, preferring to just spring it on us. (Several times I’ve amused myself by showing the OVA to a friend without telling them anything and then watching the look on their face the first time she uses her ability. “Wait… did she just… with paper?” It’s fun!) The crazy super-science that the bad guys employ is pretty outrageous, suspension of disbelief is frequently strained, and the whole premise is pretty cracktacular. But that’s also part of the fun. The visuals are pretty solid, considering the age. The quirky characters provide a lot of amusement. There are a couple of decent plot twists and moments of genre savvy. And the action scenes are pretty good. Despite the strangeness of it, Yomiko’s fights with the Great Men are pretty cool, with some extra “I can’t believe she just did that with paper!” jaw-drop factor. And there’s a fight scene between Nancy and an opponent who also has phasing powers, which is the first time I can recall seeing two phase-users fight.
It’s definitely worth watching, especially since it’s only about the length of a feature film.
R.O.D. the TV (so titled because it combines elements of both Read or Die and Read or Dream) opens six years after the OVA, and four years after Yomiko Readman vanished off the face of the Earth. Ever since then, her best friend from the manga-her former student and favorite author Sumiregawa Nenene (who only got a brief mention in the OVA)-has been trying to find out what happened to her. What’s more, Nenene’s been struck with crippling writer’s block since Yomiko’s disappearance, and four years without publishing anything and without her best friend has left her in a state of melancholy and feeling like a has-been. When Nenene travels to Hong Kong to do publicity work for a film adaptation of one of her books, she’s almost killed by a bomb planted by a stalker, and her editor hires the Three Sisters Detective Agency to be her bodyguards. When they save her from the bomber’s next attempt, Nenene discovers that all three of the sisters are actually Paper Masters. Seeing how much more energized Nenene is by the encounter, her editor asks the Paper Sisters to be her bodyguards fulltime, in hopes that they’ll help her break through her writer’s block.
Thus, Nenene unexpectedly finds she has three Paper Masters living with her, with all the wacky hijinks and piles of books that entails. This is even more of an annoyance than it sounds, but she puts up with it with a lot of griping and after a while they start to grow on her. Amidst the domestic comedy, the three Paper Sisters are still taking on jobs on the side to retrieve rare books and other mysterious items for the powerful and secretive corporation Dokusensha. (If you have to do shadowruns to support your book habit, it’s time to admit that you have a problem.) Meanwhile, familiar faces from the British Library’s Special Operations Unit start to appear, but they are not as we knew them; the players are the same, but the sides have changed. Something mysterious and sinister is beginning to take shape around Nenene and the Paper Sisters. What is Dokusensha up to? What happened to the Unit to change them so? And where is Yomiko Readman?
R.O.D. the TV introduces us to a whole new set of fun and interesting characters, while also bringing back the old favorites in supporting roles. First and foremost are the Paper Sisters, a close-knit adopted family that makes a living kicking ass and taking names, their deep familiarity with each other allowing them to act in tandem and coordinate their improvisations with ease.
Michelle is the eldest sister and de facto leader. Cheerful and enthusiastic to the point of obnoxiousness, she doesn’t have very good impulse control when it comes to things that seemed like a good idea at the time… that is, a good idea to her and to absolutely no one else. Despite this, her ability to stay on an even keel mentally no matter what happens allows her to act as a balance point between the other two and an anchor for them when things are rough. In combat, she prefers to form paper into a bow and arrows, laying down covering fire for her sisters.
Maggie, the middle sister, is very tall and tomboyish in appearance, but her personality is very quiet and withdrawn. She tends to be laconic in conversation and likes to do her reading curled up in small space. Her mouth may not work much, but her mind always does: she observes everything around her very carefully and is usually the first to put the pieces together. Maggie’s specialty in combat is creating paper constructs called “familiars” shaped like animals or monsters, and manipulating them to fight, lift objects or carry people. Her role is usually to play defense, shielding her sisters from attack. This is especially crucial when Anita is on point, as often her only defense would be a good offense without Maggie covering her.
Anita is the youngest sister by a wide margin, being the only one of the three that’s not an adult. She’s also unusual, among the sisters and Paper Masters in general, in that she doesn’t like books. They’re associated with bad memories for her: she refuses to read them and she’s annoyed that her sisters are constantly stockpiling them. Anita is irritable and aggressive, and likes to argue and gripe. She frequently doesn’t agree with Michelle and Maggie on what to do, and since the sisters vote on decisions with the two adult sisters forming an unbeatable voting block, she almost never gets her way. In combat, Anita always goes on the attack, using an acrobatic close quarters fighting style, forming paper into blades to slice weapons apart and sweep-kicking people’s legs out from under them. She’s often reckless, but her sisters are devoted to protecting her at all costs. Anita is also enrolled in school while she’s living in Japan (she’s already fluent in the languages they’re learning and gym class is a breeze, but book reports are a problem), and there’s a subplot involving the connections she forms with the other students there.
Nenene unwittingly finds herself becoming landlady and den mother to the trio (although she’s actually slightly younger than Michelle, she comes off as the mature one) and although they often drive her crazy with their antics, they also pull her out of her funk and make her a part of the family. By all indications, she was a latchkey kid (and her parents must have really hated her to have named her “Nenene”) with few friends when she first met Yomiko, so Yomiko’s disappearance left her very alone. But despite that, Nenene also won’t put up with any nonsense from the trio, and lays down the law loudly and often. Her temper is easily the equal of Anita’s, and they bicker like it’s a hobby. She’s a stubborn and confrontational soul, even with a gun in her face, and after a decade of fame and the accompanying stalkers she refuses to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.
R.O.D. the TV is full of great humor and nice character moments, but the plot is also quite full of twists and turns, with the conspiracy that’s really just a patsy for the real conspiracy and a plan for world domination that makes the James-Bond-style one of the Great Men look like amateur hour. (If you control what people know, you control how people think. It’s true even in a world without superpowers.) The action sequences are also pretty good. The three Paper Sisters work fluidly together to form an awesome destructive force, and when Yomiko returns she demonstrates that while there might be other Paper Masters, there’s a reason she is the Paper Master. There is a lot of campy wackiness, of course, but once again that’s part of the fun. Even the dub is surprisingly good-although of course not as good as watching it in the original language-and (unlike the people who dubbed the OVA) they even remembered to give British characters British accents. It’s definitely a series worth watching.
All in all, the Read Or Die franchise is a solid piece of television: completely crazy and entirely enjoyable.
Oh, and there are books. Lots and lots of books.
Books have power.
Fear the books.
If so, then you love books almost as much as a Paper Master loves books.
In an alternate present day where the British Empire remained a world superpower and nations and corporations fight secret battles with superhuman agents, some of the oddest agents on any side are Paper Masters. Gifted with a telekinetic control over anything made of paper, Paper Masters can take ordinary sheets of paper and make them move according to their whim, form into giant constructs, gain razor sharp edges or become hard enough to stop a bullet. With a bit of loose leaf on hand, a skilled Paper Master is a dangerous and versatile combatant.
They are also, almost every one of them, raging bibliomaniacs, utterly obsessed with collecting and reading books. A Paper Master’s apartment is generally stuffed to the gills with piles of books, occasionally resulting in dangerous literary avalanches. They’re eternally shopping for more books, and they can easily be distracted from more important tasks by the pursuit of books. They’re book addicts.
And they fight crime spies.
Such is the premise of Read Or Die, a franchise that began as a series of novels (no surprise there) and then spun off into several forms of media.
The original novels (which sadly have never to my knowledge been translated into English, so this is secondhand information) introduce us to Yomiko Readman-code name “The Paper”-secret agent for the British Library’s Special Operations Unit and possibly the most powerful Paper Master alive. She battles enemy agents in secret missions for the British government. I think some or most of those missions might involve books, which would definitely let her play to her strengths. This soon led to a manga (comic book) series telling a parallel story about some of Yomiko’s other adventures. There also emerged a spin-off manga called Read Or Dream following a different group of characters: three Paper Master sisters who work as freelancers. (The manga have been translated, but I haven’t read them yet.) The franchise then made the jump to animation, first with a three episode Read Or Die OVA (direct-to-video miniseries) in which The Paper and her fellow agents take on a mission to save the world from an evil mastermind, and then it all culminates in R.O.D. the TV, a full-length 26 episode television series tying together every previous part of the franchise.
The OVA has a little bit of a ‘60s spy movie feel, with secret agents battling an evil mastermind who’s trying to take over the world with super-science, and the opening credits play this up entertainingly. There’s a little bit less of that with the series (to begin with), but the opening credits also have an interesting retro vibe.
In the Read Or Die OVA, the nations of the world find themselves under attack from a group called “The Great Men” made up of clones of various historical figures, tricked out with superpowers and steampunk weaponry and turned evil. (Who the hell would think that was a good idea? Well, funny story there… that you won’t get to find out until the TV series.) These Great Men (sadly, Futurama's Evil Lincoln is not among them) have attacked the Library of Congress and stolen the first volume of a book that is somehow key to their evil plans. Luckily, an agent of the British Library Special Operations Unit has gotten to the second volume before they could… not because she knew the fate of the world rested on it, but just because she felt like reading it. And trying to separate Yomiko Readman from a book is trying to separate a mama bear from her cubs, if the bear had superpowers.
The BritLibSpecOps Unit promptly puts together a team of three agents to deal with the Great Men situation.
Yomiko Readman, codename The Paper, is-as we’ve already discussed-a Paper Master capable of controlling paper with her mind. This half-British/half-Japanese veteran agent is a bit of an odd duck. As a “double oh” agent she’s licensed to kill but prefers not to. In conversation she comes off as a cheery, naïve goofball, if she isn’t too engrossed in her books to even notice that you’re talking to her. But when a fight breaks out you suddenly realize that you’re actually dealing with a dangerous and competent combatant, and a damned powerful one. She asks her enemies very politely to please stop what they’re doing and give her book back… and then when they don’t she fucks them up royally. With a suitcase full of paper ever close at hand, she’s a versatile agent who can provide offense or defense, cover or support, or create all manner of useful items. Our main protagonist and the centerpiece of the team, Yomiko takes on the various Great Men in head-to-head battles of grand proportion. She also provides a lot of the humor, with her quirky personality and social awkwardness.
Nancy Makuhari, codename Miss Deep, has the ability to phase through solid matter in a manner not entirely unlike Kitty Pryde, only with more gunplay. More worldly and world-weary than Yomiko, she’s also more standoffish and sarcastic, and while she initially isn’t thrilled at the idea of teaming up with such a goof, she eventually warms to Yomiko and becomes a sort of “big sister” to her. A lot of the fights feature the two as a team, with Nancy using her power to ambush, distract and otherwise back Yomiko up as she attacks more directly. Their personalities are likewise complimentary, with the contrast of Nancy’s irritable pragmatism with Yomiko’s friendly idealism.
Drake Anderson, no codename, is an American ex-soldier and mercenary. He doesn’t have any powers, just lots and lots of guns. He’s a distant third in importance behind the other two, and he’s fine with that so long as he gets paid. It’s not the first time he’s worked with Yomiko, and he can’t stop grumbling about his bad luck at having gotten assigned another mission with the crazy book lady. In a fight, Drake tends to try and provide some support with heavy firepower from afar, or else slip off while everyone else is battling it out to blow up some key piece of equipment. He’s also the pessimistic snarker of the team, constantly griping about how bad the situation is and how all he wants is to live through this so he can use the cash in his pocket to buy his daughter a present.
Meanwhile, back at the British Library, a small army of analysts and technicians keep the team in the field supplied with information and logistical support, lead by the head of the Special Operations Unit, Mr. Joker, and his bright-but-clumsy assistant, Wendy.
The Read Or Die OVA is enjoyable, but very strange. At only 90 minutes long, it doesn’t have much time to spend on explaining the backstory. They don’t tell us ahead of time what Yomiko’s powers are, preferring to just spring it on us. (Several times I’ve amused myself by showing the OVA to a friend without telling them anything and then watching the look on their face the first time she uses her ability. “Wait… did she just… with paper?” It’s fun!) The crazy super-science that the bad guys employ is pretty outrageous, suspension of disbelief is frequently strained, and the whole premise is pretty cracktacular. But that’s also part of the fun. The visuals are pretty solid, considering the age. The quirky characters provide a lot of amusement. There are a couple of decent plot twists and moments of genre savvy. And the action scenes are pretty good. Despite the strangeness of it, Yomiko’s fights with the Great Men are pretty cool, with some extra “I can’t believe she just did that with paper!” jaw-drop factor. And there’s a fight scene between Nancy and an opponent who also has phasing powers, which is the first time I can recall seeing two phase-users fight.
It’s definitely worth watching, especially since it’s only about the length of a feature film.
R.O.D. the TV (so titled because it combines elements of both Read or Die and Read or Dream) opens six years after the OVA, and four years after Yomiko Readman vanished off the face of the Earth. Ever since then, her best friend from the manga-her former student and favorite author Sumiregawa Nenene (who only got a brief mention in the OVA)-has been trying to find out what happened to her. What’s more, Nenene’s been struck with crippling writer’s block since Yomiko’s disappearance, and four years without publishing anything and without her best friend has left her in a state of melancholy and feeling like a has-been. When Nenene travels to Hong Kong to do publicity work for a film adaptation of one of her books, she’s almost killed by a bomb planted by a stalker, and her editor hires the Three Sisters Detective Agency to be her bodyguards. When they save her from the bomber’s next attempt, Nenene discovers that all three of the sisters are actually Paper Masters. Seeing how much more energized Nenene is by the encounter, her editor asks the Paper Sisters to be her bodyguards fulltime, in hopes that they’ll help her break through her writer’s block.
Thus, Nenene unexpectedly finds she has three Paper Masters living with her, with all the wacky hijinks and piles of books that entails. This is even more of an annoyance than it sounds, but she puts up with it with a lot of griping and after a while they start to grow on her. Amidst the domestic comedy, the three Paper Sisters are still taking on jobs on the side to retrieve rare books and other mysterious items for the powerful and secretive corporation Dokusensha. (If you have to do shadowruns to support your book habit, it’s time to admit that you have a problem.) Meanwhile, familiar faces from the British Library’s Special Operations Unit start to appear, but they are not as we knew them; the players are the same, but the sides have changed. Something mysterious and sinister is beginning to take shape around Nenene and the Paper Sisters. What is Dokusensha up to? What happened to the Unit to change them so? And where is Yomiko Readman?
R.O.D. the TV introduces us to a whole new set of fun and interesting characters, while also bringing back the old favorites in supporting roles. First and foremost are the Paper Sisters, a close-knit adopted family that makes a living kicking ass and taking names, their deep familiarity with each other allowing them to act in tandem and coordinate their improvisations with ease.
Michelle is the eldest sister and de facto leader. Cheerful and enthusiastic to the point of obnoxiousness, she doesn’t have very good impulse control when it comes to things that seemed like a good idea at the time… that is, a good idea to her and to absolutely no one else. Despite this, her ability to stay on an even keel mentally no matter what happens allows her to act as a balance point between the other two and an anchor for them when things are rough. In combat, she prefers to form paper into a bow and arrows, laying down covering fire for her sisters.
Maggie, the middle sister, is very tall and tomboyish in appearance, but her personality is very quiet and withdrawn. She tends to be laconic in conversation and likes to do her reading curled up in small space. Her mouth may not work much, but her mind always does: she observes everything around her very carefully and is usually the first to put the pieces together. Maggie’s specialty in combat is creating paper constructs called “familiars” shaped like animals or monsters, and manipulating them to fight, lift objects or carry people. Her role is usually to play defense, shielding her sisters from attack. This is especially crucial when Anita is on point, as often her only defense would be a good offense without Maggie covering her.
Anita is the youngest sister by a wide margin, being the only one of the three that’s not an adult. She’s also unusual, among the sisters and Paper Masters in general, in that she doesn’t like books. They’re associated with bad memories for her: she refuses to read them and she’s annoyed that her sisters are constantly stockpiling them. Anita is irritable and aggressive, and likes to argue and gripe. She frequently doesn’t agree with Michelle and Maggie on what to do, and since the sisters vote on decisions with the two adult sisters forming an unbeatable voting block, she almost never gets her way. In combat, Anita always goes on the attack, using an acrobatic close quarters fighting style, forming paper into blades to slice weapons apart and sweep-kicking people’s legs out from under them. She’s often reckless, but her sisters are devoted to protecting her at all costs. Anita is also enrolled in school while she’s living in Japan (she’s already fluent in the languages they’re learning and gym class is a breeze, but book reports are a problem), and there’s a subplot involving the connections she forms with the other students there.
Nenene unwittingly finds herself becoming landlady and den mother to the trio (although she’s actually slightly younger than Michelle, she comes off as the mature one) and although they often drive her crazy with their antics, they also pull her out of her funk and make her a part of the family. By all indications, she was a latchkey kid (and her parents must have really hated her to have named her “Nenene”) with few friends when she first met Yomiko, so Yomiko’s disappearance left her very alone. But despite that, Nenene also won’t put up with any nonsense from the trio, and lays down the law loudly and often. Her temper is easily the equal of Anita’s, and they bicker like it’s a hobby. She’s a stubborn and confrontational soul, even with a gun in her face, and after a decade of fame and the accompanying stalkers she refuses to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.
R.O.D. the TV is full of great humor and nice character moments, but the plot is also quite full of twists and turns, with the conspiracy that’s really just a patsy for the real conspiracy and a plan for world domination that makes the James-Bond-style one of the Great Men look like amateur hour. (If you control what people know, you control how people think. It’s true even in a world without superpowers.) The action sequences are also pretty good. The three Paper Sisters work fluidly together to form an awesome destructive force, and when Yomiko returns she demonstrates that while there might be other Paper Masters, there’s a reason she is the Paper Master. There is a lot of campy wackiness, of course, but once again that’s part of the fun. Even the dub is surprisingly good-although of course not as good as watching it in the original language-and (unlike the people who dubbed the OVA) they even remembered to give British characters British accents. It’s definitely a series worth watching.
All in all, the Read Or Die franchise is a solid piece of television: completely crazy and entirely enjoyable.
Oh, and there are books. Lots and lots of books.
Books have power.
Fear the books.