Battle Programmer Shirase — anime oddity
Over the Christmas break I watched part of a strange little anime series called Battle Programmer Shirase. The series caught my eye because, as wildy varied as anime titles tend to be, I have never come across an anime show with a programmer protagonist. Ever.
And, to be completely honest, I still haven’t with Battle Programmer. As far as the world of the series sees it, “programmer” is as much synonymous with code-author as white-hat hacker. The Battle Programmer of the title is an elite coder/hacker/technology enthusiast, whose 1337 skills see both corporate and government agents seeking expertise (it’s worth noting The Battle Programmer doesn’t work for money, but rather, rare and collector’s item tech). Most of these missions involve thwarting the attempts of an American super-hacker, via system intrusions and re-wiring viruses, but when it’s all said and done, it’s still the closest to an actual “programmer” I’ve seen in the medium.
Now, a word of warning. Battle Programmer Shirase isn’t particularly good. In fact, it’s pretty drawn out, despite it’s insanely short run-time. Each episode is about 12 minutes long, with most story arcs spanning 3 – 4 episodes (There are 15 in total), and there’s a fair amount of uncomfortable ecchi fanservice (Battle Programmer seems to have a crush on his 13 year old relative — is that supposed to be a slight against geeks?!). Still, the series is worth watching for its niche cool-factor and undeniable oddity. Oh, and the series is directed by Hiroki Hayashi, who handled Bubblegum Crisis, No Need for Tenchi, and El Hazard, so the animation is fairly decent.
If you’re interested, you can download the entire series via AnimeSuki, or watch them over at Youtube. I’ve embedded the first episode below for your enjoyment.
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