Risky☆Safety

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Ebony and ivory...

Omishi Magical Theatre: Risky☆Safety is a particularly underloved 1999-2000 Anime series based on a manga by Ray Omishi, which has as its main selling point overpowering cuteness.

Junior-high-schooler Moe Katsuragi is depressed upon seeing her crush with an older girl. The depths of her despair attract a tiny Shinigami named Risky, who will go to great lengths to capture her soul upon death. Risky gets as far as her initial pitch, which causes Moe to laugh... prompting Risky to disappear and the sudden appearance of equally tiny apprentice angel Safety. Turns out that the pair share the body.

Comprised of 24 eight-minute episodes, Risky☆Safety manages to start with Slice of Life comedy and make it even Lighter and Softer than previously thought possible. As Moe goes about her daily life, now accompanied by the bossy Risky and the klutzy Safety, she comes to learn what her happiness really entails.

Tropes used in Risky☆Safety include:

• Adaptation Dye Job: For both Risky and Safety. In this case, Safety's hair color is changed from blue in the manga to cyan (or green, depending on the viewer) in the anime, while Risky's outfit, crimson in the manga, becomes grey.
• Balloon Belly: Risky, whenever she indulges her appetite.
• Because Destiny Says So: The final arc of the series had The Moment of Destiny dramatically altering character's fates, and to some extent their personalities. Some characters, Safety included, are willing to give up and accept the changes, but...
  • Screw Destiny: Risky sets her straight with this trope.

Risky: "I'm a shinigami who's brave enough to follow her own will! Isn't that the same for you, Safety?"

• Big Breasts, Big Deal: Suzuko is embarrassed when Kotone tells Moe (in episode 11) that Suzuko's bust measurement is 88-E - that's a North American 35-D. Keep in mind that all three girls are still in junior high school, and thus no older than 14 (and might only be 12).
• Big Eater: Risky, apparently. In the first episode alone, she apparently ate an entire box of chocolate kisses in about ten seconds. Chocolates which are the size of her head.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Moe, surprisingly enough.
• But Now I Must Go: After successfully beating their destinies, Risky and Safety inform Moe that they have to return to their superiors now to await punishment. They vanish, telling her not to cry and that they'll always be friends. They return in the end though, presumably to spend the rest of Moe's life with her.
• Cultural Cross-Reference:
  • A shrine kami compares Moe and Yuya's relationship to Anakin and Amidala's. This gag originated in the Japanese script.
  • Additionally, two episode titles are references to the Austin Powers series (and the episodes themselves take place at what the angelic location system calls "Point T-007"). Ray Omishi must really like American movies.
• Cute Little Fang: Risky has one. Just one.
• Failure Is the Only Option: For Risky, at least. She receives increasingly-irritated nastygrams from her superiors over her failed scams for Moe's soul. Averted in the final story arc, where Risky is the first to successfully Screw Destiny.
• Fan Service Pack: Risky is shown in episodes 14 and 15 as being much more... ample.
• Flash Forward: In-universe, in episode 13. Future-Yuya and future-Moe have time to tell their present selves one short sentence each before they disappear; they use that opportunity to foreshadow the anime's final story arc - not that it helps any.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Again, Risky. During the aforementioned episodes 14 and 15, her clothing really accentuated her bust.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: For being such a short series, the show has a very impressive cast in both Japanese and English.
  • Moe is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto in Japanese and Julie Ann Taylor in English.
  • In the original Japanese, Fazzy is played by Yuri Shiratori and Suzuko is played by a then-up-and-coming Yui Horie.
  • In the dub, Risky and Safety have different actresses. One of them is Sandy Fox, who plays... Risky. The other one is Michelle Ruff.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Risky delivers one of these to Safety near the end, when she's ready to give up and just let her friend's destinies get rewritten.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: In one episode, Safety wonders what if she never gets rid of the spell the love arrow has on Lani, and then supposes she might be forced to marry him. She then has a random vision of herself and Lani being married, then to the two of them in a hotel, and then just as the vision stops Safety starts panicking, saying "I don't even want to think about what comes after that!"
• Growing the Goatee: The final six episodes are more serious in tone (though not overly so), featuring a mythical entity called the Moment of Destiny that dramatically alters the leads' personalities, fates, and even their memories.
• Genre Shift: The Fractured Fairy Tale which turns into a Space Opera, mentioned below, and one episode even is played out like a Silent Movie, complete with black-and-white and sepia tone.
• Hilarious Outtakes: The DVDs include dubbing out-takes.
  • Curse Cut Short: One out-take has Sandy Fox messing up her line, and saying, "Aw, cra-!" before it cuts off.
• In Love with the Mark: Kaede was sent to kill one of the Momotaro. They fell in love instead.
• Interspecies Romance: Lani the Pomeranian is in love with both Risky and Safety, thanks to Safety accidentally shooting him with a love arrow. Needless to say, it's unrequited.
• Japanese Honorifics: Safety is extremely polite and always uses an appropriate honorific when talking to someone. On the other hand, Risky is the exact opposite: she is very rude and never uses honorifics.
• Les Yay, with a dash of Foe Yay: There's people who ship Risky and Safety as a couple. No, really (may contain spoilers).
  • Also, Moe's friends Suzuko and Kotone. Come on, there has to be something going on there...
  • As well as Risky and Kaede. Seriously, Risky looks devastated when she tells the part of Kaede falling for a Momotaro, she starts a full-scale war when she believes Kaede has been kidnapped (let that sink in - Risky started an entire war to get one girl back home, and the girl isn't even royalty, or that important to the tribe... although, as a shinagami, Risky might have been interested in the death toll a war would bring), and believes Kaede to be Brainwashed when hearing she's in love with Wakatake.

Risky: Bastard. You must have brainwashed her!

• Lucky Charms Title
• Meganekko: Safety, and occasionally Moe.
  • Blind Without'Em: Again, Safety.
• Moe: Take a wild guess. Applies to most of the cast, come to think of it.
• Naked Underwear First Impression: Moe first spots Risky while the latter is putting on her clothes.
• Odd Couple: Risky and Safety, although a variation, as they don't live with each other, but share each other's body.
• One Head Taller: Moe is a head taller than her boyfriend, Yuya. She has to bend down a bit to kiss him in the second-to-last episode.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catchphrase: This changes slightly depending on who's delivering the line. Risky uses "Yoroshiku, baby!" while Safety reads the line straighter, but adds a polite and formal "desu no" to the end.
• Purple Eyes: Risky. Moe too, but hers are more bluish.
• Sharing a Body: The gimmick behind the series.
• Shinigami: Risky, who has a lot of skull motifs in her clothing, is a cross between the "Grim Reaper" and "shoulder devil" portrayals.
• Something Completely Different: Done three times, first and third with telling stories from the pair's past, and second to turn the story of Momotaro into a Space Opera.
• Shout-Outs:
  • Episode 8: "Sniper Risky 13"
  • Episode 13: "... like Queen Amidala and Anakin"
  • Episode 14:
    • The entire episode is a shout-out to the Legend of Momotarō.
    • One of the green-haired bikini-wearing oni in Risky's group looks remarkably like Lum.
    • The Momotaro spaceships look like they're on loan from Starfleet, while the oni space fighters "Tiger Horns" are reminiscent of "Cosmo Tigers".
  • Episode 15:
    • "Minovsky particles"
    • Safety's "Ama Kakeru Tenshi no Hirameki Cathartic Wave" is suspiciously similar to "Ama Kakeru Ryu no Hirameki".
  • Episode 19: Terry shares an outfit, verbal tic, and favourite food with Terry Bogard.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: From episodes 14-15, Wakatake (one of the Momotaros) and Kaede (an oni).
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: This is definitely a "healing" anime.
• The Woobie: Fazzy, in her little arc. Arguably Moe as well.
• Tear Jerker: Fazzy's mini-arc. Risky and Safety's seemingly-final goodbye to Moe.
• The Faceless: Moe's parents, Yuya's father. We hear their voices, and the most we see of any of them are their hands or their legs.
• Trademark Favorite Food: It seems that Risky has a thing for chocolate kisses.
• Tsundere: Risky, arguably.
• Verbal Tic: Safety ends most of her sentences with the archaic desu no.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: It's not obvious that Risky is female at first glance. Maybe that's why she's often shipped with Safety.
  • Although some people still ship her with Safety, even after The Reveal...
  • The dub was apparently confused too, referring to Risky as "he," "him" and as "Mister Shinigami" in a few episodes before switching to female pronouns after it was apparent she was a girl. This was done deliberately to preserve the surprise of The Reveal in the absence of the gender-neutral pronouns used in the Japanese version (even though that Underwear First Impression mentioned above showed Risky wearing bloomers).
• The Voiceless: Yuya's classmate, even when she gets A Day in the Limelight - that episode is presented as a Silent Movie.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Safety.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Ultimately averted.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Safety in both the anime and manga versions.
  • Though it's more of a greenish-blue shade in the anime.