is an anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series, created and written by Shōji Kawamori

Shoji Kawamori

is a Japanese anime creator, screenwriter and mechanical designer, having created or co-created such notable series as The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Vision of Escaflowne, Earth Maiden Arjuna, Genesis of Aquarion, Macross 7, and Macross Frontier. He is currently executive director at the...

 and directed by Tetsu Kimura. The series premiered in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 on WOWOW

WOWOW

WOWOW was the first private satellite broadcasting and pay TV station in Japan. It has its headquarters on the 21st floor of the Akasaka Park Building in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo...

 between January 9, 2001 and March 29, 2001, spanning a total of 13 episodes. It centers on a dysfunctional family

Dysfunctional family

A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...

 tasked with defending the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 from alien invaders.

The series was aired by the anime television network Animax

Animax

is a Japanese anime satellite television network, dedicated to broadcasting anime programming. A subsidiary of Japanese media conglomerate Sony, it is headquartered in in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with its co-founders and shareholders including Sony Pictures Entertainment and the noted anime studios...

 across its respective networks worldwide, including its English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 networks in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

 and South Asia

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

 under the title The Family's Defensive Alliance. It was released on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in North America by Geneon

Geneon

is a Japanese music, anime and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise headquartered in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Geneon has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime in Japan...

 under the title The Daichis: Earth Defence Family, but has not yet been broadcast across the region.

Plot

The opening scenes of the anime show the Daichis in a furious argument over a divorce petition. Suddenly a bright flash of light blinds them completely and they are shown their future roles to be played as defenders of the earth.

Reluctant at first, they are forced to accept the responsibility, as refusal means a court-martial from the Galaxy Federation (their employers) and a hundred years of penal servitude. Seiko always gets infuriated at the end of every mission as every weapon they use costs them more money than they are paid for doing their job(s). In fact, this reason is used as a basis for one of the later episodes in the show.

As earth's defenders, they have to fight against every threat that the earth faces from extraterrestrials. Some of the enemies are bizarre, from floating eyes, to alien toys, to heart shaped spacecraft, to a floating weapons factory, to a giant plant. One of the most hilarious (and blatantly anti-communist) is an alien in the form of the Soviet Emblem that uses a hammer-and-sickle attack!
The anime ends in an already-predicted ending, with the Daichis becoming a close knit family once again, despite the hurdles faced by them as earth's defenders and their future responsibility as the same.

Main characters

A problem child of the worst kind, he is hyperactive and doesn't think twice before he does anything, which usually puts him in a spot most of the time. He hates his dysfunctional family life, but at times is capable of showing considerable filial emotions and loyalty. And he has a big-time problem with his arrogant sister, Nozomi although, he still cares.

He also has an unusual pet with him which he names "Weird", possibly owing to its very unusual nature.

(Dai's sister)

Dai's older sibling with a severe attitude problem. It is shown in the anime to have originated owing to her mother making her do all the housework. She is for the most part a misunderstood and very confused young lady. She has an optimistic side as well but it appears very rarely. She has a liking for rock music and it is shown in the third episode of the anime. she does get very annoyed by Dai but, nevertheless still cares for him.

(their mother)

A flirtatious, money-hungry lady and a snob. She is extremely mean and has a hint of sadism. She is extremely vain and cares for nothing save for herself, and has in addition a very irritable temper. These attitudes are shown to gradually disappear towards the end of the anime.

She also has an affair during the series with a colleague at work, Hayakawa by name, a photographer by profession....Though she breaks up with him a little before the end of the anime. Despite her meanness, she does love her family deeply from within. It is not apparent though at first as in the very first episode, the opening scene is the family on the brink of being torn apart by a divorce petition about to be filed by Seiko.

(the husband)

A half-absent IT-professional, he is almost always clueless about the situation around him. Very, very obese and fat, he is shown in his lighter moments with some kind of food in his hand all the time. But the man is highly intelligent and sensitive otherwise. Is also a wimp and an easily terrified fellow.

Mild-mannered and easily frightened, he is the most hilarious member in the cast. But he dearly loves his family and is very reluctant to let the family be broken. He is very kind and gentle and fundamentally very decent, but very absent-minded and awkwardly slow and clumsy, especially in social situations.

The alien who recruited the Daichis as an earth defense force, she is shown as a very small girl of the same age as Daichi. Level-Headed for the most part, she oversees the functionality of the defensive group and reports to her superiors about their status from time to time. She is also the one who makes sure that the identities of the "superhumans" as the public calls them, are never discovered. It seems that Daichi has a crush on her and the feeling seems to be mutual.

Episodes

#	Title	Script	| Original air date

External links

• Official Bandai Visual website