What’s it about? Tokio is a teenage boy who is terrible at keeping time. Running late to school one day, he is in the wrong place at the wrong time when a giant mechanical beetle spaceship appears out of nowhere. Its pilot, a girl named Calen, drags him inside the beetle to safety before jetting off to evade their pursuers. Tokio learns that Calen and her sidekicks are from the 24th century and travelling through time to record real history as it actually happened. Her pursuers are from the company that writes the universe’s history textbooks, trying to stop her from completing her missions so they don’t have to make the edits required to their publications.
Time Bokan 24 takes the format of an educational show while achieving the opposite of education. In episode one, viewers learn that Cleopatra was not actually a beautiful woman but a husband and wife manzai comedy duo in Ancient Egypt. It feels something like Pokemon meets The Magic School Bus, cute and colourful with slapstick humour and incompetent comedy villains.
Tokio’s more of a Brock than an Ash, blushing over the hot women he meets and pratfalling his way through time. My biggest gripe is that the Jessie equivalent has unnecessarily bouncy fanservice breasts, but I might still watch it with my own kids as the target audience skews so young (though that just makes the presence of fanservice all the more unnecessary).
Also, Calen is a pretty great role model for my hypothetical daughter – she’s energetic, decisive and focused on her job, an oasis of calm amidst the chaos of Tokio’s larger-than-life responses. A protagonist like that could be enough to offset a sexy villain for the under-12s, but your mileage may vary.
I’m not the target audience and unlikely to watch more, but this is an entertaining kids’ show with a strong character dynamic at its core and a fun premise.
