The kids discover so many uses for the glasses other than what was originally intended. Theyve built a whole culture around manipulating the cyberspace. Theyve made and accumulated their own urban legends ways to litigate and settle conflicts and even a form of currency. The urban legends come from the illegals artificial creatures that can corrupt and delete the data kept online. The show goes after all the different possibilities of the kids makeshift culture first and how it interacts with different characters personalities. Only later does it get to the characters backgrounds and the real basis of Daikoku Citys urban legends. While the show has several adult characters whose jobs involve the use of the cyberspace for the most part theres a generational divide. In general the adults dont see the new technology the way the children who grew up with it do. They see it as a passing fad another distraction from reality. The children cant fully comprehend the stakes theyre dealing with which is dangerous the adults cant fully comprehend the ways in which the children have adapted the technology to do more than just entertain themselves. Theres some resistance in the whole culture to leaving the past behind and accepting the conditions of the present. The mindset they need is the one Yasako eventually learns to be curious about other people and not run away when you find out they have real problems. The show has tons of visual tricks to simulate the fusion of the physical and digital worlds. Virtual objects are rendered with subtle differences from the physical objects depicted around them. The camera will often pan quickly toward something but overshoot it a little and adjust. One of my favorite pieces of character animation ever is in the second half of the show where one characters whole body heaves repeatedly as they try to talk through their tears. Theres a sense that its not always easy to control yourself physically when a situation demands it. Dennou Coil starts out as one of the more creative scifi adventures out there with sympathetic characters and cool visuals that never fall short of their purpose. It goes on to become the kind of mystery with so many facets that it seems impossible for them all to be tied off by the end but they are. Mitsuo Iso is famous for being an animator on other peoples work but between this Orbital Children and DIY you see he has his own preoccupations that dont show up in those other places. He tries to be a technooptimist who actually tries to come up with reasons to be optimistic instead of just being a sycophant who sweeps peoples problems under the rug.