Fight for your twintails!
"If you love twintails in your heart, anything is possible!"
— Tail Red
Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!!, (Japanese name Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu! [俺、ツインテールになります! — "I will become a Twintail!"]) is a Light Novel series written by Yume Mizusawa and illustrated by Ayumu Kasuga, which was published under the Gagaga Bunko imprint from 2012 to 2022 for 22 volumes.
Souji Mitsuka, age 15, loves twintails. Actually, that's an understatement — if there was such a thing as a twintail pervert, Souji would be it. This exasperates his long-suffering childhood friend Aika Tsube, who just wishes that he'd be more normal.
One day however, a buxom woman from another world named "Twoearle" asks Souji to save the Earth from a group of extraterrestrial invaders looking to steal everyone's... twintails? To help Souji, Twoearle gives him a Transformation Trinket that will turn the teenage boy into Tail Red, a super powered, armor clad... little girl with twintail hair? Eh, details, details. And so to protect his precious twintails, Souji sets off to become a hero in an increasingly ridiculous Affectionate Parody of Super Sentai and Magical Girl Warrior works, recruiting others like Aika and the Student Council President at Souji's school, Erina Shindou, along the way.
A manga adaptation illustrated by Ryota Yuzuki ran from 2014 to 2015 in Monthly Big Gangan, and spawned 2 volumes.
It also has a 12-episode Animated Adaptation directed by Hiroyuki Kanbe and produced by Production IMS that premiered on October 2014 and can be legally watched on Funimation's website.
Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!! provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Of the Super Sentai series. The screenwriter of the anime in particular has some experience in this, having previously done scripts for Akibaranger.
- Airplane of Love: The final shot of the series shows two flying side-by-side, their trails resembling twin tails.
- Aliens Speaking English: The Elemerians' speech is stated to directly enter the mind of whoever they're speaking to, in the language that they're familiar with. Twoearle explains that she essentially comes from a parallel Japan.
- Aside Comment: In Episode 5, when Souji tells Erina that Twoearle is his relative, Aika turns to the audience and says "That's the story that we're going with".
- Beam-O-War: Subverted in the Twintail Warriors' fight with Dark Grasper. The trio combine their weapons to form the Fusionic Buster, and get ready to fire it against Dark Grasper's Darkness Vanisher... only for Tail Red to hastily fire it off without any sort of fanfare, blasting Dark Grasper before her attack is ready.
- Breast Attack: In the novels, the first of Twoearle's many jabs at Aika's chest gets her breasts twisted hard.
- Breast Expansion:
- The Tail Yellow bracelet causes this in its wearer (and also makes their butt bigger). Aika originally wanted to wear it but it wouldn't work on her.
- Inverted with Sora's transformation—as Tail Red is supposed to have the body of a young girl, the rather busty Sora becomes as flat as a board.
- Dark Grasper also seems to think this; when she sees Tail Red, whom she mistakes for Twoearle, she is distraught at the apparent loss of Twoearle's breasts.
- Calling Your Attacks: Sentai parody, will have shouted attack names.
- Censor Steam: Dark Grasper's clothes get destroyed by Tail Red, Blue, and Yellow's combined attack in Episode 9. The clouds of dust kicked up by the attack hide her naughty bits.
- Cuteness Proximity:
- Much to Souji's horror, pretty much everyone seems to display this towards Tail Red: guys, girls, even the Elemerian kaijin. Both invoked and exploited in the latter case, as Twoearle mentions how Tail Red's appearance is designed to invoke this in the kaijin so that Tail Red can dispatch them while they're distracted by her cuteness (though she says this after openly admitting to being a lolicon).
- And then it turns out this also works in the Ultimaguil's favour: the more people fall in love with Tail Red, and with twintails in general, the more Twintails Affinity there is for them to feed off. This is how Twoearle's world was eventually conquered and stripped of its Affinities.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
- Maaya Uchida (Twoearle) sings the OP "Gimme! Revolution".
- The ending, "Twin-Tail Dreamer!", done by Sumire Uesaka (Tail Red), Yuuka Aisaka (Aika) and Chinatsu Akasaki (Erina).
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Miharu has openly admitted that she'd be fine with Twoearle forcing herself on her son, and was happy to hear Souji screaming as he woke up to Twoearle drooling over him. It's somewhat downplayed given that all of Twoearle's attempts to jump Souji's bones are met with painful resistance from Aika.
- Elaborate Underground Base: What Twoearle built right under the Mitsuka residence in a single evening (complete with video-game noises rather than construction noises!)
- Enhanced on DVD: The Blu-ray versions of the episodes more or less get rid of the QUALITY that plagued the series during its TV airing. Observe◊ and compare◊ (the first image is from the TV airing, the latter from the BR).
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: the Twintail trio is close enough; Tailred uses fire, Tailblue uses water, and Tailyellow uses electricity.
- Foreshadowing:
- People surely have noticed by now that the sigil that Twoearle uses in the secret base is shared by Drag Guildy, the boss of the Ultimaguil.
- And it turns out its use is perfectly justified: because the technology Twoearle used to create the Tail Gear is based on Ultimaguil technology, what with the latter deliberately leaking their tech to worlds they invade in hope of creating a hero there that would try to fight them off.
- The intro features a brief close-up of what appears to be Tail Red in a school uniform, putting her twintails up; in hindsight, it's clearly Sora.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look at Swan Guildy's laptop shortcuts, you can notice one to Steam. Also a bit Hilarious in Hindsight, as Steam only recently (late 2013) started to add Visual Novels (of erotic and all-ages content) to its games listings.
- Funbag Airbag: In the final episode, Souji's Post-Victory Collapse leaves his face in Twoearle's bosom. Twoearle expects violent reprimanding from Aika, but she decides to let it slide this time.
- Girlish Pigtails: It so happens that the series is built around this, as twin tails happen to be the series' Macguffin.
- Volume 5 of the novels introduces another world being invaded by the Ultimaguil kaijin, and it's their lack of this particular affinity that makes them struggle against the invaders. The dominant affinity of the world is ponytails instead, and this forces the native people there to become creative in order to field a champion.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: In Episode 9, Souji is trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine where every girl he knows is wearing twintails and ready to sleep with him. He sees through it and breaks free when he remembers Twoearle gave up her twintail attribute to make the Red Tail Gear, therefore it is impossible for her to wear twintails.
- Gratuitous English: In the third episode.
"Yes, I live twintail, breathe twintail. Tail Red just rocks!"
- Human Shield: Aika uses a Twoearle Shield in Volume 5.
- Image Song: Quite a few, actually.
- "Red Braver" by Sumire Uesaka (Tail Red)
- "Blue Emotion" by Yuuka Aisaka (Aika/Tail Blue)
- "Judgement of Yellow" by Chinatsu Akasaki (Erina/Tail Yellow)
- "Seektime Zero" by Maaya Uchida (Twoearle)
- "Glasses of Love" by Yōko Hikasa (Isuna)
- "Tail On! Twin-Tails" by Sumire Uesaka (Tail Red), Yuuka Aisaka (Aika/Tail Blue), and Chinatsu Akasaki (Erina/Tail Yellow). It doubles as an Insert Song during Episodes 9 and 12 of the anime.
- Insane Troll Logic: Tail Red finding herself unable to destroy a mannequin created by Foxguildy because of its twintails, which she claims have done nothing wrong. Which prompts Aika to save her as well as defeat Foxguildy.
- Lap Pillow: Souji slept on Twoearle's lap at the beginning of Episode 2.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Any victim of the Elemerians will forget and dislike having a twin tail hairstyle. This also occurs whenever one of the Twintail Warriors transforms; according to the light novels, their Tail Gear emits something called "Imagine Chaff," which obscures their faces in the minds of those who look at them, ensuring that the civilian identities of the Twintail Warriors remain a secret. Not particularly necessary for someone like Souji, who becomes a completely different person when he turns into Tail Red, but understandable for Aika, since her face remains the same when she becomes Tail Blue.
- Meido: Erina has a whole squad of them following her around.
- No Ontological Inertia: If the device the Elemerians use to steal people's attributes is destroyed, each victim immediately regains their attributes. However, the device must be destroyed within 24 hours or the attributes are lost forever.
- Potty Emergency: Souji has one during his non-super Gender Bender phase; he sheepishly admits that he doesn't how to "go".
- Recycled In Space: It's Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger WITH TWINTAILS!
- Ret-Gone: Acena looks at a photo album of Twoearle back when she was Tail Blue and finds that her twintails are gone, as she'd imparted her twintail attribute into Souji's Tailgear.
- Some Kind of Force Field: Twoearle's introduction in the anime shows that she apparently has a force field that repels Aika's hand when she tries to push Twoearle away from Souji. No such force field ever comes up in the novels, and even the anime abandons the concept within the same episode to allow for Aika's frequent beatings.
- Spoiler Opening: The anime opening and end credits don't even bother hiding the identities of the three Tail Warriors. Or that Souji would go to school as a girl—and not as Tail Red, at that.
- Stalking is Love: Dark Grasper certainly thinks this way—everything up to the end of her fight with the Twintails was motivated almost completely out of her obsession with Twoearle. After that, the only thing that changed was the target of her obsession—the new one being Tail Red.
- Tempting Fate: In Episode 3, Twoearle tries to get Aika to promise to let her be Souji's first before she'll let her have the Tail Bracelet. When Aika angrily refuses to do so, Twoearle remarks that it's not like the heroine is going to attack a defenseless woman and just take it from her... which is exactly what Aika proceeds to do.
- Transformation Sequence: It does not look out of place in a Sentai series.
- Unprovoked Pervert Payback: Surprisingly averted, given that Aika's characterization wouldn't make this out of place. If she catches Twoearle forcing herself on Souji, she properly directs her anger at Twoearle.
Twoearle: Eh...... me... why me, in a love comedy it is the guy who gets punch... higaah!!
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Dark Grasper kissing Tail Red caused Souji to pay more attention to the girls' themselves rather than their twintails, which he treats as him "betraying" twintails, which causes his bracelet to malfunction, which turns him into a girl and gradually depowers Tail Red.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Aika and Twoearle.
- Wham Episode: Episode 11: Souji turns into a girl and no one can figure out why he did or how to turn him back, he can't do squat against any Ultimaguil soldier even as Tail Red, Dark Grasper is conflicted and disappointed over Tail Red's diminishing strength, Spider Guildy transforms into an even stronger creature, ready to challenge the Twintails for the last time, and Souji realizes he's betrayed everything he's ever stood for by developing more interest in girls rather than Twintails.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The protagonists don't hesitate to kill the Elemerians, yet make a point not to use lethal force on Dark Grasper.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: In Episode 5, after Aika suffers a serious bout of A-Cup Angst, Twoearle develops a Tail Bracelet that enhances the wearer's bust and agrees to give it to her. It then fails to work, and it takes a Rousing Speech from Souji to prevent a full-on Heroic BSoD.