The Extraordinary Singin' Hood!
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An increasingly popular manga that started publishing in a monthly shoujo magazine about half a year ago. Shortly after the release of its first volume, an anime project was announced and is currently underway. The series tagline is "The love song of 3 million girls." Even though the Second Division of the Singular Disaster Anti-Riot Unit was reformed into the United Nation's S.O.N.G. unit, there is still a need for their activities to be kept confidential. Up until now they had managed to keep things under control with confidentiality agreements and media manipulation, but despite keeping constant tabs on the flow of information online, there is no real defense against people's everyday gossip. And thus, little by little, people began to talk about the "songs of girls" that could be heard "in areas struck by disaster." Of course this spread most quickly among schools through students and so eventually the government tasked an advertisement agency to devise a plan to deal with this. The result was a comic adaptation of the rumors in the form of "The Extraordinary Singin' Hood!" sponsored by a major publisher. Just as the stories of "The Human-Faced Dog" and "The Slit Mouthed Woman" became adapted into various forms of popular media, eventually the idea that the story is "fiction" became accepted by the public and the truth was successfully concealed. Currently the plan has kept the unwanted flow of confidential information at a minimum.
The story takes place in the Happy Song Kingdom, where guardian angels watch over the Earth. In a test to determine the future successor of the Head Archangel, the main character Singin' Hood along with numerous other candidates visit the Earth. There they use their song magic to transform and and bring peace and happiness to humans. The candidate that makes the most amount of humans happy will be chosen as the next Head Archangel. Despite being a bit of a scatterbrain, Singin' Hood is always energetic and tries her best in the competition. Sometimes she finds herself cooperating with the other candidates as she attempts to find the "Fragments of Happiness" and collect them all within a year's time. The first story involves the embezzlement of public utility funds from a local credit union and the lone clerk who is framed for it by a corrupt member of congress. The scandal was supposed to be covered up by a "double suicide" committed by the man and his wife, but thanks to the power of song Singin' Hood resolves the case. This first installment, entitled "The Concealed Account Book", was drafted by a group of government officials with no penchant for compelling storytelling. But despite expectations it was a great success and was somehow met with positive reviews from a broad range of readers. From there, Singin' Hood finds a home with the clerk's family and experiences joy, sorrow, and the awakening feelings of love throughout puberty. It has become a popular magical, heartwarming story, where Singin' Hood learns the true meaning of happiness. It started as a propaganda project that only had funding for a manga, but has since exploded into an anime franchise with a wide range of associated merchandise and toys, that has raked in tons of revenue.
On a related note, there is a story behind the song included on AXZ character CD #4: "Spread Happiness ♡ Singin' Hood!" By coincidence Chris came across and began watching the anime adaptation of Singin' Hood. Sometime after AXZ, she was invited to karaoke by her friends where she tried singing the opening song and that's what is featured on the CD. At first Chris didn't really care about the series, as she was aware of its true origins, but at some point as she followed along she became hooked on it.
