Read or Die the TV

The project was born in 2001 after the abandonment of a plan that consisted of remaking the original OVA with new animated scenes to turn it into a film; the idea of a TV series then emerged.

Japanese and American fans reproached author Hideyuki Kurata for the absence of Nenene Sumiregawa, who was nonetheless very popular in the light novels and manga, from the original OVA; she was therefore promoted to main character of the TV series.

Kurata wanted to give the sequel a lighter and 'glamorous' tone than the OVA, explicitly drawing inspiration from Charlie's Angels to create a trio of sister heroines, the OVA being in his view intended mainly for an older audience.

The names of the three sisters (Michelle Cheung, Maggie Mui and Anita King) are a direct tribute to Hong Kong actresses Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui, who all three appeared together in the film 'The Heroic Trio' (1993).

The character Nenene was initially supposed to be called 'Mimimi', a name borrowed from Ryu Murakami's 1983 film 'Daijōbu, My Friend'; character designer Taraku Uon misread Kurata's notes and transformed the name into 'Nenene', which the author deemed more original.

According to Kurata, the name 'Nenene' became a pronunciation nightmare for dubbing actors over the following ten years.

The character of Wendy was profoundly modified between the OVA (where she was clumsy and endearing) and the TV series (where she becomes a cold and competent secretary), a choice that sparked a wave of criticism from fans, which Kurata himself acknowledged.

Wendy's family name, Earhart, is a tribute to the famous aviator Amelia Earhart, while her appearance as a clumsy bureaucrat in the OVA was inspired by the work of manga artist Hisaichi Ishii; her ambiguous Anglo-Indian origins, revealed only in the DVD booklets, draw inspiration from the 1970s animated series 'Perrine Monogatari', adapted from the French novel 'Sans famille' by Hector Malot.

The idea of setting the first episode in Hong Kong, rather than in Tokyo like the rest of the series, is said to come from an animator, Tokuyuki Matsutake, who for some unknown reason had drawn a scene taking place in Hong Kong for the opening sequence of the OVA.

Director Koji Masunari had already worked on the series 'Kokoro Library', featuring three sisters among its characters, which is said to have inspired Kurata with the idea of the heroic trio of paper sisters.

The terrestrial broadcast on Fuji TV ended after episode 20, the channel citing a lack of available time slots due to sports retransmissions and equipment maintenance; the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper criticized this practice of prematurely stopping animes broadcast late at night, also citing the cases of 'GAD GUARD' and 'TEXHNOLYZE'.

On two occasions, the DVD containing an episode came out in stores the very day before its television broadcast (episodes 8 and 11), an unusual reversed effect for an animated series.