Anime & Manga Teh CX Anime Review Thread

ATP

Well-known member
Sora-no-woto/Sound of the sky/ 2010,12 episodes.

Fun,but heartworming series.Alternate/or future/ Earth is slowly dying,countries are falling apart,AND THEN...
15y old Kannagi Sorami is come to serve military in her country Helvetia.She is clumsy,by wont to play trumpet,which is mandatory for every tank crew.Silly,i knew.
Becouse she is send to post with one damaged tank and 4 other girls,when they start interacting with each other and town people.
Other girls is Rio Kazumiya,who would save country from war later and teach MC how to play trumpet,Filicia Feideman ,who is important for plot,Kureha Suminayga,mostly comic relief,and Noel Kannagi,genius scientist,important for saving country,too.

They also have hope for saving world,too.And would certainly do so,all by themselves,id there would be second seazon.

They mostly do cute things till last 2 episodes when country is saved from war with another country,Rome.Thanks to our girls.
Silly? Yes !!!!! but also cute and funny.If you have some time and do not fear sugar overdose,watch it.

Here,opening:
 
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Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Alas, this is the last review I wrote and actually got to publish (I had written one for Kids on the Slope but lost the thumb drive it was on before I could post it) and it was done some time ago. Since then I've not really ever gotten around to writing any more reviews aside from the occasional article in MaximumWeeaboo Magazine - I just seem to have lost the passion for it. But it has been fun reposting them here and seeing the various reactions to them. It's also nice to know I'm far from the only anime fan here. But at least with this one, I'm going out on a fun note. ;)


Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist
(12 episode series)

This is by no means "The Anime to Save Anime" that at one point many fans claimed it to be, but it is a fun satirical look at censorship culture and the effects it might have if carried out to its logical conclusion. Its real strong point is how it manages to be light and funny in spite of tackling a rather serious subject matter that is rather relevant in current times. So while it's too much to say that this show is going to somehow save anime, it did happen to be in the right place at the right time.

As the beginning of every episode informs us, this series takes place in the Orwellian future of Japan, which has passed a law called "The Law for Public Order and Morals in Healthy Child-Raising" that essentially bans anything that could be considered lewd or otherwise immoral. This not only includes things like porn or the figurines from your favorite ecchi series, but also cussing or using any other words the state has forbidden on the grounds of Helen Lovejoy's favorite argument. This is actually somewhat comparable to the PC future of 1993's Demolition Man, except that this series takes it even further. For instance, rather than simply having a computer print out tickets whenever you cuss, instead the not at all symbolic collar you wear around your neck will start sounding a shrill alarm that informs you that the morality police (yes, they actually call them that) are going to come and arrest you, perhaps by even busting into the place you happen to be and beating the crap out of you the way American SWAT teams like to do to pot smokers. And just to make sure you don't draw anything lewd since you can't just buy porn, the little omni-tool bracelets you wear around your wrists and use like a smart phone also keep track of your hand movements and likewise alert the morality Gestapo. Hell, it would probably alert them if you tried fapping or playing the slots or twisting the tentacles or whatever, too, provided you even knew how to do it since you'd be childishly naive about anything relating to sex.

The series follows Tanukichi Okuma on his first day at Tokioka Academy, "Japan's most elite public morals school." He's looking forward to reuniting with his childhood friend/crush, Anna Nishikinomiya, who is serving as his new school's student president. He actually practically idolizes her, as when he was a child, she was the only one to not ostracize him following his father's arrest as an "ero-terrorist" for attempting to distribute condoms on the steps of the Diet building (while shouting "free the penis" :D ). Unfortunately for him, he gets caught up defending someone he knows to have been falsely accused of groping a woman on the train, which in turn leads to him getting saved by the ero-terrorist known as Blue Snow. He very quickly finds out that the man he saved, Raiki Gouriki, actually was stalking him on that train as he suspected, and that he's on the student council as well. Also, it turns out that Blue Snow is actually Ayame Kajou, student vice-president and Anna's best friend. The way Tanukichi ends up finding this out is after Ayame kidnaps him and essentially blackmails him into forming SOX with her in her effort to spread what amounts to sex education to their school, as well as her normal activities of spreading porn and shouting dirty jokes.

Shimoneta01.jpg

I saw this series referred to as the "anime to save anime" during the time it originally aired, but I have to say that as much as I liked it, I wouldn't really call it that. It's essentially a romantic comedy with a message, and considering its subject matter (not to mention Blue Snow's disguise consisting of a pair of panties on her face and a white sheet with nothing underneath it), it's actually fairly tame fan-service-wise, though at one point they totally manage to sneak a giant dick in past the censors thanks to one of the character's hairstyles. The series is well paced, had plenty of humor of both the well-thought-out and just straight up sex joke variety, and is just overall competently done, but I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece or anything, and to be fair the series doesn't really set out to be. It just happens to stand out for its competence thanks to so much of anime these days consisting largely of moé/ecchi that's pretty much just made to pander to the plastic-collecting otaku fanbase.

The story is fairly straightforward, with Tanukichi helping out Ayame, at first rather reluctantly, while being torn with what he feels to be his duty to Anna to turn Blue Snow in to her and the knowledge that this would probably crush her since Blue Snow is actually her best friend. Not to mention the way he idolizes Anna and feels this will keep him from living up to his image of her. Along the way SOX gathers more members, including an artistic prodigy who helps with the whole distributing porn thing by drawing it, though she has to do it with her mouth to avoid her "Peace Maker" bracelet going off and drawing the "morality" police. Later they come into conflict with another ero-terrorist's group led by "White Peak," who steals other people's used underwear and makes a body-suit out of them that he wears. He also claims to be allied to SOX, which makes things a bit worse for SOX by being associated with actual terrorist acts, like bus hijackings, rather than Blue Snow's immature antics aimed more at education and protesting the morality laws/censorship.

Ayame is helped by a gift from her father, who was likewise arrested for being an ero-terrorist (though she claims he was framed), which is an old-school flip-phone that is programmed to jam the PM devices within its range for 3 minutes per day. This enables her to cuss and say other banned words, and to make lewd gestures without setting off the collars and bracelets she or the others around her wear. And while it's never spelled out, I'm guessing it somehow keeps the authorities from tracking her.

The series is very entertaining to watch, with plenty of good moments along the way that made me laugh so hard I actually had to rewind a bit to avoid missing anything.

Shimoneta02.jpg
Moments like this...

The characters are somewhat cliched, but that's about what one can expect from what amounts to a harem romantic comedy with a twist. I know some people might object to the "harem" label, but if you think about it, almost all the supporting characters have a thing for Tanukichi, including hyper-masculine Gouriki (which is played for laughs). Not all of them are as bad as Anna, but it's there to a certain extent in all of them, even if it's just to tease Tanukichi.

Anna is the "pure" love interest, and the twist here is that Tanukichi, for as obsessed as he is with her, is actually not interested in her in a sexual way, though this seems to be in keeping with his view of her as "pure" with himself as being unworthy for her. Which means the other twist is that it's actually Anna aggressively pursuing him rather than the other way around, and is also played for laughs, but I'll get into more depth on that later.

Ayame/Blue Snow is this show. She may not be the protagonist/viewpoint character, but she is this show, which is very much a statement against censorship in Japan. She's every bit as dirty-minded and lewd as one might expect from the stereotypically perverted guy, and she has the kind of forceful personality that makes her really interesting to watch as she stands up to her oppressive government and its prudish demonization of sexuality, and combats the childish ignorance of her peers and even some adults.

Not to forget about Tanukichi himself, I have to say that that's kind of his problem in a way, in that he's kind of forgettable because of how plain he is compared to all the other, even minor characters. I wouldn't be quite cruel enough to label him a self-insertion character, but he very much serves the role of the "average high school student" that one would see in pretty much any harem anime out there. I feel that this is probably mostly so that Ayame, the true voice of the show, can be that much more prominent. Of course, this show is also very comedic in its satire, so he also functions as the straight man for that comedy, giving Ayame someone to contrast her and bounce her outlandish ideas off of. He could be seen as something of a voice for reason, except that he's also something of a coward with a chip on his shoulder. Having both him and Ayame have fathers labeled as dirty joke terrorists was something of a nice touch by giving them something in common there. This served as a nice starting point for the more "romantic" aspect of their relationship, which blossomed more or less naturally, especially as it became clear that Tanukichi wasn't interested in romance from Anna, and he went from grudgingly going along with Ayame's plans to a mutual respect developing between them.

There are a lot of characters in this show, though I wouldn't really call it an ensemble, because even the antagonists of the show are somewhat bit parts. While Anna's parents are the more overall antagonists in that they are politicians pushing for even stricter anti- obscenity laws and more pervasive surveillance (though I don't know how much more Orwellian they could get), probably the most prominent antagonist was White Peak, the leader of a group he called "Gathered Fabric." I mentioned them briefly before, but essentially their goal was to steal people's used underwear (preferably the ones they were literally wearing) for them to wear, with White Peak wearing nothing but a bodysuit made out of them. I feel this is because White Peak embodied the kind of argument most moralist busy-bodies used while pushing for the morality they want to legislate, and Anna's parents actually do just that, as well as conflating Gathered Fabric's actions with those of SOX's.

Which brings me to the more in depth part of this review. While I usually try to avoid going into politics too much, that's pretty much unavoidable in this case, as this touches very close to home for me. Because while this show was actually targeted at censorship in Japan, the themes of this series fit rather well into the United States given the militarization of the police and their tendency to go way overboard in their response to any perceived threat (even if only to their authority), or if they just decide they don't like someone's attitude, as well as the more recent efforts to ban anything perceived as objectifying women and just to undermine free speech in general. The series actually gives us an example of this early on in the first episode by having a woman scream that a man groped her (she admits this was entirely intended to blackmail him out of money), and even though he actually didn't (he was actually stalking the protagonist), the accusation was enough to have the morality police come running to give the guy a beat down before hauling him off to prison. So while the title of the legislation in this anime and the rhetoric of the main antagonists of this show calls back to the Jerry Falwell, conservative Christian, "moral majority" of the '80s and '90s, the censorship and authoritarianism is equally applicable to the feminist, "progressive" liberals who also no doubt see themselves as being akin to the "moral majority." After all, they seek the same kind of censorship, and even use some of the same rhetoric (i.e., the objectification or exploitation of women), even if it the reasoning they use is different (conservatives demonize female sexuality and feminists demonize male sexuality).

This is essentially the crux of what Shimoneta is getting at, and actually just comes right out and spells this out for the audience more than once, that sexuality is a natural and important part of humanity and shouldn't be demonized, even if there are those that go too far and infringe on the rights of others. It also calls out the childish nature of the reaction that calls for censorship and demonizes its opposition. After all, not only is the reaction itself completely self-centered and childish, but the outcome of this is to perpetuate this childishness in others by either acting ignorant for the "benefit" of others, or actually causing ignorance by withholding information about something as simple as how babies are made. Of course people still talk about it on the sly, and a few even act like they know more than their peers, but they're still completely ignorant about it and feel completely confident in their sense of moral superiority over others they consider perverts for actually knowing what they only think they know about and whisper about to their friends. After all, for as much as feminists complain with righteous indignation about what they perceive as objectifying women, they will often do very much the same thing to men (as can be seen in various articles on feminist sites like The Mary Sue about Orlando Bloom's dick and pictures of male Olympians in their Speedos) while being completely confident in their own moral superiority. The series gives us an example of this through Anna, who sees herself and is seen by others as being moral and pure, and doesn't see the hypocrisy in her objectification of Tanukichi and her later sexual assault and rape of him. Her reasoning is that since she wants it, and she's moral and pure, that makes her desires moral and pure.

It's because of these themes that I feel this series is very relevant to the current political climate, in part because I feel it really isn't all that exaggerated in the way Demolition Man felt in response to '90s PC culture. So your enjoyment of the series is very much going to depend on your views of the censorship of speech/expression and your perception of a threat to free speech/expression from the government and/or busybodies. If you are concerned with these things, this series will likely resonate with you at least somewhat. If you are pro-censorship or otherwise agree with the rhetoric behind censorship, you probably won't like this show. Actually I've seen comments on anime boards from people upset that this show glossed over the "positive aspects of censorship," so I know that this is going to be the main thing that determines whether you like or dislike this show.

As you might be able to tell by this point, this series resonated with me quite a bit, and I really enjoyed this series, not only for its thoughtful story and themes and characters, but also for its humor and sense of fun. Personally the only real problem I had with this show was its use of the old trope of female on male rape being funny thanks to Anna's persistent attacks on Tanukichi and the reaction of other characters to these attacks. To be fair, Ayame does go from having fun at Tanukichi's expense to expressing disgust at Anna over it, especially as things go from Anna trying to get Tanukichi to drink her "love nectar" (you can probably guess) to her getting more rapey and threatening to stab him at one point over another girl he claimed was his cousin living in his apartment. I suppose it could be seen as the series being consistently irreverent, and perhaps as a sly way of addressing this double standard, but given the straightforwardness of pretty much everything else in the show, that could be over-analysis on my part, or, you know, just looking for a way to excuse what I see as a problem with this series. ontome.gif

So while this wasn't the "anime to save anime," I still feel that it is important and worth a watch. It manages to get its message across without coming across as a lecture through its heavy use of humor. Its characters are a bit clichéd, but still extremely fun to watch. That being said, your enjoyment of this series is going to depend entirely on your outlook toward censorship. It's a bit hard for me to score this, but I think I'm going to call it a good solid 8 inches out of 10. :D

s0pvfqstxep11.gif
 

ATP

Well-known member
@Captain X - your passing would be always remembered.
Jokes aside - your RL is more important.From time to time,i would leave here something.
I mentioned Crest of the stars - but,it was few series.
Here - 13 episodes,We have great space opera about Abh Empire which cover half of humanity,ruled by biologically engineered people who prefer live on spaceships,and generally let people on planets live as they wont as long as they do not built spaceships and prefent locals from joining Abh Navy.

They are attacked by United Mankind,member of Four nation alliance which accuse them later of starting war.They control local populations and brainwash them to support party line./other nations - not so/

Entire confict we see through eyes of Lon Jinto,lander/normal man/ turned into Abh becouse his father surrender his planet without fight/they have no chances and Abh never did anything to them,but still he is hated by part of population/
As Abh he must serve in Navy,so ship is send for him.When he meet Abriel Lafiel,ensign belonging to Royal Family.
When ship is attacked,captain Plakia/biological mother of Lafiel/send them away and die after hard fight.

They eventually reach planet Sufagnoff,where they are helped in hiding by people who verbally opposed Abh,but after seeing reality of occupation decided that they were far better.
In Meantime,they get close to each other,aithought it is not love yet.In last episode they meet on new ship send to fight.
Next episode - Banner of the stars.

Here,opening:
 

ATP

Well-known member
Banner of the stars - 13 episodes.
Jinto and Lafiel,after 3 years of training,meet on new destroyer.She is captain,he - supply officer.
First few episodes are about living,next their fleet attack and capture Aptic Gate.

Their FTL use another diversion,and they could get there only throught gates.Abh do not care about planets,so planet is left alone,in the end local gubernator almost beg them to let him surrender.

It is trap for enemu fleet - when they attack/and destroy almost half of Abh fleet keeping it,including Lafiel ship/ they are attacked by 3 other fleets and anihilated.War seems almost win.

When his ship is destroyed,Jinto almost die ,get saved by Lafiel,and they spend few fours together in escaping pod.Talking only - but Jinto undarstandt,that he love Lafiel.Althought he say nothing about that.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Banner of the stars - 2.
10 episodes.
After victory,Abriel get post of Terrytorial ambassador - basically,people responsible for taking capitulations from worlds ,becouse they do not want rule anything there.

Their first planet is unfortunatelly Lobnas 2,prison planet of UM.Womans there want to be evacuated/there are 3 sectors - woman who wont go away,mens who want womans for themselves,and castrates of both genders who could live together.

When evacuation start,men launh attack and take Jinto as hostage.In the same time,retreating UM fleet is approaching.Lafiel ask small Abh fleet led by admiral Spoor to hold them,keep evacuating and promise death to kidnapers.They start fighting each other,Jinto run but fleet arleady departed.
Abh fleet who buy them time is mostly destroyed,in their and Abriel opinion - for nothing.
Why they risk,then? becouse they promised safety to people whom they do not care about.They died,becouse they cared about their honour.
Month later Abriel come back with ex-prison guards,who become mercaneries,and save Jinto.They finally say,that they love each others.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Banner of the stars 3
2 OVA.
Both Lafiel and Jinto resigned from military/they served their terms/ ,and they go to his home planet Martin in Hyde system.
UM take it and executed Jinto father ,which made Jinto count.
Now,Abh retake it.And made military exercises there.Martin fired its land based lasers which did nothing ,Abh destroyed place after letting crew abadonn it.

And then we have talks between president/Abh do not cared who ruled planets/ IJinto foster father.He propose asylum on planet,Jinto decide to remain Abh,planet formally surrender ,but count Hyde/Jinto/ could not go there.
Jinto decide that he is Abh,and agree.He set antimatter factory in system,which do not need planet at function.
Later both he and Lafiel come back to military.

It show difference between Abh and Unite Mankind - Abh do not care about planets,only forbid them from going into space.
And do not tax them,they take money from shipping between planets and space industry.

UM take planet ,tax them,take people to their armies,and brainwash population into being obedient cannon fodder.
Result - everybody smart who could choose,choose Abh.
Not Jinto planet population.I undarstandt,why he washed hands on them.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
I've been coming across a lot of reviews of Elfen Lied lately and I thought I'd share this one:



It's an interesting take on the show, but while I agree that it has some qualities, this reviewer seems to have nostalgia for the show mainly because she identified and empathized with Lucy. Also somewhat interesting to think that there were seemingly as many gals as guys who were into this edgy show.
 

Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
A quick question concerning anime, especially those that veer into more serious and political matters.

The Emperor of Japan is a highly esteemed and prominent figure in that country, but Japanese Emperors have hardly any presence in anime or manga. By contrast, in British literature the crown is semi-inescapable. What's the difference here?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
A quick question concerning anime, especially those that veer into more serious and political matters.

The Emperor of Japan is a highly esteemed and prominent figure in that country, but Japanese Emperors have hardly any presence in anime or manga. By contrast, in British literature the crown is semi-inescapable. What's the difference here?
It's considered highly disrespectful, and taboo considering the Emperor is an important religious figure. Also borderline illegal, in general any depiction of a real-life person in an Anime risks hitting Japan's libel laws, and those are significantly more serious than the US's. The Imperial household tends to be especially touchy about being photographed or even depicted in art. Even Japanese currency doesn't have pictures of any Emperors on them.
 

Lord Sovereign

Well-known member
It's considered highly disrespectful, and taboo considering the Emperor is an important religious figure. Also borderline illegal, in general any depiction of a real-life person in an Anime risks hitting Japan's libel laws, and those are significantly more serious than the US's. The Imperial household tends to be especially touchy about being photographed or even depicted in art. Even Japanese currency doesn't have pictures of any Emperors on them.

Thanks! I suppose it does bear remembering that different parts of the world have very different attitudes to monarchy (if you can call a Japanese Emperor a traditional monarch. If anything the old Shoguns fit that description better).

In fact I find it vaguely funny that Japanese media, the land of outrageous fan service where nothing is sacred, considers the Imperial Family a no go.

Come to think of it, on the odd occasion the House of Windsor pops up in Japanese media, they seem to be treated with quite a bit of esteem. For example, Her Majesty's depiction in Hellsing was very respectful, if not a bit touching.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
*blows dust off thread*

So apparently I wrote a review back in the day and never got around to posting it. I say that because I was using my original review thread as a guide for the posting order in this one, and I hadn't posted it there. As it turns out, though, I ended up writing an article for this anime for the latest issue of MaximumWeeaboo, so I ended up coming across it again. Enjoy. :)

Apocalypse Zero
(2 episode OVA)

This OVA is something of an oddity, and I don’t just mean in the FLCL/Dead Leaves wtf is going on here sense. While there is plenty of that, I honestly don’t know what to make of this OVA, because I’m not entirely sure if it was meant to be serious or not, though I’m leaning more toward not.

While nothing I’ve read about this OVA has indicated it, I have a feeling that this show, which is based on a manga, was made to make fun of other post-apocalyptic shows along the line of Fist of the North Star and Evangelion, simply because I can see elements of both in this show. This helps add to the lack of structure the story and plot have, as well as lending itself to plenty of riffing. There’s also something of an odd visual design, which seems much more Disney-like in how over-emphasized the eyes are, the way all characters wear gloves, always, and the odd five-pointed star theme present throughout the OVA.

ApocalypseZero01.jpg
Doesn’t Horia almost look like an odd human version of Minnie Mouse? Yes, her name is Horia, pronounced “whore-ee-ah.”

The reason it’s kind of hard to tell whether this OVA was being serious or not has a lot to do with its use of common tropes to the kind of anime this otherwise seems to be – a magical-powers fighting anime. There’s a super-serious narrator who informs us of the post-apocalyptic setting this story takes place in, with the world having suffered some kind of natural disaster that cracked the crust of the planet, and resulted in mass extinctions and apparently nuclear war. I say apparently because a mushroom cloud appears in the opening narration, and the antagonist accuses humanity of ruining the planet. The story then begins with the protagonist Kakugo Hagakure and future antagonist Harara Hagakure training with their father in some remote wintery location by fighting a six-breasted mutant rock bear, all so they can eventually wear the “fortified armor shells” their family has supposedly worn for generations. This armor is basically something akin to what Iron Man wears, except it’s anime, so aside from looking all angular and spikey, in this case it’s also alive and made from the souls of dead warriors. They can potentially kill their wearers if they are “unworthy” somehow, and cry tears of blood, so it’s all so very metal. Also, in spite of the fact Kakugo and Harara are brothers, one of the armors has breasts (nipples included) and spiked heels. Unsurprisingly, this leads to Harara turning into a woman once she’s bonded with her armor, though she also apparently turns evil at the same time.

Harara and Kakugo had something of a rivalry, not only over the armor and learning the great sacred fighting techniques or whatever from their father, but because he/she was also something of a smug showoff, so even though he/she was actually better at fighting, Kakugo was favored by their father due to his always being super serious. I’m sure no one was really surprised when Harara killed their father and did her best to kill Kakugo, too. The more amusing aspect to this was that she used something along the lines of Fist of the North Star’s pressure point technique, which caused Kakugo’s tongue to swell up and pop out of his mouth before he fell off of a cliff. The story being told out of order, the audience already knew that this failed to kill him, though the OVA offers no explanation as to why or how.

The story, such as it is, actually mostly follows Horia and her friends/classmates from high school as Kakugo transfers to her school and class. Yes, isn’t it nice to know that the apocalypse won’t put a dent in high school life/culture? The buildings may all be in shambles, including the school, but the students are still expected to look immaculate in their uniforms and classes are to go on like normal, for some reason. I mean, is there a big job market in the ruined, post-apocalyptic world? This, along with everything else I’ve mentioned, have lead me to the conclusion that this is actually meant to be a parody of other types of anime. Of course that still doesn’t explain the art direction.

In any case, there really isn’t much of a story to follow. Basically Horia and her friends occasionally run into some weird monster on their way to or from school. One is a giant fat woman in S&M gear, one is a giant gay biker in S&M gear that sings into his dick, one is a mutant nurse with an acid-filled vagina (talk about a man-eater), and one is an old man mutant who can spit razor sharp ice crystals and turn his dick and balls into an energy ball shooting dragon. Kakugo’s role in all of this is to act like the ideal protagonist who pretty much easily deals with any threat while rescuing his classmates and acting practically Vulcan-like. And I really do mean that, because unlike, say, Kenshiro, who pretty much instantly went for the kill on any enemy he faced, Kakugo escalated up to lethal force after first trying to talk the monsters down, then trying a less-than-lethal attack, before finally feeling no other alternative and killing them. One of the more amusing aspects to that is when he asks his dead father’s soul for advice on the killing part, especially the part where his father’s voice tells him to chop the mutant nurse up into little tiny pieces. Well, amusing in a very dark, twisted kind of way. It makes sense with context, promise. ;)

The upshot to this is that eventually Kakugo and Harara fight it out, though she makes the odd and non-sense choice to do so by hooking herself up to a machine to control the old man’s body after Kakugo finished killing him. Of course, not a lot makes sense about any of the antagonists in this show – they’re just there to be evil, and for the occasional sight gag. I’m pretty sure the particular district of Tokyo Harara’s castle of doom was in was a joke of some kind, but for me, I had more of a laugh at how all of Harara’s evil generals were mutants, except for one that looked like a stereotypical American male cartoon character who kind of looked like Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. It’s kind of like the visual equivalent of MST3K’s Space Mutany riffing of listing off names like Bolt Vanderhuge, and Chest Concrete only to finish off with Bob Johnson. And while all of these characters were introduced with large on-screen text, none of them play any real role in the story. Harara also apparently has a pretty large number of human-looking mooks at her disposal, who basically look like clone troopers and who also play no role in the story. In fact, aside from appearing briefly while Harara gives her “kill all humans speech, I don’t think they ever even appear again. So, in spite of having an army at her disposal, Harara tries to carry out her evil secret plan and to assassinate Kakugo by sending giant mutants after them one at a time.

ApocalypseZero02.jpg
Worked for Rita Repulsa, right?

I honestly don’t know what else to say about this show, other than that it’s pretty fun to watch. It is one of the most absurd animes I’ve watched, and it manages to keep just on the right side of funny while it indulges in its own stupidity. There are plenty of other little gems here and there, like when the voice of the woman who would go on to play multiple roles in South Park stated very matter-of-factly that the old man was “useless without his dick.”

Speaking of, as you might guess from what I’ve written so far, there is plenty of fan service and even more fan dis-service in this anime. Also, the humor is very much dark and absurd, so just keep that in mind if you decide to watch it. I maintain that it was a good, fun, stupid show, and worth watching, especially if you have some friends to share the experience with. 6/10.
 

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