Forum - View topicCX's Anime Reviews (can be spoiler-ific). Latest: Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dir
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Really great reviews! I honestly wasn't expecting reviews for Tide-Line Blue and Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief.
-Tide-Line Blue doesn't get enough love. I stumbled upon it by accident years ago and watched the whole series in a day. It's one of the only series where I can honestly say I like all the characters. -As for Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief, I got to episode 6 or 7 and then stopped and never got around to finishing it. Your review really makes me want to finish it now. -I just finished GitS SAC a few days ago and loved it. It was on my watch list for years and I just never got around to watching it. It's been a while since I found a series that I wanted to marathon.
I was really surprised by the ending as well. The only thing that really happened was that Togusa angsted for a while.
I was under the impression that spoiler[ it was the money maker program in response to Togusa putting the coin in the financial guru's body bag.] I also thought the fan service was out of place especially since most of it was just so random. Now I need to watch 2nd Gig. |
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Captain X
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Thanks, I'm glad you liked my reviews.
I'm also surprised that Tide Line Blue doesn't get more exposure, or series like Toward the Terra, for that matter. They have some definite quality to them that should earn them more attention than they get. As for the fan service in GitS? Eh, I guess I didn't mind as much, though I tended to laugh at it from time to time just because of how blatant it was. I probably didn't mind as much because it wasn't the entire point of the show like so many other fan service series I've seen. |
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Gun X Sword
(26 episode series) I found this series thanks to a DVD sale from Crunchyroll, which put 30 random volumes of anime into a box you paid $15 for. The vast majority of the anime they sent sucked, but as it turned out, Gun X Sword (or Gun Sword in some listings), was one of the few that actually looked interesting and worth watching from the beginning. This is pretty good, considering that I started it in the middle of the series. While I had no real context to what was going on in the series at that point, it seemed pretty focused, with a main character named Van on a quest for revenge against an antagonist named The Claw for killing his wife just after they’d been married. Very Kill Bill –like in theme, though my first impression was that this series really wanted to be Cowboy Bebop, which was helped by the fact the English dub actor was doing his best impression of Spike Spiegel. This impression wasn’t entirely on the money, but that’s mainly due to the actual plot and overarching story of the series. The way the characters were played, especially Van, definitely gave a very Bebop feel to the series. This series takes place on a planet called “The Endless Illusion”, which is very Earth-like in size and atmosphere, as well as in having a single moon. It’s made clear that this isn’t supposed to be Earth fairly early on, in spite of the anachronistic technology leaving me with the impression that this was similar to Scrapped Princess or some other post-apocalyptic show. Instead, it’s revealed that this oddly named planet was actually the space version of Australia, starting out as a penal colony, but eventually becoming the last remnant of Earth as Earth was apparently destroyed by something that is never stated. So, really in some ways this series is more like Trigun, except that the main character is kind of an asshole, and has no problem with killing people in the least, while the antagonist is actually kind of nice, in a creepy, cult leader kind of way. 
Isn’t he just the friendliest looking bad guy you’ve ever seen? This being a giant mecha series, this planet’s status as a penal colony is the excuse given for the “original” mechs, which were originally used as guards in orbiting satellites until the unspecified apocalypse befell Earth. Incidentally, this is one of the few sci-fi outings I’ve seen that actually remembers that there’s no sound in space. That isn’t hugely important to me, but I think it’s worth noting when it’s done. And given my feelings toward giant mecha – they aren’t really my thing, but I’ll tolerate them if the story is good – that kind of attention to detail goes a long way toward me tolerating them. Well, that and the comical way the mechas are treated in this series. 
Probably the first stripper pole-operated mecha I’ve ever seen. Like Bebop, this series is somewhat episodic in nature with its overarching theme in the background for the most part. Van, the main protagonist, is out for revenge against the main antagonist, The Claw, for killing his bride just after they’d officially tied the knot and were literally still standing on the altar. This plot drives the overall story, with Van basically wandering around, looking for leads to track down The Claw, and picking up supporting characters along the way. The opening credits actually let you know this right off the bat, with characters remaining in silhouette until they are introduced in the story. However, each episode tends to be its own isolated story, with Van’s wandering taking them to a new location each time in his search. In the first episode, Van meets Wendy, who looks just like an anime version of her fast food namesake, as he wanders into her village, which is under siege from bandits. She ends up joining him in his quest, as her older brother was kidnapped by agents of The Claw, and so she wants to track him down and bring him back home. So about the first 2/3 of the series consists of Van and Wendy looking for information in some new location, getting involved with the locals in some way, and moving on. Eventually, all the supporting characters join up with Van and Wendy to help them in their quest, whether out of feelings for Van, a sense of loyalty toward Van, or a mutual interest in tracking down The Claw, even if it’s just to stop his plan to either destroy the planet or “reset” it somehow in his insane quest for world peace. Incidentally, this is now the second anime series I’ve seen that involves a moon that isn’t really a moon, which spells potential doom to the inhabitants of the planet it orbits. While the resolution to the main plot is satisfying enough, and there wasn’t quite the ass-pull like Scrapped Princess’s resolution, there was one hanging plot thread that kind of bugged me – just what the hell happened to Earth? This isn’t actually important to the story at all, but it does kind of bug me. Probably the best thing about the resolution, though, was that when Van and The Claw were finally face-to-face after the climactic battle, it was over fairly quickly, without an additional fuss, which would have just been melodrama at that point. And while the series kind of ends on a downer note, there’s a final scene which effectively undoes that. Which reminds me, there is a romance subplot between Van and Wendy which is also resolved at the very end, which itself is part of the harem aspect of the series. I tend to loath harem series, but fortunately this series is good enough that you almost don’t notice that aspect of it, almost. Thankfully, it’s resolved, if somewhat awkwardly, by one of the women simply admitting she had a thing for Van and moving on, another woman simply being rejected and dealing with it, and Wendy likewise just dealing with the fact she and Van never hooked up until literally the last minute of the series, at which point she is thankfully an adult in order to avoid the loli aspect of their ‘ship. Given the way the series sets them up, though, it’s kind of a forgone conclusion, so I make no apologies for spoiling that for anyone. Besides, my reviews tend to be very spoiler heavy anyway, so count yourself lucky I’ve been restraining myself as much as I have. 
Moving on, the characters in this series are one of the better aspects of this series, even though they’re kind of a mixed bag. Van, for instance, is something of an anti-hero, which can be somewhat whiplash inducing given the way he’s mostly played for humor for the majority of the series. So while he mostly seems laid back, and has an odd obsession with putting large quantities of every available condiment on his food, he instantly becomes an asshole whenever something about The Claw comes up, to anyone and everyone, including all of his friends who are there to support him. He’s every bit as obsessed with The Claw as Khan was with Kirk in The Wrath of Khan. At times, I had to wonder why people stuck with him. This is contrasted by The Claw, whose real name we never learn, who actually seems like a calm, friendly person, who only ever loses his cool in the climactic battle with Van. He actually seems to regret any loss of life, to the point that I actually began to doubt he personally killed Van’s wife, along with another supporting character’s wife, except that he admits to doing so in the name of his “dream”. At one point he seems to accidentally hug one of his mooks to death. 
“I will love him and pet him, and call him George.” That last point actually brings up another – why did he wear a razor sharp claw hand? He was shown to have a much more normal-looking prosthetic when he was first introduced, so why the claw hand (other than his name, obviously)? This actually leads me to settle on him actually being evil, even if for the most part, he doesn’t seem like it. Well, that and the whole destroying the world part, even if he seems convinced everyone will not only be fine, but will also be shiny, happy people, who all love one another in a world that is totally at peace. And all through a fake moon and giant mecha that has a face for a torso. 
Seems a little familiar somehow.
There are also some strong female characters, like Carmen 99 (supposedly her bust in cm as well as the number of gadgets on her person), a very Faye Valentine-like character, and Priscilla, the moé -est and most capable mecha pilot you ever met. There’s also a group of older men that call themselves the El Dorado Five, who are clearly meant to parody the Power Rangers (or whatever the original Japanese name is, to those weeaboo out there blowing a gasket right now ). One of their running gags is that one of them always seems to be asleep.
Overall, I’d say that I thoroughly enjoyed this series, and I’m glad the Crunchyroll box of random anime deal introduced me to it. It has an interesting plot, very watchable stories, and compelling, complex characters. It could be somewhat trying at times, at least with someone of my tastes who doesn’t really get off on constant mech fights, but the story made up for that. If you liked Gurren Lagann, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and/or Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll like this series as well. I found it to be exceptional, even if it isn’t one I’d rank higher than 8/10. |
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zawa113
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I've been looking for things to add to my Otakon list, and this does have a SAVE edition, I should be able to find it pretty cheap. It does sound like it'd be right up my alley. I've seen the SAVE several times in like Moviestop, but always passed it over, but now, if I don't find it cheap at Otakon, Suncoast/FYE has half off SAVE sales every few months.
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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SAVE?
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zawa113
Posts: 7357 |
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http://www.funimation.com/save Their budget line. Thankfully, they pretty much all reversible covers now without the hideous green spine (early on in the line, they generally didn't, but they clearly listened to people). $30 MSRP or less a series (maybe $35 for Bluray) |
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Cool. There's actually one on there that I'm going to be reviewing in the not too distant future, hopefully.
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Daily Lives of High School Boys
(12 episode series) This is one of the few high school/slice of life series that I actually managed to enjoy. Usually I have a hard time getting into any kind of slice of life show, simply because, for me, a show has to have some kind of a point, aside from just being funny. I also typically can't stand high school shit, simply because I already lived through high school once, and I don't care to live through it again, not to mention the "average high school student" trope that so many animes seem to use. On the other hand, here we have a series that doesn't take itself seriously in the least. I guess the same could also be said of a series like Lucky Star or Azumanga Daioh, but at the same time it would take a lot to get me to watch either of those series due to my own biases. Incidentally, while most series like this focus on high school girls, and how totally awesome their lives are, this series focuses on high school boys and how utterly ordinary their lives are, except of course for the random shit they do to keep themselves entertained. Also, this series tends to make fun of other anime of this genre, and often indirectly breaks the fourth wall. It's true that anime that makes fun of anime tropes isn't exactly unique, so it might be kind of tough to sell this series, especially since I mentioned how this show is about how boring the titular daily lives of these high school boys are. But the fun mostly comes from the antics of the three friends this series follows: Tadakuni, Hidenori Tabata, and Yoshitake Tanaka. They and most of the supporting characters around them tend to be nerdy, though there are a few who are "normal." Incidentally, one of the first things they do is imagine a stereotypical giant mecha/alien invasion anime, and mention it as being a collaboration of Square Enix and Sunrise, which Daily Lives of High School Boys actually is. Their adventures are completely random, following their active imaginations, and the trials and tribulations of their lives. 
Such as Tabata's struggle to live up to a fangirl's expectations while trying to avoid a relationship with her for some reason. The series itself is structured as a series of skits within each episode, which occasionally share a theme. These range from things like the main trio trying on Tanaka's sister's underwear only to get beat up for it, to the mysteries of dealing with the opposite sex, to dealing with rival schools and the like. Along the way, the "editors" add bits here and there, such as text in the commercial interrupt, and the beginning and end screens of the series which reveal something about the series, the characters, or just to advise fans that if they want to send chocolates to be sure to send them to the studio rather than the TV station. There are also touches here and there, such as how Tadakuni was introduced as the "main character" only to end up having the least amount of screen time, as he's the straight man of the trio and is thus cut to save time so the series can follow the other, "more interesting" Tabata and Tanaka. Oh, and then there's the last episode, where they do everything backwards from the way they usualy do, including by using the closing theme as the opening theme. The end of most episodes also features a skit called "High School Girls are Funky", which both satisfies typical high school tropes as well as turning them on their heads, often comparing and contrasting the trio of female high school students it follows: Yanagin, Ikushima, and Habara. They're essentially the female versions of the main characters, though they also occasionally show up in the main "High School Boys" skits, but usually without eyes, as most of the "unimportant" characters are usually illustrated, which includes Tanaka's sister. This also has the effect of making these characters somewhat more sinister, as well as hard to read, usually as a set-up for comedy. Damn, I am not selling this series very well, am I? It's somewhat difficult for me to explain what the appeal of this series was to me, other than to say it was the odd, random humor, and the antics of characters that somewhat reminded me of my own group of friends. As such, it's kind of difficult for me to recommend this series to anyone, simply due to being unfamiliar with the genre. However, I did enjoy the series quite a bit. The characters and their antics were interesting to watch, so I would recommend it on that basis alone if nothing else. Here's a link to one of the skits to gauge your interest. It's one of the more "normal" skits. For another example... It's kind of tempting just to show you the whole series, really.
I'll just reiterate that I really enjoyed it, and found it pretty accessible despite the lack of an English dub. Which, speaking of, it wouldn't surprise me either way if it ended up getting localized, or if it ended up getting ignored in favor of the cutesy, moé, shit that generally gets all the attention these days. In any case, I think I'll rate this an 8/10, mostly for the enjoyment and parody factors. To be honest, though, it's kind of hard for me to rank, even on my nebulous scale of good that only tries to be objective. |
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Captain X
Posts: 253 |
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Heat Guy J
(26 episode series) I won a copy of this series at a panel in ValleyCon 2010, which was honestly about the only halfway decent thing ValleyCon had going for it. It then took me over two years to actually watch it, and having finally gotten through all of it, about all I can really say is that it wasn't a disappointing series. The story follows Daisuke Aurora, a young police officer in the "special services" division of city security, and his android partner, J. Androids are actually illegal in the city of Judoh, where this series takes place, set in the future following an apparent global calamity that has resulted in the end of nation-states and given rise to isolated city-states. For the most part, the series is largely episodic, consisting of Daisuke, or Dice, as he's nicknamed, and J foiling various schemes of mob boss Clair Leonelli, who, to put it lightly, is nucking futs. Keep in mind that in the first episode, we see Clair pull a grenade and try to set it off at his father's funeral. Which, I guess, is why most of his schemes don't make all that much sense to me, as most of them involve causing damage to the city, seemingly for the hell of it. At first it seems like this is going to be how the series as a whole is going to be, but then it goes and develops a story arc as the series gets closer to its end. My impression of it is that it seems somewhat tacked on, though to be fair, many of the elements of the series that were a part of the various stand-alone episodes actually served as set-up for the big secret evil plan Dice and his friends have to foil at the end of the series. Incidentally, I had a hard time paying much attention to that, because I was busy being horrified at what I saw as a dystopic setting, where civilians were banned from owning firearms and even the police were limited to four rounds of ammo when they were actually authorized to carry a gun for specific missions, freedom of movement was severely limited, and convicts are punished by being turned into furries. 
It was admirable that the overall story arc was planned out as well as it was, even if it wasn't executed all that well, and couldn't avoid some major clichés. The planning is also only apparent in retrospect, which really could be argued to be both a good or a bad thing. I'd say that it seemed somewhat tacked on, though, mainly because the audience is asked to believe that, oh, by the way, Dice's super serious older brother/boss is actually evil and has been all along. This in spite of an episode seemingly tailored to make the brothers bond at least somewhat, given their more typical antagonism toward each other. It also doesn't make much sense given that he ordered Dice onto investigations that eventually led to him uncovering the big secret evil plan. The resolution of this is probably the most disappointing aspect to the storyline, and not just because it involved the mob ending up becoming the good guys in the end. Just as I mentioned in my Gurren Lagann review, betrayal doesn't really sit well with me, and where I come from, if someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back. The characters are probably this series's area of greatest strength. It has a diverse set of supporting characters, both in terms of allies and/or enemies of Dice. Dice himself was, in my opinion, probably one of the weakest characters, though. He was portrayed as being very laid back, and a "fly by the seat of his pants" type. I guess he could be considered a somewhat typical rebellious main character, but my biggest problem with him is that he didn't seem to have much depth, especially when compared to the faux main antagonist, Clair. Clair, his bodyguards, and his manservant all have tragic, compelling backgrounds which shaped them to become what they were, but the thing that characterizes Dice most is that he forgives his mother for abandoning him and his brother following the death of their father. This is apparently the key difference between Dice and his brother. J was kind of interesting, but again, there wasn't much to him, as he mostly just followed orders, saved Dice, spouted off canned words of wisdom about what a man should or should not do, and vented steam. 
Normally he has skin and looks like an old man with a grey pony-tail dressed in a trench coat and fedora, but it seems someone on the show really liked Terminator and decided to make their own version made out of exhaust pipes. I was never really taken in by this design, though, mainly because pipes and valves don't really make my socks go up and down (unlike some people). Fortunately this series narrowly avoided harem territory, though this was by having love triangles instead, with Dice having the hots for the hot scientist who created J, Dice's boss Kyoko, having a thing for him (after getting over his evil brother), and three hookers also having a thing for Dice. Speaking of Kyoko, it was somewhat refreshing that she actually got to do something toward the end of the series, as most of it she mainly just sits around and bitches at Dice for being late to work and being too lazy to file activity reports. As for the more technical aspects of the show, it's kind of a mixed bag. The visual design is fairly average, as is the animation quality itself, which tends to fluctuate from episode to episode depending on where the money was put. This series also mixed in CGI elements, and given that this came out in 2002, it's pretty much a given that these elements tend to stand out, which includes J himself in his skeletal form. The design of Judoh is both intriguing and derivative depending on the angle and what part of the city is being looked at. At times it looks like the city from the Ghost in the Shell movie, New York, Blade Runner Los Angeles, and Old New York. 
They have to rebuild the place every night after the Professor flushes. The soundtrack is one of the more positive areas, especially if you happen to like bagpipe music. At times it can be pretty cool, but for the most part it's a little forgettable. Only the bagpipe really tends to stand out, and at times this isn't always a good thing (like say during dialog). Anyway, I guess what it comes down to is that while this isn't a bad series, exactly, it didn't really leave much of an impression, either. It's worth it to watch once, but it probably isn't something I would have bought on my own. 7/10. |
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Captain X
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I Dream of Mimi
(3 episode OVA) This '90s vintage OVA is a guilty pleasure, and not just because of the nostalgia factor of the visual design. You see, this is an ecchi, which means lots and lots of naked boobies to those of you unfamiliar with animu terminology. That automatically tends to put it in the "pandering, not good" category for me, much like Sekirei and High School of the Dead. This isn't because I dislike fan service or anything -far from it- but when it becomes the point of the show, I guess I don't see the point of it when I can just watch out and out porn if I want to look at boobs, and (probably) real ones at that.  What sets I Dream of Mimi apart for me, though, is mainly its subject matter, which has the effect of doubling the nostalgia factor - computers.
Much like Chobits, this OVA follows*sigh*  an average high school student named Akira Takaoka, who through happenstance comes to own a computer that looks like a young woman, and hijinks ensue. Unlike Chobits, though, is that said computer, Mimi, isn't retarded. I can't tell you how refreshing that is after having seen more than once series that follows the same basic structure of what's come to be called the "magical girlfriend" genre. Usually this entails a "normal" male character having an unusual female character foisted upon him, and then having to somehow explain her off to all of this friends and acquaintances because he doesn't want them to think he actually has a girlfriend for whatever reason. But while most shows of this genre dance around the two of them coupling, due to the male character wanting to be chivalrous and "pure" or whatever, in this OVA, Mimi rapes Akira with her mouth within minutes of being let out of her box, so she can get his "user input".
Well, I did say this was a guilty pleasure, didn't I?
Anyway, Akira is basically fooled into buying Mimi from some shady character in an alley whose motivation is never explained or explored. He was actually after a normal PC that was supposed to be on sale, but was sold out by the time he got to the store, so at first he's actually upset that he has a seemingly sentient bio-android instead of a computer. Of course this isn't made any better by the two of them almost immediately being attacked by another bio-android like Mimi that wrecks the hell out of his house. Being Japan, this entails a battle of two machines that throw energy beams/balls at each other, though in this case it also involves sticking disks that have the pre-programmed attacks into Mimi's "front drive slot". With Mimi being fully functional and anatomically correct, you can probably guess what that is. Akira (and the audience) is then further shocked to learn what upgrading Mimi's memory entails, because apparently bio-androids can make physical memory out of spooge. And since her "front drive slot" is already in use, we now have a new catch phrase for anal - giving her a memory upgrade. 
While most animes of this genre involve the protagonist giving his newfound magical girlfriend some kind of fake identity, this is about the only one I've seen that involves hacking the government's mainframe to actually make a legitimate identity. And of course by hacking, I mean actually entering the computer/network, which inevitably leads to battles with other computers. 
"I fight for the user." This eventually leads to foiling some kind of secret evil plan that involves American Macintosh-I mean Nackintosh computers invading Japan's computer network and sucking all of their breasts to get all of their data, since breasts are hard drives on bio-androids, apparently. Naturally this leads to Mimi saving the day, and Akira gaining a harem. 
As you can tell, there really isn't a lot to this OVA, and not just because it's only three episodes long. And while you might expect the dub to not be all that great given when this OVA was made, to be honest, there just isn't a whole lot of enthusiasm from any of the voice actors, even in the Japanese dub, and it's not hard to see why. Mostly this just added to the enjoyment my friends and I had watching this, in a so bad its good kind of way. Plus, there's the nostalgia factor; I mean, anyone else remember when Quadras and Performas were the shiznit back in the day? No? Well, this is kind of what I'm talking about when I mention that I'm the right age to be an old school anime fan, even if I'm only just now watching these older shows. So while there are some darker aspects that just kind of lead me, as someone now pretty familiar with anime, to say something along the lines of, "  Oh, Japan...," overall I still enjoyed this series, even if it isn't what I'd consider to be "good." It's thin on plot, and characterization, making heavy use of clichés and character types, and with the only enthusiasm coming from the animators, but it's still fun and thoroughly entertaining to watch. Still, its lack of quality does lead to a somewhat low score, overall. 7/10. Not bad for computer pr0n. 
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Captain X
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Fist of the North Star - Season 1
(109 episode series) I first learned of this series, which originally aired in '84-'87, from the Anime Abandon look at the 1986 movie. Looking into it further, I found that both the movie and the series were done by the same people at essentially the same time. This lead me to believe that there was a chance that the movie's Charlie Foxtrot nature was due to it actually being a compilation movie based on the series, much in the same way both Blue Gender and Gurren Lagann have compilation movies made out of them. I wasn't especially kind to those movies, and I really raked the Fist of the North Star movie over the coals, too, as the only real appeal to that movie is the '80s corn, anime clichés, and ultra-graphic ultra-violence. So, even though the large number of episodes was somewhat daunting, I decided to give the series a chance, for giggles and grins if nothing else. While the series' main appeals are essentially the same as the movie's, it's infinitely more watchable due to the story being more paced out and spread out over its episodes rather than having all of its elements crammed into a movie with no sense of the structure movies are supposed to have. I also found many elements were different between the movie and the series, such as the character of Toki, who is one of four adopted brothers who were training in the Hokuto Shin-Ken (Fist of the North Star) martial art, along with Kenchiro, the protagonist of the series, Jagi, and Roah. Toki is actually a pretty major part of the story in the series, as are many of the other characters who are essentially reduced to cameo roles in the movie. Then there's the way the final fight of the movie between Roah and Ken is actually a mixture of a raid Ken and his allies conducted on a prison city to rescue Toki, and the first fight between Ken and Roah. The sudden end to the fight in a draw by Roah make slightly more sense in the series, in part due to attempted character depth, and in part due to Ken actually being more evenly matched with Roah. So I'd actually liken the 1986 movie to the Toward the Terra and Cyborg 009 movies, which also came out in the '80s. This is because I feel the movie and series were separate adaptations of the source manga, even if the same production staff worked on both projects, and just as with the two movies I just mentioned, the production team made the mistake of trying to put too much from the long-running manga into a movie. Anywho, it was obvious to me not very long into the first episode that this series was meant for a fairly young crowd. Sure, there's the fact that the series cuts back on the graphicness of the many, many deaths by either coloring the gushing blood white or black, or by cutting to silhouette before their various body parts exploded or fell apart from the various made-up martial arts being used on them, but I'm referring more to the mentality of the series. What I mean by that is the type of morality being shown, with the various bad guys Ken ends up exploding being very one-dimensional bullies. Ken represents the counter to that, then, where those with strength should use their strength to defend those weaker to them rather than preying on them. So basically Ken is the kind of characters little kids can fantasize about having to defend them from bullies who beat up on them, or fantasize about being so they can beat up those bullies themselves. Then there's the way a narrator will excitedly describe all the various made-up martial arts being used on the show, which usually are then never seen or mentioned again. Kind of the same thing whenever one of the established characters pull some new move out of their ass, too. The series is also very childish in how it views male and female gender roles, even though there's the whole Japan misogyny thing in there, too. Incidentally, one of the characters, Rei, shows his affection for one of the female characters, Mamiya, by ripping her clothes off at least twice. Rei is supposed to be one of the good guys, by the way. He also gives Mamiya crap because she has chosen to be a warrior and a leader to her villiage, rather than being "just a woman." The series treats every female warrior that way, and felt the need to give all of them some kind of tragic background to explain how and why they became a warrior. So after saying all of that, you might think I kind of hated this series, when in fact I have something of a strange fondness for it. It isn't what I'd consider to be "good," but it is very watchable. Basically it has a lot of the same appeal of the movie - the '80s corn, anime clichés and general ineptness I like to laugh at, and random shit like Ken punching a WWII tank to death, and at another point fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger. 
Yes, really, though to the show's credit, they don't lampshade it. There are also things like Ken's signature "Ya-ta-ta-ta!" as he rapidly punches or kicks someone or something that make the show amusing to watch from a so-bad-its-good perspective. On top of that, the story actually does manage to be somewhat interesting to follow, even if it can be a bit repetitive at times. And by repetitive, I mean that in some ways this series reminds me of Casshern Sins in that much of it consists of the main character wandering a barren wasteland on foot, coming across people he ends up killing. Still, I often found myself wanting to marathon through many episodes in a row so I could find out how something turned out. So the story is something of a mixed bag, because on the one hand there's a general ineptness that can be either annoying or amusing, and on the other there's a somewhat interesting story going on. I honestly almost quit early on in the series because of how formulaic the episodes seemed to be getting, but I decided to hang in there, and I'm happy I did because the series eventually does get better. So, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here are the basics. In 199X, the world erupts into nuclear war, and the survivors are forced to eke out an existence in a desert world. While uncontaminated food and water are (supposedly) hard to come by, the good news is that there's plenty of hair dye, clown makeup, and football armor left over once all the bombed out stores have been looted. So you could say that there are plenty of similarities to Mad Max, but then the creators of Fist of the North Star admitted as much. They never really explained how in this world of scarcity that so many men are able to grow into muscle-bound giants, or how characters are able to find wood for campfires in the middle of the nuclear wasteland, but whatever. The story seems to be set only a short time after the nuclear holocaust, although other aspects of the story make it seem like almost a century has past, but that isn't really all that important to the simplistic plot. The plot basically has Ken facing various foes who are also experts at some type of made-up martial art. First is Shin, who almost killed Ken, and took Yuria, his fiancé, for himself. So Ken is initially out for revenge on Shin and to rescue Yuria from him. Of course by the time he get there, his princess is in another castle, so to speak. The series is also somewhat manipulative when it comes to Yuria and a few other characters, and at times it can feel like they're pulling stuff out of their fourth point of contact. Like how the "Last Nanto General" is always drawn masculinely, even if covered head to toe in armor, all so they can pull a Samus on us. Anyway, the story is split up into various arcs that separate the series into 4 distinct parts in the first season, each dealing with a primary antagonist Ken and his allies must face. Last is his adopted older brother, Roah, who names himself Ken-Oh and swears to conquer heaven, right after he's finished conquering Earth. He also looks like something right out of Heavy Metal. 
Incidentally an image I wish the people I glowered at from my forklift could see. The characters, like every other aspect of the series, are also something of a mixed bag. Ken, the main character, is actually pretty bland. And while at times this can actually be a bit fun, like when he tells a foe that they're already dead right before their head explodes, it's a little annoying in how Superman-like his character can be. Not only can he regenerate the clothes he shreds by flexing his muscles during a fight, but he can also regenerate himself at will, even after being severely injured. One almost wonders why he wasn't able to heal the wounds that produced his signature big dipper scar before they'd actually turned into scars. But really, the thing with him is that there's no real drama with him. He's incorruptible, and frankly unbeatable. If there's any drama to be had, it's if he can manage to save other characters before they can be killed by the various bad guys Ken ends up fighting. Then there's Lynn and Bart, the moé and comedy relief, respectively, and who also have the most annoying voice actors out of the entire cast. Say what you will about early English dubs, the voice actors for the English dub of the 1986 movie were a lot less annoying. Of course the voices fitted the characters, because they were also really annoying. Lynn, even though she's like 6, apparently gets a crush on Ken after he saves her and cures her muteness. She becomes even more clingy than Overly Attached Girlfriend, following Ken around and usually putting herself and Ken in danger as a result. Bart is mostly only annoying because of his stupid little schemes. Yuria, the McGuffin, is annoying mainly through her passiveness, in keeping with the Japanese view on women, apparently. There's also the way every man who sees her apparently falls in love with her, all because she represents the "mother star" or some bullshit like that. Like Ken, she's also pretty flat, though with her it was kind of amusing the way Shin would keep doing horrible things in a misguided effort to win her over, even though she'd tell him right up front that she thought those things were horrible. Speaking of Shin, one of the more positive aspects of the series was that it actually attempted to give its antagonists more than one dimension, at least the main antagonists like Shin and Roah, anyway. Roah in particular, despite being an evil bastard who stated that he was totally going to kill both Ken and Toki, eventually broke down crying and found that he couldn't bring himself to follow through with it, stopping just short of killing them both, and eventually he even gave some of this life force (somehow) to Yuria in order to extend her life so she and Ken could be together for longer. [SPOILERS] This also had the effect of allowing Ken to defeat him. [/SPOILERS] So what's the bottom line? Well, I'm not going to give this series a very high score - it just doesn't have what I would consider to be actual quality deserving of a high score. But I would still recommend this series if you just want to see something for the fun of it. It may seem pretty daunting given the episode count, but keep in mind the age of this series. Much like Armored Trooper VOTOMS, this series saves a lot on animation by having a lot of its overall 24 minute run time taken up by its long opening theme and end credits, and varying lengths of recap. This makes most episodes only 15-20 minutes long. Many of these episodes are also only recap episodes, and can be skipped through pretty rapidly for what little new content is in them, or even skipped entirely. This is actually a bit ridiculous in some ways, because the end of Part 3 is taken up by 5 recap episodes, and Season 1 itself is actually ended with a recap episode. So you could probably breeze right through this series in a couple of free weekends. 3/10. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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^
I watched the first arc and I too found Fist of the North Star to be a horrendously-written yet highly enjoyable show. It was so cheesy that I couldn't help but laugh; this was a pretty fun series. And Ken going around not taking any crap from anyone was also refreshing compared with the modern heroic archetype of not wanting to kill because killing evil is somehow bad. He isn't weighed down by pathetic pacifism or a misguided sense of justice. If Ken encounters someone evil he'll make the guy strangle himself to death without a flicker of remorse passing his face; that's how cool he is. The show's main problem was that it was too repetitive and too long. Ken never had any difficulty defeating anyone, he was always in control of every fight. Even the boss battles were usually a curb-stomp on Ken's part; it's like the character had a similar contract to Steven Seagal's which stated that he couldn't ever lose a fight. The only source of tension in a battle was with what move Ken would kill the other dude. |
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Captain X
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I almost gave up on the series fairly early on because of that, but I'm honestly glad that I stuck through it. At some point I'm going to make my way through Season 2, but first I need to catch up on some reviews of stuff I've already watched.
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Captain X
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Robot Carnival
(1987 movie) It's films like this that really make me like '80s anime. An anthology, it showcases the work of nine different animation directors, some of whom were just starting out as directors. A more modern example might be Halo Legends or Batman: Gotham Knight, with the main difference being that those examples had entire studios behind the short stories that made up those movies, and the shorts in this movie are the work of only one to two individuals. Really, though it was done by a different studio, this movie could be thought of as another example of Neo Tokyo, which I reviewed earlier. I can't help but feel the need to gush about this movie, and about '80s anime in general, really. There's a level of detail to it that you just don't see in modern anime, in spite of the fact that technology has actually made it easier to create animation compared to when this movie was made. True, there are some real stinkers, some of which I've already reviewed, but what decade doesn't have its fair share of them? Then there's the subject matter, with older anime seeming to be a lot more willing to delve into sci-fi than modern anime, which seems way more interested in the antics of some nerdy high school kid(s). Compare that to robots running amok in Robot Carnival and Neo Tokyo, and frankly I find them a lot more interesting to watch, but that's me. This movie and others like it also serve as something of a time capsule, and there's an added level of entertainment due to the '80s corn.
So very, very '80s... Getting back to the actual review, as I mentioned, this movie is an anthology, made up of 8 distinct short stories, with only two of them having any actual dialog. This actually made for a pretty interesting contrast, as stories being told entirely visually isn't something that's done very often. That being said, the types of stories being told vary greatly in tone, and also in the amount of symbolism being used. Most of them are comedies, though some are dramas, with one in particular being quite sad, at least in my opinion. This does leave me with something of a problem, as I'm not entirely sure how to go about reviewing this movie. It's obvious that I'm going to have to discuss each story individually, but I'm somewhat reluctant to go into too much detail, because frankly I think you should watch this movie for yourself and I don't want my review to make that seem like it would be redundant. Opening/Ending/Epilogue: Much like Neo Tokyo, this movie also has a kind of framing story. The difference here is that in Robot Carnival, it's much more meta, directly referencing the title by making it a giant sand crawler, reaping destruction across a swath of the post-apocalyptic desert. It's rather cartoonish, and has a very dark sense of humor, making death and destruction kind of funny. The ending actually shows a brief history of the carnival, back when it was more of a traveling circus, but even the opening kind of hints at this. Essentially, this sequence continues the theme of the short "The Order to Stop Construction" from Neo Tokyo of robots becoming destructive if left on their own for too long. This shouldn't be much of a surprise, though, as both stories were done by the same director, whose dark humor would later go on to produce Kite and Mezzo Forte. Incidentally, the visual style of this piece also reminded me a bit of Nausicaä, which made it a little more amusing for me. Franken's Gears: There isn't a whole lot to this short, which is mostly just fun to watch. It's about a crazy old scientist who builds a robot, Frankenstein style in an appropriate-looking laboratory, filled with old school sci-fi equipment, which includes plenty of levers, hand cranks, and giant gears. It's a bit slap-sticky, cartoon sound-effects and all, and yet very fitting of this film's theme, which includes some more dark humor thanks to the scientist's creation imitating him a little too well. The sci-fi nerd in me noted some similarity to old-school German sci-fi, but that's about all the more I could tell you about this short, other than that it was kind of fun to watch. Deprive: This is a very stereotypical '80s anime sci-fi, featuring an alien invasion, a kidnapped girl, and a heroic robot who comes to her rescue. That's pretty much it, aside from the fact the heroic robot somehow is able to make himself look like a generically good looking '80s guy (according to anime standards), and that the bad guy in charge of the alien robot invaders looks like an '80s rock star (seen in the first picture). It was also kind of fun to watch, though more for the '80s corn than anything. Presence: This is my favorite short of the entire anthology, and is frankly the only one that has any real layers to it. It takes place in a kind of neo-Victorian setting, which might take a little explaining. basically, most of the architecture and dress of the characters in this setting scream Victorian England, yet there are extremely human-looking androids, hover cars, and a huge cyber-punk factory made entirely of pipes and valves that dwarfs the town most of the action is set in. The main character of this short is a rather stiff man who seems to have a strained relationship with his family, apparently at least in part due to the fact his wife seems to be the primary bread winner while he works in a factory and tinkers with toys and his sex-bot in his spare time. Okay, to be fair this isn't explicitly stated, it's just that he made an android who looks like a young '80s female pop star, and mentions some stuff about not really feeling fulfilled with his marriage and needing something more "fundamental," so what else am I supposed to think. Plus this short isn't exactly lacking in symbolism, even to someone fairly oblivious to it. 
SYMBOLISM!! This short might actually be kind of fun to analyze, though my own take on it is fairly straightforward. For me, the sadness comes from the loneliness of the robot this man creates, apparently out of a sense of emptiness within himself. However, much like this his family, he seems unwilling or unable to emotionally connect with his creation, and this is what makes it a little unclear as to what exactly he was hoping to accomplish by building this living doll. Unfortunately for the robot, when she shows him some affection, this causes him to freak the hell out and beat her to death. Years later, his regret manifests itself when he starts seeing visions of his robot reaching out to him, and the sort plays with the audience a bit as to whether the visions are actually real or not. My own interpretation of this man's creation is that the robot is actually an idealized version of his wife, because until the very end of the short, her face is purposely left obscured. Apparently, the robot's open affection for him was just too much for him to handle for whatever reason, but like I said, this is my interpretation of what I saw. This is also one of only two dubbed shorts, and while some people like to bitch no matter what about dubs, I actually quite liked the dubbing here. Effort was put into it to make it fit the setting, and I thought it helped add to the mood as much as the effective, if simple soundtrack. I did try watching the Japanese version for comparison, but unfortunately the subs followed the same script as the dub, so all I can really say is that the Japanese version had a lot less dialog in it. Star Light Angel: A little more standard fare, this short follows a teenager and her best friend as they spend an evening at a robot theme park. They do pretty typical teenager stuff, so much so that the lack of dialog is no impediment on the story structure. This includes finding out in the most awkward way possible that her boyfriend is a complete bastard who started cheating on her with her best friend, with the two of them apparently unaware of the other's connection to the main character. So basically this short is typical teenage soap opera drama, but with robots. This includes a fight with a giant robot that appears out of thin air, because anime. Again, not much depth here, but enjoyable to watch nonetheless, if nothing else because it looks so awesome. Cloud: I can't say I really cared for this short, which really stands out from all the others. It's about a robot born out of a cloud, that walks in front of clouds, until finally becoming a real boy at the end. Supposedly, the clouds represent time or some such, and at times I did make out the shapes of dinosaurs, and the anime version of "The Creation of Adam," weeping angels, followed up very quickly by the apparent nuclear armageddon. All while our little jaded robot apparently doesn't notice, apart from the weather becoming crappier during the nuclear war. According to what I read, there was supposed to be Romans and stuff in there, but I sure never saw it. Visually, it's very plain and simple, storyboard-like, really. Personally it's something I'd skip through on rewatching this movie. A Tale of Two Robots: This is apparently a parody of WWII-era Japanese propaganda, and I can definitely see it. It's set in the 1800s and features a giant robot fight, because what's anime without giant robots. Steampunk fans would also probably like the fact that the Japanese mecha is wooden and steam-powered to contrast the Westerner's electrically-powered brick mecha. Story-wise, it features a "Westerner" trying to take over Japan with his giant mecha, "the product of his genius" as he calls it. In his way stands a small group of Japanese, who just so happen to have made a giant mecha out of wood for a parade that had been planned for the festival that was being interrupted by this foreign invasion. Destruction abounds, and much fun is to be had, as the writer/animator obviously had tongue very firmly in cheek.  
Also, this happens. There was apparently some butthurt over the dub of this short, with those involved being accused of racism for making the Japanese very Engrishy voices. The people upset about this should be slapped and kneed in the groin, because the fact that this short was a parody of WWII propaganda was apparently lost on them, with the dub company adding to it by parodying American WWII-era propaganda. Incidentally, the Japanese dub actually does have an English-speaking voice actor as the Westerner, which is why there are hard-subs for Japanese audiences during all of his dialog. Unfortunately I can't judge the Japanese, as I don't speak it and the subs provided only repeated the English dub. Nightmare: Older anime seems a lot more influenced by Western culture and animation, which isn't surprising as the big-eyed look of anime is actually derived from the creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka, being influenced by Disney. Which makes it that much more ironic because this short seems to be very heavily influenced by two Disney works. Essentially, this is another "robots run amok" short, which is very reminiscent of Neo Tokyo's "The Order to Stop Construction," in just the shear scope of the robot action. It's also very reminiscent of Fantasia's "Night on Bald Mountain" in that as darkness falls in downtown Tokyo, a robotic Chernabog suddenly appears and begins to create robots out of random objects and machines scattered throughout the city with the help of a robot "horseman." I call him that, because while all this is going on, a single drunken homeless man awakens to see the machines overrunning the city, and tries to run away while the "horseman" chases him. The drunken human has often been called the chicken man, and I can't help but be reminded of the Disney version of Ichabod Crane. Of course, the director admitted as much, so there's that added bit of fun to this short. There's also how almost all sound during this short is made using musical instruments. Overall, it's pretty fun to watch, and it's actually one of my favorite shorts of this movie. If I could gush over another aspect of this movie besides its animation, I'd also like to highlight the music used throughout this movie. Each short was given a distinct sound, which was perfectly appropriate for them, and helped to set the mood for each of them. Much of it is very '80s, but then, as I said, that isn't really a bad thing in my opinion, as it helps to make this movie a kind of time capsule. There was a certain fascination with robots in the '80s, besides just in Japan, and this movie perfectly captures that while having fun, as well as taking a moment or two to explore the more sci-fi aspects of artificial life. I can't encourage you enough to watch this movie. Honestly, I wish that there were more movies like this, as long as the quality was at least as high as this movie's. Here's the trailer made for the American release. Really, seeing the trailer and reading even less about this movie than I've written about it right now was enough to get me to give this movie a try, so I hope the information I've given you can help you. It's kind of hard for me to stick a rating on this due to its nature, but I think it was a bit better than Neo Tokyo, which I gave a 7. I think I'll rate this movie an 8/10, then. |
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Captain X
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Girls und Panzer
(12 episodes + 7 OVA episodes) This series is what happens when you mix sports anime, Japanese school girls, and history nerd fap material. Which is to say that this series is essentially fluff with a focus on WWII tank combat, but with cute high school girls, since that’s apparently a thing now. At first I wasn’t sure what to think when I heard about this series, but I already knew about shows like Strike Witches, so I was pretty sure this would be more in the same vein as that, which did not appeal to me in the least other than to possibly make fun of. But, as with a few other series, my friends talked me into watching it, and I actually wound up enjoying it. The series mainly follows Miho Nishizumi, a recent transfer student who actually initially tries to hide her background as a tank operator from a long line of tank operators. In fact, she transferred to Ōarai Girls Academy, one of many scaled up aircraft carrier ships that serve as something akin to a floating university town, specifically because it didn’t have a Sensha-dō (Way of the Tank) team. I’ll get into the reason why later. What matters is that the three-person student council find out and basically shanghaies her into being the commander of a Panzer IV D, because as it turns out, Ōarai actually used to have a tank team, and they are restarting it in order to compete in that year’s Sensha-dō competition. So, like I said, sports anime, but with tanks. Ōarai’s Sensha-dō team is pretty small compared to the other teams, which they face one after another, starting with a British-themed school. Ōarai is also somewhat unique in that while all the other teams are focused on one particular nationality, they have tanks from Germany, the US, and Japan. Incidentally, Miho is from a German-themed school, which is probably why she ended up in the Panzer. The Ōarai team is also somewhat unique in that while the other teams seem to be really hardcore into it, some of their members have to be convinced to join, and they are largely made up of misfits. So really it’s an underdog story. Even more so due to the fact that they apparently have to win the tournament or their school will be shut down, since aircraft carriers aren’t exactly the cheapest things to operate, even if they are manned almost entirely by schoolgirls. Eh, I guess it makes as much sense as anything else, like how the tanks are able to shoot each other without blowing each other up and killing or maiming any of their occupants. Anyway, this does give it a pretty clichéd feel, not unlike something like Remember the Titans, but the show was fun enough for me to overlook it, because everything is cuter when anime school girls do it. :3 I suppose there’s also some fondness on my part for this series due to my current obsession with the online game World of Tanks, which actually has most of the tanks featured in this series. I think my biggest problem with this series comes from the conflict between Miho and her sister and mother from the Kuromorimine Girls Academy that has a German theme. This is the school Miho transferred from, where at one point she was the commander of the flag tank of the Kuromorimine team. The reason why she transferred and didn’t want anything to do with tanks anymore was because in the final match of the Sensha-dō competition against Pravda, a Soviet-themed school, she abandoned her tank to save the crew of another tank that had fallen into a river and was going to drown. Subsequently, the flag tank was shot and “killed,” which is the way Sensha-dō matches are won. So basically, everyone except the girls whose lives she saved blame and shun her over this as a display of weakness. I’m guessing this is largely an example of values dissonance, because I don’t understand this at all. She saved people from dying in the course of playing what is effectively a game. In my opinion, that would make her a big damn hero, but apparently to even her own mother this made her a coward and a weakling – risking her own life to save the lives of others. This wouldn’t be as big of a deal if it wasn’t so heavily focused on in the series. Still, it didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the series all that much, it’s just that it was really stupid as a source of conflict and it kept being revisited. That and it was only resolved in the sense that Miho showed her mother and sister that she was able to use her more flexible tank tactics to win against their very strict and rigid doctrine. It’s a pretty entertaining series overall, with each match having a pretty unique flavor to it, with the antics of the various team members providing a large amount of the fun. It’s also a pretty satisfying build-up and pay-off for the finale, which turns out about like you’d expect. True, this means the series is pretty predictable except for the finer details, but considering that this show is basically action fluff that aims mainly to make you laugh and nerd out over the tanks, I don’t really hold that against this predictability against it. Not everything has to be high art, after all.
The OVAs are also largely fluff, with only one episode even being full length. That one focuses on a battle that was actually skipped in the series proper, against an Italian-themed school. The other OVA episodes are your requisite beach and hot springs episodes, along with one that only consists of the Ōarai girls dressed up as anglerfish doing the Anglerfish Dance. As such, they aren’t terribly long, but they do make a pretty fun addition to the overall show. 
Normally, I might talk about the characters, but to be honest there isn’t a whole lot to most of them outside of stock characterizations that you might expect from any high school anime. This isn’t really a bad thing in this case, though, as this actually is where a lot of the humor comes from as per how these characters act given the situations they face in tank combat. That’s also it’s weakness in that these are very much stock characters, and most of them never really get a chance to develop, or to even be fleshed out much. There’s some drama in that one of Miho’s crew members comes from a family that does just floral arrangements, and her mother doesn’t like the idea of her daughter tanking, and basically disowns her. Much as with Miho and her family drama, this is only really resolved through the team winning, like pretty much every underdog-sports genre show ever. Miho is probably the strongest character of the bunch (naturally as the main protagonist), and also undergoes the most development, changing from being shy and unsure of herself as a leader, to being more confident in her leadership ability and flexible style, thanks to the support from her team. Of course the upshot is that this show is really only about having fun. It’s simply playing with the standard moé slice-of-life genre by mixing it with the sports genre, with the twist that the cute girls are doing cute things in tanks. But while it might not be good in the same sense as Ergo Proxy or Ghost in the Shell, I’d say that it’s still pretty enjoyable to watch just as something fun. I guess what I’m saying is that while it might still be aimed at selling plastic, at least it had some thought and effort put into it, along with a healthy sense of wit in order to at least do something a bit different with some very cookie-cutter genres that seem to have been flooding the market lately. The music score is also one of the fun aspects of this series, and it’s enjoyable to listen to on its own. It adds very much to the sense of whimsy that the show is trying to achieve with the idea of moé high school girls driving tanks (with the juxtaposition of this being traditional and feminine). Also included are some light renditions of traditional army songs from around the world, like “Panzer Lied” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Another great addition is a rendition of a traditional Russian folk song, “Katyusha,” sung by the voice actresses of the Russian team Pravda on their way to battle the girls of Ōarai, at least if you watch the original Japanese dub, anyway. This actually brings me to a topic I rarely, if ever, broach in my reviews. I think I’ve mentioned briefly before that I will almost always choose the English-dubbed version of an anime, simply because I prefer to watch anime rather than reading it. Yes, I’ve heard every argument there is, ranging from preserving the original artistic intent of a work to just straight-up elitism, and I just plain don’t care, because while not every dub lives up to the quality of something like Cowboy Bebop, usually at the very least they are serviceable, unless it’s something from the early, awkward days of localization. That being said, this dub is far below what I’ve come to expect from a modern anime. I’ve heard some people complain that American voice actors can never match the moé tone from Japanese dubs. Since I don’t really care for moé, I honestly don’t give a shit about that personally, but if you do, I’d agree that the English voice talent does not in any way compare with the tone the Japanese actors achieved. If anything, the English dub seems to be going for “stereotypical Hollywood high school,” and they succeed a sounding like a bunch of bored kids. I lay this blame almost entirely on the director, as everyone, including what few recognizable voice talent there is (such as Monica Rial and Luci Christian), sounds this way. Actually, Monica Rial seems to be the only one having any fun. I’m left with the impression that whoever was behind this localization just didn’t give a shit about this show, and decided that no real effort need go into it. I’ve watched some really shitty things from the RightStuff/Crunchyroll mystery box that were made during the ADV days that at least managed to have fun with what they were doing, but the Girls und Panzer team seemed like they were doing it more out of obligation. In any case, I couldn’t make it past the first couple of episodes of the English dub, and I found the original to be much more enjoyable. In spite of all the tank battles, the pacing manages to be such that even someone like me who isn’t the fastest at reading subtitles can follow along without any trouble. So this is one of the few times I’ll ever recommend to someone that they go with sub over dub. Sentai, I am disappoint. :-[ So I’d say that I definitely enjoyed this series, though it probably helped that I’ve gotten into the game World of Tanks. Part of my enjoyment came from the concept of anime school girls driving tanks, and part of it came from seeing some of the same kind of antics my friends and I have gotten into in World of Tanks. The show does not take itself seriously, which is why I’d actually recommend it to anyone, even if you aren’t a tank nerd. I’d rank this an 8/10 on my nebulous scale of good, which isn’t bad for a series that mainly consists of fluff. |
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