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Review

by Maral Agnerian,

Jewel Hunter Lime BEM

DVD

Synopsis:
Jewel Hunter Lime BEM
There is another world alongside ours. It is a world of demons and all manner of peculiar creatures. Strange monsters known as BEM have escaped from the other world, and they have possessed the indignant spirits naturally occurring inside of everyday items. To stop them Lime emerges from the other world with a heart full of honesty and a head full of air! She may not be the brightest being from the other world, but she means well. With her magical powers and gorgeous body, she is determined to rid the earth of the insidious BEM's!
Review:
First off, that's the description off the back of the box and it's completely erroneous. Lime is, in fact, quite smart--it's her partner Bass who's the airhead, as well as being hilariously perverted. He spends most of the three episodes chasing after girls, getting run over by cars, crashing into things, and screwing up. Lime, for all her ditzy looks and fanservice, is actually quite competent and is always yelling at Bass whenever he screws up. Bass seems to know a bit more about the Human world and whatnot (he chides Lime numerous times to lose the wings in order to be a bit less conspicuous), but Lime's just focused on finding those jewels and considers Bass' constant screw-ups to be more conspicuous than her wings. He's more easily distracted from their mission...especially if the distraction is a cute girl. ^_^ Their characters bounce nicely off each other and create a fun interplay, and it's a nice change to have the guy be a ditz for once.

The BEMs (BEM, by the way, stands for Big-Eyed Monster) are everyday objects that, through the power of the magic gems that Bass accidentally dropped into the human world, have been possessed with angry spirits. While they're constantly referred to by Lime and Bass as monsters, the BEMs are in fact the cutest things you've ever seen. Some are malicious and out to get revenge on humans, but even in their efforts to be evil they're unbelievably adorable. You just can't be intimidated by a kawaii super-deformed candle, even when he's doing mean things like turning people into wax statues.

The dub isn't spectacular, but it's mostly okay--albeit with some truly cheesy puns thrown in. The subtitling job is good, and the DVD includes the usual scene access interface and trailers for other shows, with a virtual dress-up Lime doll as an extra. I was a bit disappointed with the doll, though, as there are only four outfits to put her in and they're complete outfits--you can't mix-and-match the clothes, which would have been a lot more fun.

It's obvious from the setup at the beginning that they intended to do one episode per jewel (making 10 episodes, if I recall correctly), but I'm not sure if they made all of the episodes or stopped after episode 3--I haven't been able to find any information on whether there are any more volumes being released. It would be a shame, as this show is lots of fun, but with the episodic format there's no agonizing cliffhanger so the truncation wouldn't be as frustrating as with some other shows.

Lime can do a Magical Girl Transformation(tm) into various other incarnations and costumes, but thankfully this isn't overused. Her little mascot Poogie (the yellow blob with big googly eyes on her shoulder) is almost unbearably cute but quite useful, as he (it?) can transform into pretty much anything. Bass is the comic relief of the show, although he isn't a total moron either and comes through when it's really important.

The animation is very nice and clean, with minimal recycling, and while the music isn't really anything remarkable, the opening song is cute and catchy. Pretty much everything about this show is cute and catchy, with a dollop of ecchi fun. Funny, wacky and cute, this show isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's thoroughly enjoyable and good for a nice light snack.
Grade:
Overall (dub) : B-
Overall (sub) : B+
Animation : A
Art : A
Music : B

+ Cute, slightly ecchi fun; adorable monsters
Not a lot of depth; dub not great

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Production Info:
Director: Tetsuro Amino
Script: Kenichiro Nakamura
Storyboard:
Dojag-a-gen
Yoshitaka Fujimoto
Masashi Hirota
Teruo Kogure
Unit Director: Naoyoshi Kusaka
Music:
Michiaki Katō
Masao Mizuno
Original story: Kenichiro Nakamura
Character Design: Atsuko Nakajima
Art Director: Torao Arai
Chief Animation Director: Atsuko Nakajima
Animation Director:
Masashi Hirota
Atsuko Nakajima
Director of Photography: Mitsuru Sugiura
Executive producer:
Yasushi Shiina
Hiroo Takimoto
Producer:
Hiroshi Katō
Tatsuo Oba
Hidenobu Ohyama
Licensed by: Media Blasters

Full encyclopedia details about
Jewel BEM Hunter Lime (OAV)

Release information about
Jewel BEM Hunter Lime (DVD)

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