Episode One-Derland Kill La Kill

Plot: Ryuko is a new transfer student at Honnouji Academy, a…’prestigious?’ academy that is run like a crazy house. The students and faculty alike are under the reign of the student council, especially the president, Satsuki.

Ryuko is in search of her father’s killer, who holds the other half of her signature weapon, a giant pair of scissors. She believes Satsuki knows something about the killer, but needs to get through the crazy and powerful goku-uniform-wearing student body in order to even get a chance at challenging her and learning of her father’s killer.

She doesn’t stand a chance against them without her own form of the goku uniform, which she finds underneath her destroyed house. With her powerful and skimpy outfit on and her scissor in hand, she will take down anyone in her way.

Breakdown: Ah, Kill la Kill. Another of those ultra-hyped mega anime that everyone swamps their panties over yet continue to disappoint me when I give them a chance.

Well, I gave this a chance, and so far it’s disappointing.

If I had to describe Kill la Kill in one phrase it would be ‘trying too hard’. It really seems like it’s trying to be as crazy, hyper and outlandish as possible at every turn. Even when it’s seemingly taking a break, it’s really not. The fact that it can’t go two minutes without bombarding the audience with gigantic blocks of red text to introduce characters and weapons is just a highlight of how much it wants the viewer to pay attention to how crazy and loud it is.

And it’s doing it with such a lazy plot. Main character wields a powerful weapon or two that she inherited from her dead father, the one who was murdered. She’s avenging said father by fighting a bunch of overpowered cronies of a person who is clearly either responsible for it or is strongly linked to it. Each crony has their own unique abilities and trademarks that the main character will have to overcome until the big ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny with the main baddie who, in the end, will likely not be the actual main baddie.

Really, outside of the weird murderous crazy monarchy of the school, that’s about it. It’s pretty much as cliché as you get. Speaking of the school, everyone who is not a zero-star student gets something called a goku uniform. These are uniforms that somehow give the wearer special abilities that can be tailored to the user’s preferences and capabilities. The weakest is one-star, while the strongest, I assume, is the four-star, which Satsuki, I assume, must wear.

Ryuko’s not much to write home about so far. She’s a fight-happy brute with lots of determination and heart. Tournament fighter protagonist activate.

Satsuki’s not really that impressive either. We don’t see her do anything in this episode besides stand above everyone else looking intimidating.

The only other character of note who looks to be a main character is Mako, a zero-star student at the school who is a really nice airhead.

As for the episode as a starter, it’s all over the place. We start with some kid getting reprimanded for stealing a one-star goku uniform. He tries to combat one of Satsuki’s most loyal cronies, whose name has already escaped me despite being thrown in my face giant-red-text-style at least twice.

He obviously loses and ends up later getting killed and hung outside the school as a message to other students about what happens when you oppose the student counsel. While this is a decent introduction to the workings of the school and the goku uniforms…..was this kid a complete dumbass?

I assume being a student of the school meant he was well aware of the powers of the uniforms yet he stole, of all things, a one-star uniform? And thought he could combat a three-star with it? Other than depicting the differences in power in the rankings of the uniforms, I see no reason for this complete moron to have done such a thing.

Ryuko shows up and already causes trouble when she first comes across Satsuki who recognizes the scissor sword thing and has some knowledge of Ryuko’s father’s murder.

She tries to challenge her but ends up fighting a three-star crony who is decked out in a uniform specially tailored for those in the boxing club. She tries and completely fails to even land a strike on the guy and subsequently has to flee before getting finished off.

As she sulks in her burned down home, she falls into an underground section of the house that she never saw before. An open wound causes blood to spill on a rock, and out comes a crazy talking and moving sailor uniform that forces itself on her in exchange for more blood. This was one of two moments in the series that got a ‘wtf’ out of me. I mean, what is this thing? Why does it thirst for blood? Why can it talk and move? Why is it crazy?

Later, Mako is being held hostage by the student counsel in order to flush Ryuko out of hiding. They’re hanging her upside down because fanservice and plan to dip her in a vat of boiling oil to literally fry her. Out from the audience bursts Ryuko who saves Mako and is again challenged by the boxing three-star dude. However, a quick removal of her cloak reveals what is one of the dumbest outfits I’ve ever seen.

What the hell is that? I thought she had a sailor uniform on. That is most definitely not a sailor uniform. That is some shoulder pads, suspenders, tiny panties, an even tinier skirt and topped off with red high heels and thigh-high stockings that are also being held up by suspenders. Our hero, a cosplaying stripper.

This was the second wtf moment, because I really thought, at the very least, that they’d try to make Ryuko a respectable and kick-ass lead. But nope. She has to wear….that.

I’m not going to get into a rant on ‘strong female leads’ being turned into fanservice dispensers, but, really, guys in the audience, would you like it if every shounen fighting anime protagonist wore a thong all the time, even in battles? Would Goku seem as bad-ass? Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho? Luffy from One Piece?

The reason I wtfed at this was because, up until now, the fanservice has been light at most. Even Mako hanging upside down only showed some side-boob (underboob?) and…well, they said her panties were showing, but I couldn’t see them. We also had a girl in a bikini introducing the boxing rounds, but that wasn’t much. This just came out of nowhere. I was bitchslapped by fanservice.

You want to know something else? The design of that thing isn’t even the real reason I’m upset. It’s the fact that this outfit is so OP that she can take out boxing guy with 100% no problem now. The guy who handed her ass to her in a gift-wrapped box with a bow made out of her teeth was completely blown away without a sweat all because of that outfit. Because screw having to actually work and get stronger on your own. It’s all about getting things that make you powerful.

What’s even more disturbing is….that uniform supposedly used to belong to her father….so….he wore that?…..uhhhh….huh.

So yeah, the entire series is seemingly gearing up to be kinda like a tournament fighter….only, considering she already beat a three-star with no problem, will be probably be inconsistent with her opponents in the future.

I saw a commenter on Hulu saying this reminded them of FLCL, and while FLCL was indeed crazy, at least it knew when to take breaks and when to spring craziness on us to be funny. At least it had an original, albeit confusing and unfinished, story. This just leaves me tired and confused with little incentive to get invested.

Otherwise, the animation is terrible in a lot of spots and only decent at best with art that is very reminiscent of Gurren Laggan, which makes sense given this is animated by Trigger, the same company who produced Gurren Laggan.

The music is fine, but none of it really stuck with me.

The voice acting gets some decent points with me as I believe everyone, Japanese version, were really good and putting their all into their roles. One exception being some pink-haired chick in Satsuki’s posse. That girl’s voice is horrendous.

Verdict:

I was just going to throw a ‘yes’ at this because I can see myself randomly flipping this on to see if the show is getting any better, but I suppose that does fit more with ‘undecided.’ I only got a little bit of entertainment from this episode no matter how much the show really tried to force me into enjoying it. Maybe if it finds a better rhythm later on I might enjoy it more, but for now it’s on the fence.

Edit – 6/11/17: After a long break from this show, I returned to it to give it another chance and….I quit halfway into episode two. I don’t usually like suddenly dropping shows like that, especially without completing an episode I started watching, but I quickly came to the realization that this show is even more annoying that I remember. It is just constant noise, and blocks of red text and yelling and cuts and randomness that they keep insisting is comedy. I just couldn’t sit through it, let alone get invested. I can see how someone might get into this, but it’s just not for me.

Updated status: Incomplete, but altered to a no.

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Zetman Review

Plot: Jin Kanzaki is the product of an experiment where monsters called Players were created to fight each other for sport. One of the scientists working on the project, however, wanted to spare Jin from that fate and live as a human, but the Players soon revolted and escaped from their confines.

As Jin grew, he was seen as somewhat of a local hero, saving people where he could while trying to weasel payments from those he saved.

With him was a boy named Kouga who was obsessed with the idea of justice and heroes. However, he could never seem to keep up with Jin when it came to helping people, and his friendship with Jin, as well as his vigilante activities, were frowned upon by his father. Fast forward again to Jin as an adult where he learns of his origins and his destiny as ZET, while Kouga focuses on becoming his hero, Alphas.

Breakdown: I really wanted to like this show way more than I did. I was really impressed by the first episode and liked it pretty much for the next few following episodes, but I just feel like this show dropped the ball really bad.

First off, the whole series jumps around quite often. We jump from Jin as a baby to Jin as a child to Jin as an adult to Jin further as an adult to three years in the future over the time span of 13 episodes with no indication given that we’ve done so except in the last episode. It makes it feel like it’s skipping a bunch of stuff, especially character and relationship development.

Second, the time skips definitely don’t help the fact that this show makes little sense. Many plotlines make little to no sense, and it makes it really hard to follow or even care about.

Third, characters are included like we should know them deeply already when they simply aren’t developed enough, or, in some characters cases, at all. Several characters pop up out of nowhere, have an attitude and role like the anime expects us to know who these people are or who they are to the actual characters, and some of them disappear altogether with no explanation, like Ai.

Fourth, and maybe worst of all, I ended up liking absolutely no one in the end. Kouga was winning out for me near the end, but lost it quite literally in the last two episodes, though he’s still the only redeemable one, really.

There’s also little things like Jin needs to chew something called activation gum in order to access his powers and he’s somehow built to melt if his Zet level goes down too low in the presence of a Player, which makes no sense to me and seems like a damn stupid design flaw.
Let’s get into the characters. MAJOR SPOILERS AHOY. HEAD ON DOWN TO THE TECHNICAL SPECS IF YOU WANT TO BE UNSPOILED.

Jin – Jin is our main protagonist. He’s pretty okay throughout the series, but fluctuates into unlikable and downright lame when he meets Hanako and ends on an immature brat note. I know his goal is to save everyone, but Kouga has a very valid point – you really can’t save everyone and sometimes you need to make tough decisions.

Jin refuses to believe this and runs off. As for the Hanako stuff, I’ll save most for her bio, but long story short (just like in the show) Jin basically falls in love with Hanako for no reason and with little to no development and wants to start a family with her even though he was explicitly told that he shouldn’t get close to anybody because Players might attack them. That’s why he left his Auntie and is very cold to his old friends Konoha and Kouga when he sees them.

They initially want him to break up with her to meet the same criteria as before but then turn around and say that, since he now has something that he loves and wants to protect, he can find the strength within himself to become stronger and achieve red form.

How the hell does that make sense? He had people he loved and wanted to protect before and was forced to give them up to protect them. Now this bratty, pushy bitch just pops out of nowhere, they somehow develop a relationship, he even wants to be a family with her for whatever reason, and that’s the big crux for getting stronger? Uh….huh.

Kouga – Kouga was pretty creepy throughout most of the series. He wants to be like his hero, the TV show character Alphas, was cute as a kid, but he got completely obsessed as an adult to the point where he had a custom mech suit made to look exactly like Alphas’ suit to fight evil and bring justice. Oh yeah, did I mention justice? Because Kouga mentions justice so much it’s almost like he replaced his need to breathe with a need to constantly mention justice.

Though Kouga is obviously a brave person who wants to do good, his fascination into the world of being a hero seems to cloud his focus. Here is an example. He refuses to use a superhuman suit because it’s not the right color, has no emblem on the mask and has no cape. His design team has to completely remake it before he decides to use it.

A real hero would use the superhuman suit no matter what color or emblems it had on it because a hero’s duty isn’t to be flashy and emulate some superhero he’s been obsessed with since childhood. Their duty is to save people and stop bad guys. End of story.

However, his arc was really the only one I was interested in watching. An old guy hears about Alphas and tests Kouga to see if his brand of justice is really just. His first test is keeping Konoha, or as I like to call her, Useless McWhyareyouevenhere, captive with a player at the pool and says that he can either save her or three girls that he had met earlier. He decides to save Konoha and later hears on the news that the three girls were viciously murdered, deeply impacting Kouga and his views on his moral code.

The second mini-test was a decision in the heat of the moment. Useless got captured with her friend by a Player and was seriously injured, as was her friend, Tomomi and Jin. Kouga’s helicopter thing could only hold two people at most and he wanted to get Jin on it as well.

One of his advisers, Hayami, tells him that that’s illogical. If you were in the middle of the ocean in a storm and had a lifeboat that could only carry two people and there were three people in the water, would you rather pull one out of the water knowing that at least you and that person would be safe or would you try to save them all and almost certainly damn everyone? He chose Tomomi and Useless and left Jin there, even though  he’s ZET, so he just heals anyway, but Kouga didn’t know that, so his lesson seems learned.

His final test is like a game from Saw. He’s kidnapped and taken to a building where he’s told his sister Konoha might be after she went missing again because she’s also an idiot. He has to reach an old man in order to find out for sure.

He reaches a room where a bunch of his teenage girl fans are having a party and he’s given the choice – escort the girls out now and ensure that they’re safe but likely sacrifice Konoha, if she’s there, or abandon them for Konoha and leave them to likely die. So it’s basically a bigger version of the choice from the first test. He decides to go to the restroom to think.

When he comes out, a girl who I swear is Ai from Hell Girl -same haircut, hair color, uniform, everything – stops him and tells him that she has a bad feeling about this place. No one’s cell phones can get a signal and she has an overall bad feeling. She says she’s also found a trap door in the wall and wants him to go with her. He’s again stopped by a girl from the party who wants to bring him back. He tells the Ai girl to go through the tunnel and get help while he tries to save the rest of the girls.

I won’t spoil what happens next because it’s really insane, but let’s just say he makes the wrong choice. The really really wrong choice. The girls and him try to escape through the hall, but are stopped by a mecha-looking Player who is standing in front of an elevator.

He’s given another choice; abandon the girls and take the elevator to look for Konoha or fight the mech and try to save the girls. He chooses to fight and again makes the wrong decision.

At this point, I really wonder what this guy’s angle was. He’s focusing on saving the group instead of just his sister now. He wants to save as many people as he can instead of focusing on just who is important to him. However, he keeps failing. When he chooses to fight the robot instead of flee on his own, he’s reprimanded for trying to save the girls?

It sounds like this guy’s idea of justice is to ignore everyone and go watch TV or something. Saving one over many is bad, saving many over one is bad, trying to save everyone is bad, WHAT DO YOU WANT HIM TO DO!?

Then he tells us Kouga’s problem is lack of objectivity…..

So the lesson of the game really was to do nothing? Seriously, the thing lacking in his sense of justice is objectivity, which he had en masse before Jin taught him that being a hero is about trying to save everybody, which Jin can do because he’s Jin, but is a pretty unrealistic lesson for everyone else. However, there was no objective answer to these games.

If he left the party to find Konoha, he would be leaving because he wanted to find his sister, which isn’t objective. He stayed, which was wrong.

If he chose to leave with the Ai girl instead of staying with the other girls to save them, he’d be abandoning both objectives, which isn’t logical. Also, going with the Ai girl isn’t logical in the first place. Wouldn’t you stay with the girls since the old man told you that he’s giving you the option to free them straight out instead of going through a trap door with one girl who could possibly be a part of the trap when there’s no guarantee that the trap door leads outside? Why would there be a trap door anyway? Especially one so easy to find that a teenage girl found it with no problem.

He stayed with the girls and ended up losing. If he had gone into the elevator to look for Konoha, he’d again be choosing to save his little sister, which isn’t objective. He stayed and fought the robot to ensure that the girls lived, but that also equaled a fail. I will admit that the first and second tests from before the game were fitting for this explanation, but this game was too messed up to be a fitting lesson for this.

Also, because he said that Kouga was all about the excitement of the fights and needed to essentially be dead inside to be a true warrior of justice, he basically said that Kouga needs to be a sociopath to be an effective hero.

Kouga also goes nuts after this to a point where, I won’t say why, but I really wonder why he wasn’t arrested and thrown in jail. I mean, given the flatout psychotic nature of these tests, I can’t really blame him for going nuts, but I can blame the show for being so sloppy that it essentially ruined his character.

Konoha – Useless over here is Kouga’s sister and there’s little to say about her besides she has had a crush on Jin since they were kids, Jin’s never even shown an inkling at returning her feelings, she gets kidnapped a lot and she’s useless. She is a plot device with skin. That’s about it.

Her moment of idiocy before Kouga’s game was that she was attacked by Jin clones in her house and was upset about it. So, she left the safety of her safe house and ran off for no reason because no one will tell her what’s going on. Because running away would resolve that.

Hanako – Hey look everyone, Karim from Jyu-Oh-Sei was reincarnated! I hate this character. Annoying beyond reason. She’s one of those characters that pops up and we’re supposed to connect with her despite knowing nothing about her and having no character development.

Hanako ran into Jin’s house to hide from Players one day. When she went to retrieve her bag, she got captured by the same Players (Well, duh). Jin rescues her and she basically demands that she stay in his house because she doesn’t want to go back out there and doesn’t want to be alone despite the fact that the Players were killed. So, essentially, she’s like a squatter who, when told to leave, says, “Screw off, I’m staying here, make me food.”

She gets very possessive of Jin very fast, especially when Konoha’s concerned. For instance, Jin sees Konoha in the street one day and acts very cold to her because he is the night. Hanako gets very bratty after this like they’re actually an item and he just cheated on her right in front of her.

He also gets a call when Konoha goes missing requesting he go look for her, and the instant her name is brought up she flinches. “Oh no! That girl he talked with in the street for two minutes and was nothing but cold to her! She’s such a threat to our non-existent relationship!”

Jin falls in love with her in somehow and someway that we never see because screw relationship development on top of character development.

Also, it’s blatantly obvious throughout the entire show that she’s a Player. The instant she gets one of her unexplained ‘regular migraines’ it’s a red flag. Character traits like that are red flags unless they come with an explanation from the get go. However, there was one aspect of her big reveal that was actually somewhat clever, but I won’t spoil it.

Heitani – The main baddie in the series, Heitani is the leader of the evil EVOLS (Yeah, they named themselves EVOLs, even the ‘good ones’…) and he’s fairly uninteresting. He’s one of those baddies who wants the main character to come over the dark side. His Player form is the best one, though, even if that’s not saying much.

Auntie – I loved Auntie. She was saved by Jin when he was a kid. When the scientist that saved him died, she took him in. Their relationship was cute, and I loved watching it, but it was glazed over, and he never even sees her again after the third episode.

Throwaway/Phantom characters – These characters are ones who either popped up from nowhere and disappeared as soon as they came or were regulars who never got any development.

Ai Girl– Randomly appeared during Kouga’s game, but we’re never told if she was a part of the game. If she was, where is she? If she wasn’t, where is she? Did she escape?

Black haired girl at party – There’s a black haired girl at the party in the game who seems to harbor some sort of dislike of Kouga for no reason. He was made famous because he took full credit for saving a family from a fire when Jin did most of the work. Only his closest family know that, so that can’t be the reason. She says she’s at the party because her friend is a fan of his and wants his autograph…why wasn’t she invited then?

After that, a death happens and she slaps Kouga for it and calls him a murderer despite clearly having nothing to do with it and the person who was about to die indicating that someone else is pulling the strings.

When the mecha Player attacks, she pulls a 180 and instantly takes a shine to him, defending him against the rest of the girls who are now, inexplicably, calling him a murderer too.

Kouga’s tech team – Kouga has a team of three tech experts who have been helping him with his dream of being Alphas for years. They’re the ones who designed the Alphas suit and remotely help him and monitor him. I don’t even think these guys get names despite the fact that they’re in nearly every episode and they certainly get no discernible personalities.

Mayu – A pink-haired girl who is the sole survivor of the game, Mayu is saved by Kouga, they have about, eh, one minute of screen time together and she’s reduced to a prop. We learn nothing about her, at all….in the least…Besides her name and the fact that she has pink hair, nothing. We later cut to three years in the future where she’s either engaged or married to Kouga……Well, gee, okay. I’m sure we’ll care seeing as how we know nothing about you and have known you all of a total of four minutes.

Bartender – There’s a bartender who’s supposed the leader of the Players, above Heitani, but wants the Players to live in peace or something. Despite his status, he’s never given a name I don’t think and he never does a damn thing.

The Sweeper – The Sweeper appears about three times in the series and we’re never told who he is besides a Player killer (Isn’t that supposed to be what a Hunter, Jin, was for?) We never see his face, learn his purpose, what he is, where he came from and besides killing a couple Players once, he does nothing.

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The ending was just flat out disappointing and it makes it look like this series was a 13 episode trailer for a series than it was an actual series in itself.

Heitani outs all of the Players and they rampage across Japan killing hundreds or even thousands of people. He draws Jin out who wants to put a stop to his plans.

Before I continue, let me explain something. Jin has three Zet forms, White, Red and Complete. For all of ten episodes, I thought that Red was the final form, but I guess he’s like a Saiyan or Frieza because they tacked on another near the end for good measure.

Heitani takes out a stake from Jin’s chest and reveals that it’s the red stone (Never explained adequately. It’s like a pseudo Macguffin). Putting it back in Jin’s body will make him complete and likely turn him evil….

Okay, 1) If it instantly makes him complete when he puts the stake in his body, why wasn’t he complete before? It came from his body. I don’t get it.

2) Heitani did nothing to the stake besides touch it. Does touching it when you’re evil instantly make it evil? Is it the Shikon Jewel or something?

3) He’s willing to put it back in his body even though Heitani is telling him that he’ll become an evil soldier of the Players if he puts it back in his body, but he wants to put it back to gain the power to transform and save everyone. Well, that’s just dumb. If you did become evil you’d kill everyone not save everyone….

They make Jin transforming into his complete form a big deal, but it looks hardly any different than his red form – it’s just slightly more black if it’s different at all. Oooooohhhhh. I may rag on Mangamon for essentially being a golden Flamedramon, but at least I can definitely tell those two apart. He actually turns into a much different and kick ass looking version later but only for literally a second and for no real reason. Why!?

Jin and Kouga now stand before each other as enemies. Kouga doesn’t see Jin as a hero anymore since he wasn’t willing to kill Hanako’s Player form to ensure that everyone else would be safe. In addition, the ring of exposure on his hand instantly causes Players to regress to their monster forms, which puts everyone in danger with other Players on the loose.

It doesn’t make much sense, when you think about it. Jin wanted to try to save Hanako later. The ring of exposure actually helps since many Players disguise themselves as humans all the time to kill humans. Regressing them does make them more powerful, but if they were going to kill anyway, what’s the point?

Jin has less respect for Kouga now because his new method of justice (I want to play a sound clip of The Crimson Chin saying “Did somebody say JUSTICE!? Whenever the word is said in this series.) is wrong and he sees Kouga as not even human anymore.

That’s more understandable, because Kouga, despite having logic to his actions…He seems to lack remorse for some of the deaths he’s caused for some reason.

Kouga tries to kill Jin, but Jin turns into a cool form, with a black visor, cool wings and a tail, and changes back 15 seconds later. Because screw the cool form, keep the lame one. And he runs off.

Cut to three years in the future when Kouga is still fighting Players as Alphas (How many of those things are there? I wouldn’t think there’d be that many. Can they reproduce somehow?) and is seen as a hero to the city despite no one knowing who he is. Gee, I dunno. Bruce Wayne, do you know who Batman is? I can’t figure it out.

He’s apparently become the new CEO of his dad’s company and is married/engaged to Mayu as I said….he also still has Alphas toys and a framed picture of Alphas on his desk because 1) That’d NEVER tip anyone off that you’re Alphas and 2) since you now are Alphas, that’s even more creepy.

Konoha’s still boring, but now has longer hair. Jin hasn’t been seen since he left, but still fights Players on his own and the epilogue makes it seem like a series about Jin in this time will follow, but nope. No plans for a sequel. Just this. Thanks.

Do you want to know the reason why the show’s called Zetman but the main character’s called ZET? Well, you see, in that TV show that Kouga was so obsessed over, there’s another character besides Alphas that is basically like the Batman to Kouga’s Superman.

Whereas Alphas is all about truth and justice etc. the other character is more dark and focuses more on staying in the shadows and instilling fear in his enemies. Thus, Kouga says that his hero name should be Zetman. Because it’s a known fact that adding “man” to the end of any word instantly makes a superhero. Lookit, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Aquaman, Antman, Iron Man, Iceman, etc.

END OF SPOILERS

Art and Animation: The art and animation are great. The art’s somewhat ugly at times due to the style, at least in my opinion. It’s different from your usual fare. The designs of the Players are really lacking. Barring Heitani’s, they’re very generic.

Music: The OP is great, but not really fitting for this show. This show’s pretty dark and the OP is like a dance club song. The ED is also good, but I didn’t like it as much as the OP. The BG music is great, but there’s this one score that sounds an awful lot like “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Don’t know if that was intentional.

Bottom Line: Good beginning, but it’s rushed, jumps around, makes little to no sense, has characters popping up with no explanation or development, and the ending is unsatisfying. It’s not terrible, I enjoyed it at many parts, but as a whole, it’s just an average, somewhat infuriating show. Shame. It had a lot of potential.

Additional Information and Notes: Zetman was directed by Osamu Nabeshima, written by Atsuhiro Tomioka and produced by TMS Entertainment. It is currently licensed in English by Viz Media.

Episodes: 13

Year: 2012

Recommended Audience: Some nudity, off-screen sex, quite a bit of blood, a couple very nasty gore scenes. 13+

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Dissecting the Disquels: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

Plot: Taking place somewhere after the wolf attack, it’s Christmastime, and Belle and the others want to celebrate. However, Beast hates Christmas since that was the day he was turned into the beast. Belle and the others are determined to make Christmas anyway to try to make him happier, but the court composer turned pipe organ, Forte, doesn’t want the Beast to become happy as that means his somber emo music will have no place in the castle.

Breakdown: I really liked the first Beauty and the Beast. I was never a huge fan of it and it’s been ages since I’ve sat down and watched it all the way through, but I liked it. Christmas in July is going down and whatnot, so why not give this a nice review? Is this a nice late Christmas surprise or a big glass of eggnog that’s been sitting in the open since Christmas of 1997?

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Our movie starts out on Christmas Eve set after the events of BatB, so everyone’s back to their human forms that no one wants to see them in. As Chip opens a present early, Cogsworth and Lumiere argue over who saved Christmas last year. In order the settle the dispute, Mrs. Potts says she has to tell the story all over again, and Chip acts like he’s never heard it before even though it sounds like she’s told this story several times and he was, ya know, there at the time. Exactly the same problem as Cinderella 2, that’s a great start.

Before I get down to the nitty gritty, I don’t remember enough about the first movie to point out every inconsistency between what I’m about to watch and what actually occurred.

I will, however, point out the glaringly obvious. No matter what happens in this story, it’s pointless. This story happens after Belle gets attacked by wolves in the forest but before any scene that follows that. I guess it’s during that montage where they’re getting along. The events of this story obviously had no impact on anything or else they would’ve showed them in the original movie. Gee, will Belle break the spell? Will they defeat the villain? Obviously they do or else the second half of the original movie would be drastically different.

Midquels can work even with this problem, like Bambi 2, but at least that movie had something interesting we wanted to see. This is just one more thing they did during the montage that made them closer.

The story starts out with really sloppy animation as Mrs. Potts’ words clearly don’t match her lips in the first scene. The group is still hell-bent on getting Belle and the Beast together so they try to get them to go on a walk.

We get some painful slapstick and some awkwardness as Beast meets Belle on the ice out front. Belle then tries to ice skate with Beast….despite the fact that he has no ice skates. Take it from my dog, paws are not ice skate material. They’re slip and fall on your ass material.

We zoom out from the ice skating scene to see our main villain of the movie, Forte, voiced by Tim Curry because he never plays anything but villains….and Nigel Thornberry. Forte is a giant pipe organ. He’s also entirely CGI which contrasts greatly with everything else being traditionally drawn and cel shaded. He’s playing a song for his ‘friend’ or lacky, a piccolo named Fife played by Paul Reubens.

Fife says he sees Beast outside skating with Belle and gets excited because he believes he may fall in love with Belle and break the spell. This sends Forte into a hissy fit, though, as he actually wants to stay as a pipe organ despite the fact that not but 30 seconds ago he raged at being chained to the wall and being unable to move.

He wants to stay in that state because he has a crush on the Beast……..Okay, not really but he might as well. He thought his position was pointless and unappreciated when he was human but now that he IS the pipe organ, the beast is apparently always going to him to listen to sad music when he’s emo because My Chemical Romance hadn’t gotten together at that point yet.

He feels he’s Beast’s best friend and confidant despite the fact that he’s never mentioned before or after this in the original movie, nor is Fife, and he’s jealous of Belle spending time with him. Thus he sends Fife to split them up before Beast falls in love.

Belle and Beast are hitting it off and Beast is even inexplicably getting better at ice skating. Fife tries to stop their romantic shenanigans, but just makes them crash into a snowbanking which doesn’t really bother them.

Belle: “Look, a Christmas angel!” No, that’s a snow angel. Just because you make a snow angel on Christmas doesn’t make it a Christmas angel. It’s not even Christmas, it’s Christmas Eve.

Beast shows his imprint in the snow, which is just a snowy mess and it causes him to have a hissy fit.

Beast: (in front of the rose) “I hate Christmas…” You’re a mean one, nanana, Mr. Grinch.

I really shouldn’t mix those two movies together or else I might cause a tear in the delicate balance of the universe.

So obviously Beast mopes by the fire while Forte serenades his emoness.

Cut to Belle talking with Chip about what a crankypants Beast is and then talks about Christmas. However, Chip doesn’t know what Christmas is, which blows my mind. Mrs. Potts never tried to make Christmas for him? I can’t imagine that’s true.

Chip asks Belle what she’d get Beast for Christmas, and Chip suggests she should make Beast a story.

She thinks that’s a great idea and starts making him one during our first song of the movie. Now I distinctly remember Nchick talking about this song with annoyance in her review because she felt like the movie shifted gears between the Beast needing to learn to be a better person in order to be with Belle properly to Belle thinking Beast just needed to cheered up or ‘fixed’ and he was becoming her little project. And I do have to say, I think she has a point.

I remember a lot of Belle arguing with and yelling at Beast in the original movie, and he was the one who had to work through his own crap to earn Belle’s affection. It wasn’t a matter of cheering him up or making him get over being a beast. He was a jackass before he became the Beast and he had to change on his own….that’s kinda…the plot of the original movie.

However, I don’t really know why she was singling out this song in particular. I guess for the opening few lines where she talks about the Beast needing someone and blah blah. Yeah, that’s there, but the rest of the song is really about how great books are and how getting lost in a book world could make Beast happier. The song’s fairly good, and the background animation is really interesting and creative too. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s fine.

Cogsworth says they can’t have Christmas because the Beast hates Christmas. It reminds him of his past and makes him even more of a bummer than usual.

I love when they’re talking about preparing a big Christmas feast. They can’t eat any of the things they’re listing, and all of that stuff would be served on their faces.

Is every single item in the Beast’s castle a person? Serious question. Because I almost feel like he’d have nothing in his castle but people if the spell were ever reversed.

Belle and Lumiere go see Angelique who was the castle decorator. She’s apparently an angel tree topper, which explains why she’s rotting away in the attic with her ornament friends. They want her to help them make Christmas, but she refuses because she doesn’t have time, so they decorate without her. Glad that character was so necessary.

It’s here where we get our second song about how awesome Christmas is. It’s also a fairly good song that I have nothing really to note about.

Forte tells Beast that Belle’s planning Christmas, so of course he flips out. Then we get a flashback to an animated version of the story of the prince becoming the beast. In the original movie, we’re not given any indication that this occurred on Christmas. It does occur in winter, but that’s all we’re told. Also, from what the stained glass in the original shows, it was a thunderstorm outside not a blizzard….So I decided to look back and nitpick a bit. So what?

Also, uh, Chip had to have been there on Christmas seeing as how that’s when he turned into a cup so how does he not know what Christmas is?

It still bugs me to this day that the witch decided to curse everyone in his castle too. What the hell did they ever do to her?

And if we’re going to be flashbacking here, where are Beast’s parents?

I would say that the prince pre-beast was way over-doing it on the whole spoiled jackass prince thing, but considering the way Beast acts on a regular basis, it’s probably fairly accurate.

Beast then decides to confront Belle who is in the boiler room trying to find a yule log. I always wondered what a yule log was for and now that I know….I find it pretty stupid. You find a log, everyone touches it makes a wish? Oh well, I guess it’s not any stupider than the thing with the wishbone.

Beast flips out at her in emo mode some more and says no Christmas, but she says she won’t stop trying.

Why exactly is Beast given a free pass to be a jerk on Christmas? I mean, yeah, boo hoo that’s when he turned into a beast, but that’s also when everyone else in the castle was turned into FURNITURE. And I have to say, if I had the choice to either be some weird werewolf chimera thing or a candlestick, I’d choose the damn werewolf chimera thing.

Belle and Chip go off into the woods to cut down a Christmas tree while Beast finds the present Belle made for him and says he’ll get her something too.

Beast asks Forte to compose happy music for Belle as her Christmas gift, which makes Forte ornery, so he decides to get rid of Belle so Beast will go back to his mopey self and he’ll hear no more of that ‘love’ garbage.

You know, this villain’s pretty damn lame. Tim Curry’s trying his best, but Forte is just a Sailor Moon villain plain and simple. He hates love and happiness and practically feeds off of negativity. In addition to that, what kind of threat can he really pose when he’s a pipe organ chained to the wall? All he can move is his face.

Forte lures Belle into his chambers by using Fife to call the little dog ottoman thing. He plays nice and says he’s all for Christmas to cheer up Beast. However, Belle and Chip failed to find a tree, so Forte suggests that she go into the Black Forest to find one. Belle promised Beast she wouldn’t leave, but Forte convinces her that that the tree is so integral that she has no choice but to go get one there. She says it looks dangerous and, like, no freakin’ shit. She got attacked by wolves in there not but a couple of days ago. Once she leaves, he tells Fife to follow them and ensure they never come back.

Beast wants to meet with Belle to let her listen to the song he had Forte make for her, but she’s off to the Black Forest, so Lumiere and Cogsworth go off to find her.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Potts is trying to distract Beast from realizing that Belle’s gone, and we hear the song Forte made for Belle. It’s just ‘Deck the Halls’…Played awfully since Forte’s a pipe organ and he’s not putting any effort into singing because he hates happy songs.

Beast finds out that Belle is gone and wants to bring her back, but Forte tries to stop him with our third song which I don’t care much for, but it’s alright. I will however note one line in which Forte yells out the word ‘hell’. I did not see that coming. I was blindsided. ‘Hell”s not the grandpappy of all swears or anything, but it’s still a word that typically doesn’t get heard in children’s movies, especially not Christmas specials. It’s just used to emphasize how awful it is to be in love. And yes, that’s what the entire song is about – how awful it is to be in love. The visuals are pretty damn nice, but the song is just meh.

Forte also says “If you’re turned on, just turn off!” during the song. Wow, Disney was really feeling naughty that day, eh?

The song works, and Beast tears up all of the Christmas decorations that everyone put up. Angelique is still there by the way. Her part is basically to stand there and be a bitch.

Belle and Chip are going way too friggin’ far into the forest to find….a TREE. For the love of God, you can see all sorts of pine trees from the damn window of the castle right there on the treeline.

And they’re using an axe whose shtick is to be a stereotypical Jewish person. I don’t know how to respond to that, really.

They get the tree down, and Fife tries to sabotage them, but they discover him as he tries to catch up to the sleigh. I guess he starts having involuntary spasms where he whistles, and this scares the horse, breaking the ice over the lake. Chip falls into the water and Belle saves him, but she’s dragged underwater by the tree. The Beast still goes after her for some reason and saves her life complete with slow-mo immersion from the ice.

Beast locks her away in the dungeon for going back on her word to never leave, and Belle’s handling hypothermia in that cold dungeon very well.

Everyone’s sad for one reason or another besides Forte who’s all happy because Beast is mopey and has given up on Belle. The group decides to visit Belle by entering the dungeon through a doggy door that was installed in the dungeon door for some reason. Angelique, that character who has barely had a part and has been nothing but a whiny Negative Nancy says she’s changed her mind about Christmas since the nice decorations were ruined by the Beast. Then she reprises the song about Christmas from earlier with Belle, and it’s actually pretty nice.

Beast broods some more, and Forte tries to tempt Beast into smashing the rose to end his naïve notions of ever falling in love and breaking the curse once and for all. This scene is meant to have tension, but there is none seeing as how there’s no way he’d ever do it. If he did, the first movie would’ve ended in the middle.

As he’s about to smash it, a single rose petal falls on Belle’s gift to Beast. Forte tries to make fun of it, but Beast chooses to read it…..I’m just now realizing that Belle wrote a fairly long book in the time frame of a few hours. I knew she could read like crazy, but that’s insane.

The visuals while reading the book are also fairly nice, and I commend Disney for remembering to put the text in French.

We interrupt this movie for a pointless song sequence by Lumiere and Cogsworth.

God, it’s like the movie suddenly remembered an hour in that this movie was supposed to be a dick measuring contest between Cogsworth and Lumiere and decided to just up and throw in a random song immediately after Beast’s revelation scene to have Cogsworth and Lumiere basically go back and forth saying “I’m better than you.” It is one of the most jarring transitions I’ve ever seen. The song is probably the lowest of the bunch with several lame lyrics and, again, it has no point. It’s also very short.

Beast and Belle make up, and Beast wants to make the best Christmas ever for Belle. Obviously, Forte will have none of that, but what’s he going to do? He’s a pipe organ chained to the wall…..

Oh yeah, he has magic music powers for no reason whatsoever and we’re never told how he got them. Yeah, apparently Forte can make music so loud that it not only causes the castle to start BREAKING APART and CRUMBLING BENEATH THEIR FEET, but he also controls weird green music notes that attack anyone near him….Those things also appeared in Forte’s song but I just thought they were for the musical section. The visuals in musical sections never make sense logically, especially in Disney movies, but whatever.

Beast defeats him by ripping out his keyboard and throwing it into the pipes, which, considering he’s just a transformed person, is basically the equivalent to someone tearing off your arms and impaling you in the gut with them, causing him to break free from the wall and fall over dead.

You just witnessed a gruesome murder. Merry Christmas! 😀

Oh and yeah, the reason both Cogsworth and Lumiere thought they each saved Christmas was because they saved the rose from falling on the ground. That was also a complete after-thought scene I think.

We see Belle and the Beast enter the room to celebrate Christmas while the audience wonders how the hell the castle got fixed and decorated in only a few hours.

Cut back to present day, Mrs. Potts says, if anyone saved Christmas, it’s Belle. And speak of the devil, here comes Belle and the be—Guy with no name now….This is bugging me. I really need to look this up….Hm, his real name is Adam apparently. Okie dokie.

They give Chip a storybook as a present and ask Fife, now the new court composer, to start playing music.

Belle and…Adam, I feel awkward saying that, walk off onto the balcony where he gives her a rose as his gift. I’d say he’s being cheap for a super-rich prince, but it’s symbolic and romantic and whatnot.

And that’s the end.

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My opinion? It’s a perfectly fine movie, and it’s also a perfectly enjoyable Christmas movie. Is it perfect? Hell no. Are there numerous continuity errors/plot holes? Yes. Are there cheesy/lame parts? Yes. But it’s not as bad as I was fearing, in fact I’d rank it rather high on the list of Disney sequels. Many of the visuals are wonderful, and it was well-directed. It’s not as nice to look at as the first movie, especially with CGI Forte being a sore thumb, but it’s not TV series quality and it’s pretty nice to look at.

The music is also really good for a Disney sequel, and I commend them for coming up with a new Christmas song that wasn’t cheesy as hell. There’s actually three versions of the song in this movie. The first, the reprise and the credits version. I find the credits version the best.

The other songs are also fairly good. The only one I want to complain about is the ‘I’m better than you’ song, and even that wasn’t that awful. Just jarringly placed, out of tone of the rest of the surrounding scenes and lame lyrically.

The story has its problems, I won’t deny, and there are plenty of little details that nitpickers like me will want to gnaw at, but it’s nothing major.

I also found that most of the reviews on IMDB for this movie were fairly positive, and most of the complaints about the movie were just comparing it to the original. I can understand how certain aspects like Belle seeming too chipper or hanging around too much with Chip or making Beast seem too broody would get on a fan’s nerves, but it’s not that bad.

Forte as a villain, despite Tim Curry’s best efforts, and I give him credit for that, is just….lame. While you can tell that he’s partially motivated by not wanting to feel useless or abandoned, he’s mostly just hating on love and happiness for a good bulk of the movie and wants nothing more than for Beast to perpetually be a little emo git so he can serenade him all day. He does have energy and character, however, but that’s really just contributed to Mr. Curry’s performance.

Fife is your typically timid lackey who was obviously going to turn on Forte in the end. He wasn’t too annoying though.

Angelique was just kinda there, but her reprise of the Christmas song made up for a good chunk of that.

Bottom Line: All in all, I’d say I recommend this movie. Like I said, it’s not perfect, but it’s far from being one of the rotten apples on the Disney Sequel tree……..However……there is another sequel….Belle’s Magical World…..I don’t even know what that movie’s about, but I’ll give it some hope considering this movie’s quality.

Recommended Audience: Despite the ‘hell’ thing and the incredibly minor sexual overtone-ish line, there’s nothing really offensive in this movie. 5+

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Episode One-Derland (Cartoons) Storm Hawks

Plot: In the treacherous world of Atmos are Squadrons meant to protect the land and skies from all threats. Each Squadron is lead by a Sky Knight, and consists of several pilots of land vehicles that can transform into flying vehicles both meant for combat. Aerrow and his team, Finn, Junko, Piper, Stork and Radarr are aspiring to be a real Squadron since Aerrow is now an official Sky Knight, though their application is rejected due to their age. When an old threat, Cyclonis, reappears and attempts to take the main powering crystal of Atmos, the Storm Hawks gear up to try and take her down after the only Squadron left suffers from a betrayal and defeat at the hands of their own leader.

Breakdown: This plot follows a hell of a lot of formulas of kid shows. Team of kids are great at something and passionate about it, but the adults keep treating them like kids so they take on a big bad to prove themselves as worthy of the titles they desire. Over-the-top evil villain who seems to shop at the nearest evil outlet store. Energy crystals that are essentially macguffins. Fairly perfect if not somewhat cocky main lead who gets all the best stuff (IE, a special move that is only given to Sky Knights). Wacky animal sidekick. Etc.

It’s not breaking any major ground here.

That being said, I did enjoy it more than I first thought I would. The premise is simple and somewhat tired, but it makes it fun with the air battles, vehicles and some of the weapons. They even have lightsaber-like battles. Seriously, blades of light that make almost the exact same sound when being swung. Though I really don’t appreciate the whole ‘leader gets a special super move when his teammates don’t have much to show off’ thing.

As a first episode, it’s fairly messy. They explain the world kinda well, and the same goes for the Squadrons, but they don’t explain what a Sky Knight is, why and how Aerrow became one, why they get special powers, where these crystals come from and why they’re so powerful, who Cyclonis is or what Cyclonia is.

In regards to characters, we get good intros to each one. Aerrow is a bit too much of a typical leader character. He seems to have few flaws, is really talented and strong against people way older and experienced than him, and has that good ol’ never give up attitude.

Finn is comic relief in the form of an ego-maniac, but he seems to mean well. Despite his ego trip, he never seems to talk down to people or seem more important than the mission.

Piper….I’m going to refrain from calling her the token girl, because she hasn’t shown any signs of being anyone’s love interest, not even Aerrow’s, and she seems like a very capable strategist. I am a little miffed that she doesn’t seem to actually have any fighting moves, though. I don’t want to see what could be a good female character in a kid’s action cartoon relegated to ‘support.’

Junko is kinda funny. He’s the big dumb guy of the group, but seems capable and nice enough.

Stork is also fairly unique in that he seems equal parts dark humor and paranoid ramblings. His green character design makes him stand out, and I can see him being a favorite character, even if he is slightly mean sometimes.

Radarr is like a weird weasel rabbit thing that acts as Aerrow’s co-pilot and engineer. He doesn’t talk, and I found his antics to be a bit too over-the-top.

Many of the other characters are mostly unimportant for now, but I do have to address Cyclonis….who gave her that voice? I know she’s probably pretty young, being the granddaughter of the first Cyclonis, but she sounds way too young. It’s like some kid playing dress-up. The ridiculously stupid outfit does not help matters either. She has a hood that actually separates into several long skinny spikes around her head….

The art is….fine. Fairly simple and craggy designs that stand out but aren’t very detailed at all. The animation is stilted and awkward a good chunk of the time, though the budget and focus seems to be put on the battles, which is really where it counts most here. When scenes are slow, though, the animation really just gets weird, however.

The music is actually pretty nice. Orchestral scores that usually fit with the scenes just fine.

Verdict:

I was on the fence about this for a while, but I decided that it was worth continuing on for a bit anyway. I did get some laughs here and there, and I didn’t experience any points where I wasn’t enjoying myself. It’s just not the most original thing ever. And really, that’s a hard point to make in today’s originality drought.

Recommended Audience: Some mild violence, but nothing I would call bad at all. 5+

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Sailor Moon Episode 5 Sub/Dub Comparison Placeholder (Undubbed)

Best anime screencap ever.

Plot: Usagi’s little brother, Shingo, has discovered Luna sleeping in his room. Shingo hates cats, so their parents leave it up to them to figure out if or how Luna can stay with them.

Meanwhile, Shingo’s friend introduces him to a new breed of pet called a Chanela (named after Chanel perfume?) a small bunny-like creature that has become insanely popular around town. Shingo becomes entranced by the pet as Jadeite is secretly using the animals to suck out the life force of their owners. Can Sailor Moon save her brother?

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This is a missing episode in Sailor Moon’s episode list. DiC decided not to dub it for some reason. While watching this, I can assume that it might be because Shingo kicks Luna across the room at one point, and Usagi slaps her brother, but I’ll probably just say it’s because DiC wanted to get to the introductions of the other Sailor Scouts sooner. Since this episode was pretty much filler as it was focused mostly on Shingo, DiC probably thought it okay to remove it.

I don’t really have much to say about this episode really, except for a few things.

Those Chanela don’t eat, and the parents don’t ask why? All living creatures need to eat something, why is no one questioning this?

This is actually one of those rare times that Tuxedo Mask doesn’t appear to save Sailor Moon in the nick of time.

How did Shingo know that Sailor Moon was ‘cute’ unless he saw her face?

I kinda wish Shingo had adopted that stray puppy that he ignored. There was no real reason for putting that scene in there besides making you feel bad for the puppy….

Hey, you know how in some video games the weak spot on a boss will be horrendously apparent? In this episode, the enemy’s weak spot was the base of its tail….and it was flashing white….A big ol’ beacon saying ‘hit me!’

Next up is yet another removed episode where Jadeite uses the power of music to steal energy.

…Previous Episode

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Pokemon Episode 14 Analysis – The Electric Shock Showdown

Badge Episode – Thunder Badge: Vermilion City

Gym Leader: Lt. Surge – An American army lieutenant, Lt. Surge is as full of energy and passion as his Electric Pokemon. He tends to look down on Pokemon that are not evolved as he considers that a weakness.

Reappear? No 😦

Pokemon: Raichu, though it can be assumed that he has many Electric types.

Plot: After two weeks of being lost in the woods, Ash and the others finally reach Vermilion City. They stop at the Pokemon Center to get Pikachu something to eat and to make sure Ash’s other Pokemon are in tip top shape for his upcoming Gym match when a boy comes in with a wounded Rattata. The poor Pokemon is the latest in a string of many who have been thrashed by the Vermilion City Gym leader – Lt. Surge.

Ash has no worries about his upcoming match in spite of this, but Misty reminds him that he’s had many difficulties battling and his only two Badges were given to him out of pity by her and Brock. Ash remains excited and confident that he can beat Surge, but when yet another trainer comes in with a badly wounded Pidgey, Pikachu panics.

Ash tries to force Pikachu to go with him and battle, confident that he’ll win and not end up like all the wounded Pokemon. Eventually, Ash succeeds in bringing Pikachu to the Gym and faces off against the gargantuan Lt. Surge.

Surge is far from impressed by his challenger and laughs at the fact that he uses a Pikachu. He reveals that his Pokemon of choice is actually the evolved form of Pikachu, Raichu. Lt. Surge believes that good Pokemon Trainers should waste no time in getting their Pokemon to evolve after capturing them, and Ash using a Pikachu is sign of weakness. Ash and Pikachu are both insulted at this claim, and Ash says he doesn’t want to force Pikachu to evolve since he likes him just the way he is.

Lt. Surge continues to show his edge by also stating that his Raichu knows all of the Electric type attacks, something Pikachu hasn’t accomplished yet. After having his ego bruised, Pikachu gears up for battle and the Gym match begins.

Pikachu starts the match with a Thundershock, but it has no effect on Raichu. In retaliation, Raichu performs its own Thundershock, which heavily damages Pikachu. Brock urges Ash to recall Pikachu because Raichu is simply too powerful for him to handle. Ash agrees and tries to call Pikachu back, but he wants to continue battling.

Pikachu heads back into battle only to be knocked back time and again by a Thunderpunch and a Mega Kick. Surge finishes Pikachu off with one final Thundershock, and the battle concludes.

Later, at the Pokemon Center, Pikachu rests to recover from its wounds, and the others point out that Pikachu’s biggest wound was to its pride. It tried its hardest to prove that it was just as good as Raichu and failed miserably.

Ash wants to try again, but realizes that there’s no point unless they find some other way to take down Raichu. Nurse Joy overhears their conversation and offers Ash a Thunder Stone, which would grant Pikachu the ability to instantly evolve into a Raichu.

Ash is conflicted because, on one hand, evolving Pikachu to Raichu would give him a better chance of beating Surge. On the other hand, evolving Pikachu purely for battle purposes would make him no better than Surge. He sets the stone down next to Pikachu and leaves the decision up to him.

Pikachu considers it for a second before smacking the stone out of Ash’s hands. He says he doesn’t want to change and that he’ll fight Raichu in a rematch for the name of all Pikachu.

While they all express concern over the next Gym match, Brock says he has an idea that might give Pikachu the edge over Raichu.

After watching Pikachu’s story from the windows of the Gym and Pokemon Center, Team Rocket decides to shed their villain clothes for the day and actually cheer on Pikachu while disguised. The gang appreciates Team Rocket’s support, even after recognizing them.

At the Gym rematch, Ash touts a new strategy which seems to instantly fail as Pikachu takes a Tail Whip to the face and then repeated Tail Whips as he lies on the floor.

Pikachu continues to get pummeled, and it only gets worse when Raichu Body Slams him. Surge is about to finish him off with another Body Slam, but Pikachu manages to slip away before getting hit again.

Ash puts his new strategy into play and commands Pikachu to use Agility, allowing him to dodge all of Raichu’s Body Slams. Brock reveals that the logic behind this strategy is that Raichu was instantly evolved when Surge caught him as a Pikachu, meaning he never got the opportunity to learn the speed moves that it can only learn as a Pikachu.

Raichu is baffled by Pikachu’s speed, and it seems like Ash and Pikachu have finally gained the upperhand when Surge decides to stop messing around and blasts the entire arena with a Thunderbolt.

As the smoke clears, they see that Pikachu has managed to escape the blast unharmed, using his tail as a ground to avoid the shock. Surge calls for another Thunderbolt, only to realize that Raichu has used up all of its power and cannot perform Electric attacks anymore.

Pikachu, however, is perfectly fine and uses his Quick Attack (and a Tail Whip?) to take down Raichu, winning Ash the Thunder Badge.

Pikachu’s honor has been restored, Ash has earned the respect of Lt. Surge and they’ve both reached a new level of understanding in their friendship.

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– Was….Ash about to punch Misty in the face? He was going slow, so he was probably going to stop after his arm extended, but the way Nurse Joy stops his hand it’s almost like he was going to go through with it.

– Eeeee the Pokemon Center sound. ~Nostalgic game shivers.~

– To the Trainer who came in with a Pidgey….Really dude, you used a Pidgey against Lt. Surge? Why not save the trouble and stick your Pidgey’s beak in an electrical outlet?

– It should be noted that the Lt. Surge of the anime is WAY bulkier and taller than his game counterpart. Lt. Surge of the games is definitely muscular but he has a much thinner physique and doesn’t seem particularly tall. Lt. Surge of the anime is like eight feet tall and is built like a body builder.

– Yay Raichu! Also known as Way-Better-Pikachu!

– Wait, Ash knows what a Raichu is?….And he’s still using his Pokedex on it? I’m not sure if I should make this a ‘Why Use the Pokedex’ moment since I don’t see why he does know about Raichu when he didn’t seem to know about Pikachu when he first met one.

– I’m surprised that Surge doesn’t point out that a Pokemon disobeying its master and continuing to battle after being recalled is a sign of poor training. Yes, it’s gutsy of Pikachu, but it also shows Ash’s lack of control over his Pokemon.

– Brock: (In regards to evolution) “Pikachu will never be the same.” Can someone tell me exactly what goes on in evolution in the show? Because it seems like sometimes evolving greatly impacts a Pokemon’s personality, like with Charmander, but other times they stay exactly the same and only have changed appearances and base stats, like Caterpie. No, Pikachu will never technically be the same, but it’s really just changing appearance and power, isn’t it?

– Also, considering we now know that Pikachu is actually an evolved form itself, this internal struggle seems kinda….confusing? Pichu aren’t ‘forced’ to evolve into Pikachu, but it’s still an evolved form. And taking Bulbasaur’s ability to deny itself evolution later on, it seems like Pikachu willingly evolved when he was a Pichu. You got something against Raichu? Because I have an exterminator who owes me a favor, you little yellow rat.

– Misty: “How can you see a star in the middle of the day?” Uh…it’s called the sun, Misty.

– While I give Ash and co. props for seeing through Team Rocket’s disguises for the first time…I can’t give them too much credit considering a big hint was probably the talking Meowth. Not that it means much in later seasons.

– Gotta love Surge’s VA’s line delivery when he says ‘What?’ after the Thunderbolt. If there was ever an audio version of the ‘wat?’ meme.

– Any reason why the Thunder Badge looks like a sunflower or the sun?

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So, another Badge episode down, and I’m pleased to say that I really like this episode. Ash loses the first time around, making for a real question of concern over whether he can truly win. Surge is made out to be a major threat here. He’s definitely the most powerful and intimidating Trainer Ash has faced so far.

I love Raichu, even if he’s made out to be kinda a jerk in the majority of the episode like Surge is. Plus, his existence throughout the episode seems to be to signify being something that Pikachu doesn’t want to be, which makes Raichu look bad.

The fact that Team Rocket cheers Pikachu on instead of ruining the flow of the episode with stealing was very welcome, and I like how Ash didn’t use made up BS or cheating to win this match. In addition, it’s his first actually WON Badge as the other two have been pity badges.

The only thing I kinda don’t like is how it was Brock who was the one who gave Ash the match-winning advice. I usually like when Brock and Misty actually impact the plot, but, if he hadn’t been there, Ash would’ve lost. He’d probably run back to Pewter City and try to juice up Pikachu with a water wheel again. I would’ve preferred if he had done research himself, figured it out on his own etc. Even if it was just a fluke. But it’s not like this is the first nor far from the last time this will ever happen. I take what I can get.

Next episode, we start off the St. Anne arc!

Previous Episode…

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Amon (Manga) Volume 2 Review

Plot: A look at the past of Amon and Satan. What truly happened back when demons ruled the earth so many years ago?

Breakdown: This volume is a complete shift away from Devilman pretty much in its entirety. Here, we’re going to prehistoric times where demons and dinosaurs ruled the earth. A winged harpy-like race called the Silene, mostly consisting of females, are proud warriors who rule over the land and take down all who oppose them. Their leader is a gigantic Silene merely called ‘mother.’

The Silene have tanned skin and black wings. When a pale child with no wings is born, it’s taken as a bad omen. One of the Silene, Sheena, wishes to have it killed after his birth coincided with the death of her right hand woman, Saias.

Mother, however, says that killing a defenseless child is against the Silene’s nature and pride. Thus they shall keep him alive, but he is never given a name and is never truly a warrior alongside the Silene. However, despite his disadvantage in not having wings, he still manages to become a very powerful warrior, taking down dinosaurs with little problem all on his own.

He has become as such due to the gentle guidance of a mysterious voice within his head whom he soon realizes is the voice of another outcast Silene, a white-winged creature merely known as ‘the white monster.’ She contracts the boy out to bring her food and increase her power. When a Silene named Sheena catches wind of their secret meetings, she tries to convince Mother to do something about it for fear that they will wipe out the Silene. However, Mother simply states that their fate is something they cannot avoid.

As the Silene do indeed start getting killed by the demons and dinosaurs roaming the earth, and Sheena herself gets terrible wounds to her leg and wings that make her unable to fly and hidner her battle capabilities, the white monster and the boy meet up with Mother who offers her body and power to them.

Sheena manages to survive despite her entire race being wiped out and hobbles to Mother where she is horrified to find her bones, picked dry with only the eyeballs remaining.

As time goes on, Sheena finds it difficult to get food for herself, but when she’s offered some food by a snake demon who stole her killshot, he tells her that he has seen a being just like her before – someone who calls themselves Silene.

She asks where to find her, and he says that they’re probably with the demons’ new ‘savior,’ Satan.

Satan has allied with Silene and the boy, now a man, and plans on raising an army of demons to combat God in order to ensure the demons’ survival. Sheena arrives and hears a story about a giant sphere of light in the sky. It is said that the sphere is the where the first and most powerful demon, Amon, was imprisoned by the gods due to their fear of him. The sphere has been glowing more and more over time, and they say that those who wish to challenge Amon can enter the sphere by climbing Amon’s Ladder.

Sheena, in desperation to restore herself and her kind, goes to the highest point she can manage and challenges Amon. The ladder appears and she is transported within the sphere to find a huge mass of demons who also challenged Amon.

She tries her best to defeat Amon and even believes she has won and regained her wings again. When the man, having followed Sheena, finds her merged to the demon pile with nothing but a delusion and a smile left behind, he lets her die in peace. The man decides to challenge Amon, and he seems to have won. Amon, now having taken over the man’s body, returns to the earth. He does not join with Satan and the others since he lives and fights only for himself. However, he plans on battling God all on his own.

Breakdown: This was a good volume, if a little jarring due to the complete lack of all things Devilman except Amon and Satan. In all honesty, I was perfectly fine not seeing the backstory of Amon and Satan. Having Satan explain it all at the end of the original manga was fine.

The story was good, most notably Sheena and the Silene’s story, but I didn’t feel like I needed to know. Considering the Satan/Amon plot was the least interesting thing about this volume, I feel like it kinda failed in that regard. I was excited to see Amon at the end, and I’m interested to see how this plays out….even though we pretty much already know.

Sheena is a good character, and, man, I felt for her at the very end. When they cut from a splash page of her restored and flying through the air to her to disfigured ‘body’ smiling and crying while she’s under that delusion, my heart just broke.

The boy is not very likable, but I don’t believe he’s really meant to be. I’d like to know what he actually is, though. He’s a Silene, I guess, even without wings he still has talons and feather-like features on his arms, feet and torso. He seems to be more powerful than a Silene despite his wing disadvantage.

Silene is likable as she really loved Mother and is also very protective and respectful of Satan. However, we don’t learn a whole lot about her besides the fact that she was locked away because of her white wings. She was cared for by Mother, though.

Now that Sheena’s gone, I hope the story doesn’t nose dive. I’d really like to get back to actual Devilman territory, though.

Recommended Audience: Non-stop full frontal and back-al nudity because the Silene don’t wear clothes. You don’t really see any genitals, but they’re just shaded a little and not detailed most of the time. You do get plenty of ass shots, though. Other than that, there’s some gore and violence. No sex or swearing. 16+

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Episode One-Derland: SA – Special A

Plot: Hikari excelled in wrestling as a child until her father introduced her to another trained wrestler child named Kei Takashima who wiped the floor with her. Ever since then, Hikari has has been determined to beat Kei at something, anything, yet always comes in second place, earning her the unwanted nickname from Kei as ‘Miss Second Place.’

Still, she has become a terrific and well-rounded student, second in her class only to, well, you can guess. Because of this, she’s accepted into the very exclusive special class called Special A which consists of the best and brightest of the school.

Breakdown: Well, that was quite the fun first episode.

The premise is laid out for us very well. In fact, it’s so well done that this episode could stand as a one-shot and work just as well.

Our main characters are introduced and explored very well. Hikari is a bit obsessed with beating Kei, but they play out this quirk without making her come off as annoying. In fact, she’s very honorable in her quest to beat Kei. She’s not interested at all in cheating to beat Kei and works her ass off to come out on top in many subjects.

In addition, while she may be very competitive with Kei, she’s really not vindictive of him. She respects how good he is at various subjects and treats him like a friend. Though that’s not to say there’s not playful and friendly smack talk.

Kei really is just perfect. He’s handsome, incredibly athletic, first in the class, and comes out on top in literally everything. His only flaw, supposedly, is Hikari mentioning that he was pale as a child, but it’s not noticeable at all and not really a character flaw. I’m slightly worried that mentioning he’s pale could indicate illness or something in the future, though.

The other students in the SA class, of which there are seven, are, in order of class rank;

Jun, who is a violin genius and third in the class.

His younger sister Megumi, fourth in the class, who is an incredibly talented vocalist with such a powerful voice that she can cause people to become ill if they’re too close to her when she’s singing. She’s usually mute to preserve her voice and communicates using a notepad.

Tadashi, who is a wanderer and fifth in the class. He seems to be the joker of the group.

Akira is Hikari’s best friend, sixth in the class, and seems to have a bit of a crush on Hikari.

Finally, there’s Ryuu, seventh in the class, who is briefly seen caring for a sloth.

As you can tell, the entire group has yet to be really fleshed out outside of their bare foundations, but there’s plenty of room for growth.

The SA class itself is a bit weird. We see them go through an entire school day and only see the SA students in class once for PE. They seem to spend a lot of their time in this really fancy building doing whatever they want and drinking tea with nary a teacher in sight. The SA students are treated like gods amongst the regular students, yet none of them really seem conceited. This is even more impressive considering that most if not all of the SA students are rich, to no one’s surprise.

Kei’s the only one who seems conceited sometimes and that’s only when he’s trying to push Hikari’s buttons or when someone else is pushing his.

The rivalry between the two is pretty entertaining and can get a little outlandish sometimes. I don’t think they’ve gone quite far enough yet with it to be really hilarious, and I can see Kei always coming out on top becoming monotonous or predictable, but I have hope that they’ll do more interesting things with it.

They’re obviously setting up these two as a romantic couple in the future, and I’m actually really okay with that. They have really good chemistry and already know each other very well.

The comedy aspects are done well with some great visual gags and very good timing. The ending before the other classmates show up made me laugh out loud for a good minute.

The dramatic aspects were a bit over the top, but also a bit of indulgence and sweet justice.

I do find it a bit weird that I can’t really find a reason for this show to need to take place in such an atmosphere. Why rich people? Why a super exclusive class? Why couldn’t this have taken place in a regular school with regular people with regular classes? The setting just doesn’t seem to have a point so far.

The art and animation are fantastic. While there’s nothing really special about the character designs, everything is very well-detailed and looks gorgeous. The colors are great, the lighting is well-done, the angles are nice. It’s a very visually appealing anime courtesy of Gonzo.

The music is nothing to write home about, but nothing bad. I can see it growing on me.

Verdict:

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Tenkuu Danzato Skelter Heaven/Skelter+Heaven Review

Plot: The world has been visited by a giant flying squid (It’s not a hentai, I promise) and it’s up to some NERV-like organization and a group of girls in mechs as well as one guy in an airplane to take it down.

Breakdown: This OVA….is……..ew.

First of all, this OVA is a mere 18 minutes long including opening and ending credits complete with their own themes, so we’re REALLY pressed for time here. A good anime could come up with something at least decent to show in such a short amount of time, but no…..just no.

A rule of thumb when it comes to series that are so short is that, if the cast is large or even moderately sized, it’s best to flesh out one character or at most two to at least get some characterization in there to make us care. Skelter+Heaven decided to tackle this problem by fleshing out absolutely no one.

We have a group of five girls none of whom I can remember the name of offhand. The only info we get on any of them is given in short blurbs in the character descriptions during the theme song. Oh and that the main girl, brown haired chick, is in love with some airmen/captain/whatever guy who also gets no real characterization besides, I guess, that he’s serious about his job.

The girls in question are artificially created humans meant for the sole purpose of piloting the mechs and fighting, I guess. Why do they need to be created for this? What are they really? Never explained!

Since this OVA is so short, I can easily give you the play by play.

We spend the first minute of the OVA watching the sun over earth. Because when every minute counts, waste one.

The military is responding to some disturbance over the radio before we get our OP. Because wasting yet another nearly two minutes on an OP is also smart. That’s three minutes out of this 18 minute OVA that have been completely pointless.

About the OP itself, the song, ‘Naked Heart’, is bearable, but terribly generic. However, it loses that title during the final line where the singer seems to huff helium and then stub their toe. The backgrounds for the song are some of the worst I’ve ever seen. We basically just get visual novel cut out pictures of the girls, and most of the shots look like they’re in poor quality for some reason. Not only is this annoying, but it puts you in the wrong mood. It makes you feel like you’re getting ready to play a visual novel, not watch an anime.

We get the aforementioned blubs, which don’t really explain much outside of their names, blood types, height, weight and birthday. You know, the important information.

For those wondering, the girls are Misaki, the kinda pushy one who also seems to like the main guy and wants to prove herself, Rin, our main girl whom I already explained, Konomi, our glasses girl, Midori who…..does archery once, and Ayaka whom……You know…I don’t think she does a damn thing during this entire OVA now that I think about it….

After the OP is over, we see a news reporter talking about the strange object appearing in the sky and for some reason, he keeps repeating his two lines about it over and over and over.

Cut to NERV headquarters – …..What? It might as well be that. – where we meet Main Guy, Rin and Gendo Ikari. He’s never given a name and acts pretty much exactly like Gendo Ikari, so he’s Gendo Ikari.

It’s also here where we get our first glimpse of the squid monster. And boy…it is….something.

Look at that…..thing…..that exists…..That is…..a thing of some sort…….yup.

The weirdest part about this squid thing is that it is insanely still. It never moves unless prompted by attack. Even then, it doesn’t really move. Things on it move, but it never moves. It also never makes any noise whatsoever. It’s such an awkward enemy. And how Gendo reacts to the squid, it’s like it’s a common occurrence for this to happen anyway…..so……the squid is basically an angel from Evangelion….Hm.

They want to call out the girls to fight the squid, so let’s see what they’re up to. Ayaka answers a message, Midori’s shooting a bow that shoots insanely slow arrows, and Misaki and Konomi are having the most boring mech duel I’ve ever seen. Not only are they moving way too slow to even justify being practice, but the sound effects during the scene don’t match what they’re doing. She smacks Konomi’s mech’s arms with her mech’s arms and it makes a sound like she’s punching a pillow.

This scene perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong with the art in this show. The character designs are passable, but the animation is incredibly stilted and seems like it’s missing a lot of inbetweens. You can easily tell this when Konomi turns her head when she’s lying on the ground. It practically jump cuts from looking ahead to looking to the side. The animations in the mouths are most notably awful because the mouths are way too big, oddly shaped and always seem to be missing inbetweens.

The CGI on its own isn’t the worst that I’ve ever seen, if you can believe that. However, when it’s put in scenes with traditional 2D animation, it looks like complete garbage. It’s like someone took the graphics for Reboot and tried to shove them in an anime. Believe it or not, we get even worse art and animation when the girls are piloting the mechs. See, the girls pilot the mechs externally, meaning the traditionally animated girls have to be forcibly merged into the CGI by making them in that awkward cel shaded CGI in mid shots and clashing regular animation on closeups.

Some shots during this fight aren’t even finished because we see Konomi, or at least who I think is her, in full CGI with blank eyes and pink hair when she pins Misaki.

That’s not the only shot like that either, because Misaki is fully CGI in a couple of quick shots too, but at least it mostly looks like her.

For reference, here’s how Konomi looked a few seconds earlier.

Cut to Rin taking a shower and flashing back to five years ago when I guess the girls were first going through the training program. Their training in this specific flashback is to sit on a seat that is propelled up and down while the girls moan and contort their faces.

But their careers as prostitutes didn’t work out, so they decided to be mech pilots instead.

At headquarters, the girls are briefed on the situation. They devise the brilliant plan of finding the enemy’s weak point and attacking it for massive damage and we cut to the squid….maybe doing something?…..It moved its tentacle! Maybe it’ll destroy something!……Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand….

Nope.

Moving on.

As everyone heads out, Misaki bitches to Main Guy about being the second attack line instead of the first, which is Rin. She also seems to hint that there is already something between Rin and Main Guy. When he refuses to change the order, claiming she’s too impulsive and acts too much on her own, she impulsively runs off to her mech to prove that she can do the job on her own.

The girls launch in their mechs and head towards the squid. Misaki disobeys orders and attacks first, so the others are forced to change their plans because of it. They make a slight bit of damage to the squid, but it soon starts slowly moving its tentacle back at the girls who apparently never thought that the damn thing might retaliate if it gets injured.

One of the girls is able to get away, but Misaki is swatted off the squid. They’re in even bigger trouble when the slow as hell tentacle starts coming towards Midori and Misaki. It smashes into Midori and kills her. Hey, maybe it was a bad friggin’ idea to have the girls pilot these mechs without a proper cockpit, eh?

The squid starts growing smaller tentacles from its bigger tentacles…I don’t know why. And Main Guy gets attacked by them in his plane. He’s thrown but I think he’s saved by Rin. I say that because I can’t see her actually doing it in the animation. We just see her mech on his plane in the next scene and Main Guy points out that she saved him.

The smaller tentacles rip off the leg on Rin’s mech, which somehow causes her immense pain and as she’s screaming we cut to black without a fade or anything and just as quickly cut to a flashback of Rin being created by Gendo. Apparently, whatever the girls are have intelligence and physical capabilities that far surpass humans. Would’ve been nice to have seen that being practiced because they all seem like they’re no smarter if not less so than your average human. However, he worries about them becoming too smart and strong and is cut off after he thinks about what would happen if they were to turn against them. Then we cut back to the present. Well, thanks for that.

Just a few seconds after cutting back to Rin, we cut immediately to black again to insert another flashback. Editing of this OVA is courtesy of a blind lobotomized velociraptor.

The flashback is of Rin asking Main Guy how long her estimated life span is since it’s obviously different from that of a normal human. He doesn’t know. The end.

Back with Rin, her mech’s arm inexplicably comes off in mid-air. Am I watching Discount Mech Warriors?

After some awful lipsyncing where the lips don’t stop moving even after the speaking parts end, we see that Misaki is still alive, perfectly fine and still fighting somehow even though we were lead to believe that she died with Midori before. *shrug*

Now Main Guy is getting a poorly edited flashback to all the good times with the girls and goes in to attack the squid, but Rin stops him to tell him that she hasn’t been following orders because she has to. She does it because she loves him. Aw. If I cared about this, I would maybe feel an emotion right now.

The girls charge in to attack without Main Guy’s assistance. They make it past the small tentacles and cut into its head where we get the only time jarring editing actually seems to have a positive impact. The music and sound all cut out and the shot turns to the black and white when they cut into his head. I’ll just assume that was purely on accident.

To Gendo’s surprise and seeming horror, they make it into the ‘core’ of the squid. Seeing as how he’s been smiling at their losing battle this entire time….I’ll assume he actually wanted the girls to fail for some reason.

Rin says she’s going to attack the core. Not for humanity’s sake, but because she loves and wants to protect Main Guy. That seems like it’s supposed to be romantic or sweet, but it just comes off as dickish. “Screw humanity, but I won’t let my beloved Main Guy die!” Let me also remind you that Rin is technically five years old or so. Just because she has an adult body and supposedly higher intelligence doesn’t change that fact.

She readies her attack and we cut to black again. (Rrgh) This time it’s merely as an excuse to not show the attack as we cut straight from her preparing to attack to the squid….inking itself and I guess dying.

After that, we cut to all of the mechs and everything covered in ketchup—Oh excuse me ‘blood’, and we’re left to assume that everyone died, expect Misaki, who is somehow just getting treatment at the medical bay, and Main Guy. So nice to see that the person responsible for this whole tragedy is one of only two survivors. However, it’s implied that because of the ‘failure’ of the girls (yeah, I don’t understand either) it’s fully Main Guy’s fault, and Gendo deletes him from his phone, which I guess is supposed to imply something bad. Either he got fired or will be killed. I really don’t know. Deleting someone from your phone is more like an angry breakup act.

One year later, we see more news footage about the squid leading into sightings of multiple identical squids above Japan now. Then we cut to seeing hundreds of those squids flying over the city, zoom out on the earth….The end.

Oh no wait, we have to have more visual novel shots for the ED set to a song that is just awful and takes up another minute and half of runtime.

The actual end.

So….what? Are we left to assume that the world is doomed now? If all the girls but Misaki died and Main Guy was let go or killed, doesn’t that mean the squids will take over the world now? Doesn’t that mean this entire OVA was completely pointless then?

Bottom Line: This OVA in its entirety was a promotional OVA for the Skelter+Heaven Playstation game; a visual novel and battle simulator game where you play Main Guy and get to pick which one of the girls is your romantic interest. I have no clue how good the game is or even if it’s an H-game, but if they thought this piece of crap would improve sales of the game, they must have squids for brains. If anything, I have never not wanted to play a game more in my entire life.

There are only so many excuses you can get from the fact that this OVA is 18 minutes long, and you pretty much take most of the excuses away because they seem to want to waste time if anything. Four and half minutes were completely wasted just on pointless space shots and the OP and ED when they could’ve been used for at least a little focus on the characters themselves, the world, the organization they work for, these squid things etc.

They pretty much did every last thing wrong. No characterization whatsoever, plot points shot into our faces and backstory wedged into completely unrelated scenes, awful editing, poor organization, a ridiculous story that baffles me with how much it seemingly rips off of Evangelion, bad art and horrific animation, forgettable character and mech designs, poorly integrated CGI, awful textures on the CGI, boring and stupid battles, poorly made OP and ED, bad to passable music, sound effects that didn’t seem quite right a lot of the time, poor sound mixing with the sound effects and music frequently being too loud, lackluster to bad backgrounds, terrible lipsyncing and bored voice acting. I can’t think of one thing this OVA did right outside of being mercifully short.

Even if you did want to check this out, it’s really difficult to find a copy, especially one with English subs, so it’s just not worth it at all.

Recommended Audience: Mild nipple-less nudity, lots of blood but no gore, and that’s about it. 10+

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