Episode One-Derland – Majestic Prince

Plot: Team Rabbits is known as the ‘Fail Five’ in the Military Junior Pre-Academy or MJP where they pilot mechs and train to defend their space colonies from threats. One such colony needs some pilots to buy them time while they evacuate from a massive attack by enemy aliens. Despite their lack of teamwork and sporting the lowest scores in class, Team Rabbits is chosen.

Even though they have no experience in real mechs, they’re able to pull themselves together and succeed in their mission. When they discover there are civilians left behind with no ships to take them back to safety, their appointed leader, Izuru, takes it upon himself to take a step towards being a hero and goes forth to force the enemy to retreat so he can rescue the colonists.

Breakdown: I love mech anime. Something about giant robots and lasers and space wars is always really cool to me.

That being said, it’s a bit hard to break out in the genre because a lot of things either seem like they want to be an Evangelion clone or a Gundam clone.

This definitely isn’t gunning for an Eva clone, but it might still be a less-serious Gundam clone. We’ll have to see.

I definitely appreciate the more teamwork-oriented focus this series has. It always seems like it’s one singular protagonist who does all the important stuff or they pretend like it’s a team when it’s really, again, just one person doing everything.

Izuru might be that considering he’s the leader and his one goal in life is, literally, to be a hero, but I’ll reserve judgment.

Each person on the team has their own concrete personalities, though some need a bit more fleshing out like Ataru and Kei. That’s completely understandable this early in the series, though.

Izuru is a very likable protagonist. I like MCs that are really brave and yearn to be heroes, but still obviously have a lot of reservations about what they’re doing. He’s also an artist, so that earns a +1 from me.

Asagi is the hot-head of the group. Kei is the serious one who holds basically a supervisory role in combat. Ataru is the sniper who has much more reservations than anyone, but is also a geek about weaponry and tech.

Then there’s…..*sigh*…Tamaki. I quickly learned to hate Tamaki. I have no idea why she’s even in this academy. She’s insanely boy-crazy and hardly ever doesn’t think about guys or finding her true love. She’s also clumsy and has such moe characteristics that she even has that breathy whiny baby voice I just wanna stab.

I just don’t know why she’s here. Why is a girl who acts like an infant in a damn military academy?

The mech designs were pretty unique and fun to watch. The fact that the mechs react to their emotional states and thoughts based on their DNA is somewhat unique, and I like that each mech has a specific purpose in combat and they’re not all just ‘robot with gun’ or ‘robot with sword.’

In regards to being a first episode, this one does alright. We establish the main cast pretty well, but the world-building definitely needs work. We can tell they have space colonies and they’re at war (?) but we have no idea who these aliens are or why they’re attacking. They just have weird green mechs and their own unique language. Also, they live on Jupiter, I guess?

The music was alright, but mostly forgettable so far. I have the same notes for the voice work, basically, but damn Tamaki’s voice, seriously. I guess I can’t fault her VA too much, because I can’t say the voice doesn’t fit the character, but it’s so annoying when combined.

The CGI work is really quite good, though the character designs leave something to be desired. They feel very much like a rushed rip-off of Gundam SEED’s style. Some of the details are also very odd, and some characters are simply ugly. I have to roll my eyes at the fact that we have two prominent women in command there and they both look like porn stars. The one who works in the pit has a jumpsuit on, and I can’t believe for a second that her boobs aren’t always falling out on the job. They have to be.

I also have to mark off the direction because some of the editing and directorial choices are very unappealing, like sudden quick cuts and the really annoying habit of bobbing the camera and zooming in real quick.

Verdict:

I’ve heard really good things about this, and, even though I was a bit uncertain at first, I’ve been told that it gets much more interesting and intense after a handful of episodes. Let’s see where the journey takes us.

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SSBS – Zoids Chaotic Century Episode 3: Memory

Plot: Fiona and Van get lost in a sandstorm but are saved by a mysterious drifter with a Command Wolf named Irvine. After sharing a meal and telling Irvine about their situation, they sleep through the night and find Irvine has left.

They reunite with the Shield Liger and Zeke and go on with their exploration. They find some ancient ruins of a fortress from a long-since ended war being guarded by a wounded pilotless Gordos Zoid. Irvine arrives, blowing the place to smithereens in an attempt to acquire Zeke.

Gordos is revealed to be the Zoid of a soldier who used to reside within the fortress yet was left behind when they decided to vacate due to its damaged leg. It vehemently defends the fortress yet again, getting damaged even further by Irvine and his Command Wolf.

Van stops to help do some rough repairs on Gordos before Irvine strikes again. Fiona and Zeke get separated from Van, and he becomes trapped under some rubble, but Gordos arrives to help him.

Back in his Shield Liger, Van faces off against Irvine and nearly loses, but Gordos comes to his rescue, bearing the brunt of another barrage. Irvine, now outnumbered, decides to leave. Likewise, Gordos turns to go back to its post. Despite Van’s pleas for Gordos to not return to the fortress, and driving home the fact that the soldiers he had befriended back in the days of the war were either now dead or at least since gone and never returning, Gordos decides to stay behind and wait for them for as long as it’s functioning.

Breakdown: Irvine was one of my favorite characters, though considering Zoids is one of those shows I followed closely in my younger days but remember barely anything about it now, I guess I’m not surprised to find that Irvine’s first episode is one where he’s an asshole. He had his kind moments, but the majority was assholery.

We’re getting a tiny bit more backstory on the Zoids world today and even a tiny tidbit of insight into Fiona when she finds a pillar with gibberish lettering on it that mesmerizes her. She finds that she can read it, but is only able to decipher ‘Zoid Eve’ before passing out.

The story of Gordos was quite sad, and somehow I’m more bummed out that Gordos actually survived this episode than I feel I would be if he ‘died.’ The thing is, in the end, Van says, with triumphant music playing and sporting a smile, that Gordos will wait for his pilot/these soldiers for another hundred years if he has to, which is a massively weird tone to be putting on this situation.

Why is it a happy or a triumphant thing for this poor damaged Zoid, who was left behind by these soldiers for, quite frankly, dumb reasons (his leg was damaged, yeah, but he was more than functional enough to leave the area if he has been able to protect this area for over 50 years and survive two battles with a Command Wolf.) to decide to live in denial for the rest of its possibly immortal existence waiting for people who could neither be bothered to find a way to bring him with them, come back for him later or died in the war/of old age or something and will never come back? That is insanely sad.

Sure, he’s a Zoid, and I’m sure there’s a forum thread or two dedicated to the idea of Zoids’ souls and if they pass on to some garage in the sky, but I think it would’ve been better and, yes, less sad, if they had him take the blast from Irvine and then ‘die.’ It would finally give Gordos peace and, depending on whatever religion exists in Zoidland, possibly be reunited with his fellow soldiers.

Instead, this poor innocent Zoid is left to his own purgatory until he finally does get taken out by another threat. I would say until he runs out of power, but he’s been in those ruins for over 50 years and still has ample amounts of power to spare.

As a final note, the battles in this episode were more poorly animated than they have been. They mostly amounted to running at each other and having a brief push fight. I laughed out loud during one ‘action’ shot during Gordos’ battle with Irvine the first time around.

They didn’t even animate OR DRAW damage to the ruins as Irvine was blowing shit up every which way. I was starting to think these blasts were really just harmless and it didn’t click for the characters, but one blast blows a wall up and a bunch of debris lands on Van (and he’s somehow entirely unharmed after….) Zoids has never been pretty or nicely animated, let’s just be honest there, but I think we can chalk this one up to being a budget episode.

Final-final note – Fiona, you exited a tunnel, assumed you were safe without noticing the GIANT ROBOT WOLF about ten feet to your right. (Zeke didn’t even notice it when he had the proper POV!) and then when Irvine’s about to attack, acting like you’re trapped, you don’t think to just….run back into the tunnel and go back to where you started? Come on.

Next Episode…..

….Previous Episode

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Episode One-Derland: Gasaraki

Plot: Uhm….pbbbbttt…..A mech pilot dances and tries to summon Satan?

Breakdown: I’ve seen a lot of boring anime in my time.

And this is one of them.

I swear to God, if I wasn’t falling asleep while watching this, I was trying to understand what half the cast was talking about.

The first half of the episode has our main character, Yushiro, piloting a mech in a simulation. He infiltrates some building and is about do…something when they stop the simulation. This part of the episode is only there to tell us that Yushiro is special somehow because…his heart rate increases substantially when he’s on a mission?

The second half has Yushiro in somewhat of a Noh dance. It’s quite the jarring transition, actually. I was questioning whether the video spliced in a different show or something.

The dance takes up the entire second half, and we soon realize that he’s meant to use this dance to go into a trance and summon something called ‘The terror,’ which is about as bland as humanly possible.

A girl…in a…spiderweb cocoon? Contacts him psychically, tries to kill him, but fails. There are people manipulating the girl. He keeps summoning the terror then stops as they enter the final stage because the girl told him to do that.

And that’s it. That’s the episode. Just add about 150 lines of ‘science’ or ‘magic’ babble that is never explained and imagine I hired Ben Stein to recite all of that.

Holy hell, it is massively boring. Speaking on a first episode basis, it fails on practically every level. I don’t know anything about the world they’re living in, outside of it seemingly meant to be set in modern day Japan, I think.

I have no clue about any of the characters – not even Yushiro. There’s one ominous bad guy manipulating Yushiro. There’s another ominous bad guy manipulating the blue haired girl. They both look very similar outside of one wears glasses. The girl is…..I have no clue. I would say she’s nice, but she tried to psychically murder Yushiro for no given reason sooooo….

Yushiro’s the worst bland offender. Not only do we barely get two words out of the guy before the end of the episode, but his face is obscured through 98% of the runtime. He’s wearing either a half-mask or a full face mask for all of it. When he does talk, he’s only repeating what the blue haired girl said about not bringing back the terror and finally tells it to go back when it’s nearly summoned. He can’t even add a drop of emotion to that.

It’s supposed to be a big reveal when he finally takes off his mask. Like, ha! I have an identity! But his face is absolutely forgettable (It’s like when people saw Kakashi without his mask for the first time. Lots of buildup for “Oh, it’s normal”), and his actions after he takes it off are the polar opposite of anything epic. It’s not worth the psuedo-buildup at all.

Yushiro has a sister, whom we learn even less of, he was…taken from his home (?) and he’s special somehow. That’s all we know about him.

I feel like there might be something interesting here in terms of ideas, but the best I’ve heard about this show’s plot in reviews is – Kavik Ryx of Nihon Anime Reviews “However, to its credit, there are moments dealing with the SSDF and Japan’s economic crisis that are quite riveting. What is done with real world politics is absolutely uncanny, in a good way. There is something to be said when an anime’s highpoint revolves around the price of grain exports.” Oh boy, I can’t wait for that….grain…export….crescendo….

I’ve been told that the first episode is universally seen as a major weak point of the series because it leaves the audience with very little information and fails to grip the viewer in any way. Supposedly, you need to watch at least the first four episodes to get any sort of real grasp on the plot and characters, but, I’m sorry. You can’t give me dirty dishwater as an appetizer and expect me to order a four course meal.

Nearly every full review I’ve read of this anime tops out the rating as mediocre at best, and a lot of the praise seems to be going more towards the production values than the story or characters, so I don’t even feel compelled to make the trudge on the promise of something better.

I will say this, though. This was one of the most realistic uses of computers I’ve seen in a while. They move the windows, we get to see the cursor, they use menus and everything. They don’t just bash on their keyboards and have ten thousands things happening at once.

It also has pretty good art and fluid animation. The mechs are uninspired, and nothing strikes me as amazing, but it’s nice.

The music is also a positive. The ED in particular was gentle and calming…which is a tad problematic when you’re already falling asleep.

Verdict:

If you have a lot of patience, do like some have said and watch the first four episodes to see if it grips you. However, I can’t see myself returning to this. I need much more substance in a first episode to justify going through more boredom.

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Episode One-Derland – Mado King Granzort

Plot: In the year 2050, astronauts uncovered an odd dark being that, when revealed, suddenly gave the moon an atmosphere, air and earth-like gravity levels. 50 years later, a boy named Daichi goes on a trip to the moon to spend the summer. He hears rumors of sightings of a strange rabbit man and believes he’s found the creature when he finds a little girl called Guri Guri with rabbit ears and the ability to teleport. He accidentally falls into Guri Guri’s house where he sees all sorts of magical items and meets Guri Guri’s aunt, V-Mei, who claims they’re of the long ear race.

He assembles three weapons for them, and V-Mei reveals that the weapons are magical weapons used to combat the evil monsters threatening their land. When she senses magical power within Daichi, she sees one of the weapons, a magical gun, react to his presence. Utilizing the power of the magical weapon, Daichi calls upon the mech, Granzort, the mado king of earth, to fight black mats, evil robots, who suddenly appear.

Breakdown: The first part of this episode puts it on real shaky ground for me. There are so many things that either don’t make sense, are annoying or are annoyingly weird. First off, giving the moon an atmosphere, air and earth-like gravity makes it basically a clone of earth? Lush landscapes, clouds, blue skies, bodies of water etc. And people live and travel there willy nilly? Especially given only a fifty year time frame? Sure.

Second, Guri Guri is bound to get insanely irritating. And her face….It’s like someone injected a baby’s face with panda hugs and candy kisses. She’s way too cute, and not in a good way. It’s doesn’t help that she’s a little too young to really be endearing. Usually young cutesy characters are like six or seven. She’s like two or three.

Third, the entire process of the mech thing is just nonsensical, and it basically boils down every magical gir—boy plot and mixes it with a mech design. Main character’s a good guy with hidden magical abilities, obviously gets red as his color, and finds he’s destined to be a hero against evil. He’s an inquisitive, smart, excitable, slightly clumsy, heroic young lad, because of course he is.

This intro gives both a good yet a terrible introduction to the series as a whole. It introduces Daichi, Guri Guri and V-Mei just fine and it kinda establishes the mech thing, but where the hell did it come from? Why is it called from a magic gun? Why does the magic gun only shoot a badge? Why are the three magical weapons a gun, bow and a top? The top just seems really out of place. I don’t care if it’s a legit weapon – one of these things is not like the others.

Who are the evil guys? Why are they evil? What do they want? Why did they wait 50 years before doing anything? Did they wait until the main character arrived? What are long-ears? Have they been living on the moon this whole time? Why? How has no one really caught a decent glimpse of them or caught them considering Guri Guri is roaming public areas and teleporting like nothing? They have carrots? How? The soil on the moon can’t even grow weeds. Why does the music from Daichi’s music box make the weapon pieces turn colors? What does music have to do with weapons and mechs?

All that aside….yeah, it’s tickling that soft spot on my heart. Old series about magical g—boys and mechs? Sign me up! I don’t care if nothing’s making sense, you’re having fun with it and I am too.

Art and animation-wise, it’s old and it’s odd. It’s clunky in the animation department sometimes, but nothing too bad. The art has that dated 90’s feel, though Daichi’s head is just way too friggin’ big.

In the music department, it’s pretty good. I especially like the OP. It’s some catchy stuff.

Verdict:

I can’t help it. It’s not a masterpiece of writing by any means, but dammit if you like mechs, magical girl boy shows and nostalgic anime, then this is a fine watch. If not, feel free to walk away after episode one. I don’t think you’d be missing anything.

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De:Vadasy Review

Plot: The world has been under siege for over a year by mysterious nanomachines that turn people into goo the instant contact is made. A mech called Devadasy is the only thing that can be used to combat these nanomachines, and the organization called Spirits recruits teenagers to help pilot it. Kei has signed up for Spirits in order to avoid schoolwork, and he soon finds himself in the midst of battle…..And for those that have seen this show, I know I’m omitting a very important aspect of the plot. I will get to it, my friends. Trust me.

Breakdown: ……..Hm.

This is another of those works that I caught onto due to reading THEM anime reviews, and they pretty much hated it. Another one-star wonder on their radar. So I went into this thinking it would be either rage worthy awful or hilariously awful.

To my disappointment, it’s both yet neither.

Let me back up, we have to address something first. De: Vadasy, I have no clue why it’s separated like that in the title, is a huge Evangelion rip off. I know that phrase is tossed around all over for shows that meet the criteria of;

– Post apocalyptic

– Mechs (piloted only by teens)

– Mind fuckery

but trust me, this is an Eva clone to the bone. Even the art style, animation and backgrounds are reminiscent of Evangelion. Kei also seems to wear the same school uniform as Shinji.

Want more? Okay. The mech is basically ‘alive’, bleeds, and when the mech suffers from any kind of damage, the pilot suffers from similar injuries.

The main character is named Kei Anno, which could be ignored if not for the fact that Evangelion was created by Hideaki Anno, and Kei sounds insanely similar to Rei.

Not enough? There’s a girl with blue hair and red eyes that ends up essentially being Kei’s mom despite the fact that she seems like she’s a teenager.

They seem to preface the title of the show as ‘The Tale of Genesis: Devadasy‘ in the next episode previews. Had enough yet?

The main differences between Eva and Deva……Oh god, I just noticed that…..Anyway, the main difference between the two is that while Eva was mostly taking a beat from Christian references, Deva works very loosely from Hindu culture.

To save you from a long lecture, devadasy or devadasi are basically Hindu prostitutes. From what I read, they weren’t technically always that, but they are strongly linked to prostitution, either because it was a part of their initial practice or because they needed the money after the British rule started, but there ya go.

What does a Hindu prostitute have to do with this Devadasy? Well, the big aspect I omitted from the plot is that Devadasy differs from other mechs, and even the Eva units, because of its power source. In Devadasy, there must be two people in the machine in order for it to function, a male and a female. The male is set as the pilot and the female is used as a source of power.

This power is generated by sexual energy.

Yes, you heard me. The world is about to be saved by the power of horniness.

As the pilot controls Devadasy, more energy is pulled from the female, and nanomachines, taking the form of green scales, slowly cover the female and she feels increasingly turned on, as does the pilot. In fact, in a weird way, it’s heavily implied that merely piloting Devadasy is like having proxy sex with the battery.

The amount of power reaches its peak when the girl does. *wink wink wink wink wink wink winkNUDGENUDGE*

So…..yeah….that’s a thing. If that’s not enough, it’s implicated that the Spirits organization is purposely making Kei and all the girls horny somehow, and when Kei starts to get too sexually aggressive, our Misato stand-in (Whose name is, of all things, MisaKO) has sex with him.

I know what you’re thinking – no, this isn’t a hentai. And yes, this is one of those titles that really should’ve just given in and become a hentai. Why not? Afterall, the show is already produced by Green Bunny and Media Blasters, two of the biggest producers and distributors of hentai and hard ecchi in existence.

That really is one of the biggest problems here. It could’ve worked as a hentai spoof of Eva. It actually could’ve been a pretty good hentai spoof of Eva, but the show takes itself so seriously you’d think it was actually striving to be the next Eva, and that just isn’t happening.

It also seems like….maybe that was the intention seeing as how there are six other girls in Spirits, to make a nice good harem for Kei, but despite the fact that all of the girls are included in the end credits’ stillscreen, they….do….nothing. They’re there to gawk at Kei and might possibly be friends of Naoki, but that’s it. I don’t even think they get names.

The story is confusing as hell, something else they probably wanted to mirror from Eva. A year ago, nanomachines ‘landed’ on earth. They take the form of huge globs of red and pink goo, and if they get anywhere near people, the people melt, or I guess they’re assimilated into the goo to make more goo. No explanation as to what these things are called outside of ‘nanomachines’ nor where they came from or anything.

The only thing that can beat them is a mech called Devadasy, which Kei’s grandfather found 20 years ago. Why is Devadasy not affected by the nanomachines? I dunno. It has nanomachines of its own so, like how Evas are technically Angels, it’s possible that Devadasy was made from the same kinds of materials as the enemy nanomachines. Why these don’t melt the pilots I don’t know either.

For that matter, why are teenagers only able to pilot the Devadasy? In Eva, they’re chosen for how well their body signatures correspond to the Evas, right? And because they were born around the Second Impact? Well, no explanation is given as to why the teens are chosen here. It might be because they have healthy sex drives, but so do adults.

Also, there’s only one Devadasy and Kei is our sole male teen in the group. Yes, the offer of legally skipping school and getting to fight battles was mostly taken up by teenage girls with only one guy in the entire region interested in taking part.

Nothing much of note happens for a good long while, and they jump all over the place from different points in time. At least in episode one they tried to explain these jumps by pointing out when one was taking place and to what time. In subsequent episodes, though, there are no cards or text to explain it. We just hop, hop, hop and hope we keep up, which I couldn’t half the time.

Let’s discuss the characters. The only three you really need to worry about are Kei, Naoki and Amala.

Like I stated in the plot, Kei randomly signs up for Spirits just because of the promise that he can skip school for it. Kei’s also a pervert even before he goes there, so there’s that. He’s not a Shinji clone, but he’s actually less enjoyable to watch. At least you can justify Shinji’s whining and moping to a degree. At least Shinji sometimes smiles, laughs and has comedic moments to break up his mopeyness. Kei is constantly either just being flippant, perverted, an attempted rapist and just an overall unpleasant guy. Even his VA is annoying.

He treats his best childhood friend, Naoki, like crap and becomes psychotic when piloting Devadasy. If he is likable beforehand, it’s never shown. He spends so much of his screentime at Spirits, which means he’s always influenced by the drugs that are making him crazy and sex starved. The few scenes before Spirits have him slacking off and perving on a group of girls as well as perving on Naoki. That’s it.

Naoki is…..meh. She’s the only prominent character that I can say doesn’t have an Eva counterpart. She’s a good friend to Kei, even if he treats her poorly, and obviously has a crush on him. There’s really not much to say about her besides that….Oh except she’s willing to forgive Kei for nearly raping her not even a day after it happened. Such a kind soul.

Amala…..oh boy. Amala is a being that is never adequately explained. Kei’s grandfather found her alongside Devadasy (I think) 20 years ago. Despite this, she still looks like a teenage girl. For the most part, it seems like there’s purposely a sexual link between Kei and Amala. She’s the first ‘battery’, they have sex a couple of times, Kei seems to always be drawn to her somehow, and there’s always a sexual connotation when he goes to her.

Oh yeah, that thing about her being his mom.

Amala, back when she was discovered, decided to create Kei in order to have him give birth to something through her and Devadasy. I don’t know what, I don’t know why, I don’t understand Kei’s past or what he really is at all if this is true, but there ya go.

Amala, Kei’s essential lover this whole time, was his mommy.

You know, story-wise, while being disjointed, confusing, somewhat pretentious, and slightly dumb…..there is still something there that could’ve been turned into something pretty good. At the very least, decent. I was actually getting into it pretty well through episodes two and half of three….then we get the ending.

We find out Kei is pregnant – I’ll let that sink in for a minute, because that’s not even the weird part of this sentence.

……Good now? Good. We find out Kei is pregnant with a mech……. I’ll give you another couple of minutes. Please take your time.

Ready? Okay. We find out Kei is pregnant with a mech, and was impregnated by Amala, Devadasy and an enemy mech who kinda tentacle raped him earlier.

Did you hear that? That’s the sound of ‘what the hell am I watching?’ And…..wait for it…..wait…for…it…..ah, there’s the sound of ‘well, crap, it’s too late to stop watching now.’

He starts to give birth while inside Devadasy, and Devadasy seems to be giving birth too….through astral projection?????

I wish the world made sense again.

It starts a huge panic as they believe there will be a massive nanomachine outbreak while this is going on. The nanomachines in Devadasy have already started attacking Spirits personnel like the enemy nanomachines in an effort to get enough energy to go through the birthing process, which just confuses me further. They make the painstaking decision to level Spirits headquarters and destroy Devadasy as well as the nanomachines that are emerging from Devadasy.

However, before they can do that, Kei tops off Amala which causes Devadasy to go crazy with pink beams of energy that level everything within what seems like a two mile radius. Don’t worry, though, the Spirits underground headquarters is completely unaffected somehow and everyone who matters is alive. Thousands of no-names are dead and untold amounts of destruction happened, but nothing we’re meant to care about! Hooray!

After that happens, Kei and Amala stand before the ‘baby’ that was created, which is a black mech that doesn’t really look any different than the other enemy mechs. And yes, a mech gives birth, literally, to another mech in this series. If you have that oddly specific fetish and never found anything to sate it, you’re welcome.

The mech is surprisingly piloted by Naoki. How’d she get in there? Why does this thing need a pilot? Especially when it seems like, unlike Kei and Devadasy, she doesn’t seem to be in control at all.

“We’re not going to give you answers because then it wouldn’t be deep.”

Kei’s forced to battle her, but doesn’t want to. He wonders why she’s trying to kill him…..yes, he actually believes that Naoki’s doing this of her own volition. He then remembers the near rape and thinks this is revenge, so he tries to kill her. Our hero, everyone!

Let me remind everyone that she told Kei that she forgave him for the near rape hours ago.

Once he’s nearly murdered her, he realizes that she’s not in control and starts feeling guilty. I’d feel bad if he weren’t dumb.

He also reveals something odd. The battery in the baby-Deva….is a weird black and white version of Kei, which is where we get the explanation of Kei’s birth which really doesn’t explain why that thing looks exactly like Kei does now nor what its function is, but whatever. You now have to stomach that Kei gave birth through a mech with astral projection to a mech and a zebra clone of himself that somehow insta-kidnapped his childhood friend and brainwashed her……Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to anime.

He destroys the weird Kei clone, manages to save Naoki, hooray, everyone else is rescued and the world is still in turmoil under threat of the nanomachines. Hooray?

What of our heroes? Naoki survives and undergoes treatment to get rid of the mech’s nanomachines. I still have no clue why these nanomachines are different than the melting ones.

However, the fate of Kei and Amala….is…weird and confusing. What a surprise.

We cut to Kei in school. It….appears like this isn’t a dream since one of his classmates makes a remark about him saving the world. But why is he in school if he’s still a pilot? He spots a child version of Amala sitting in a nearby desk and then we just end.

What the hell was that? What happened to the actual Amala? Is that her? Why is she so young now? Why is she in school? What happened to the nanomachines or Devadasy? Why did Kei’s body go through so much graphic damage only to have him continuously end up fine? What the hell is up with the gigantic solar-system-sized square black hole thing that was headed to earth that was mentioned a few times? Is it the monolith from 2001 on super space crack?

Art and Animation: It’s actually fairly decent. The character art is a bit lacking and there’s nothing really special about it, but it’s relatively fine. Plus, the art and color are so reminiscent of Eva that I actually feel weird trying to review it properly.

The designs for Devadasy are the highlight here. While I can’t get the image out of my mind that it’s a mech version of Palkia, it’s a pretty original design given most mech designs which are usually either Gundam or Eva clones. It even turns into a jet.

Music: Mostly forgettable in terms of the BG and ED. There is no OP. There was some music that was fairly ominous and creepy, but still not really noteworthy.

Voice acting: Japanese – The voice acting’s alright. Kei’s VA seriously annoyed me when he was yelling. He also wasn’t terribly good with regular dialogue either.

Bottom Line: It is indeed a terrible anime, but I don’t think it’s quite as atrocious as some people make it out to be. There is some semblance of an original-ish plot there that could’ve made for a better series instead of a bad OVA, if they got a writer who made sense. The sexual stuff is enough to put people off or make people think it’s completely ridiculous, and I do think it was a little dumb to take that route without just making it a hentai or at the very least a harder ecchi.

I’m not saying the only way to improve this show would’ve been to rely on fanservice and porn, that’s really the exact opposite of how to make a show ‘better’, but considering that the main subject matter is sex, it seems pointless to go down the cleaner route. Even Eva had raunchier scenes than this show, and sex wasn’t focal there…..well, unless you overanalyze everything.

The characters aren’t memorable with our main being damn near unlikable, the story’s really confusing with the narrative being broken and hard to follow, the ending is just awful, the tone is pretentious and need I repeat that this really is too much of an Eva clone?

The very least I can say about it is that they did try. They failed horribly, but they tried. I really believe that something better could’ve come out of this if there were more episodes and more things were explained and better written, but they simply weren’t and never will be. Some aspects just aren’t salvageable anyway, but it could’ve been something better.

As it stands, though, I can’t in good conscience tell people to give it a shot. There are much better ‘Eva clones’ out there to watch that actually make sense and have characters that are likable.

It could be said that the worst aspect about it is that the entire thing is ultimately pointless. There’s no character development, really, and we don’t learn much about this world nor the enemy. The giant square black hole thing I mentioned before is still coming towards earth and there are still nanomachines covering the planet. Devadasy could be down for the count, who knows what’s really up with Kei and Amala, and while the ending battle was pretty entertaining, it was with an enemy that suddenly sprang up without warning in that episode and ultimately did nothing.

While Eva’s various ends are confusing, at least they were actual ends in some way whether they were apocalyptic or otherwise. At least something happened. This ending is almost exactly where we started.

Additional Information and Notes: De:Vadasy was directed by Kondo Nobuhiro, director of over 200 episodes of Sgt. Frog, and it was written by Sho Tokimura, who also wrote seven episodes of Medabots. It was produced by AIC and Studio Gazelle. It is licensed in the US by Media Blasters.

Episodes: 3

Year: 2000-2001

Recommended Audience: There’s a lot of blood, people melting, bones being broken slowly, attempted rape, a few sex scenes done mostly with stills but a couple of shots are animated for a second or two, nudity, but nothing below the waist, possible statutory rape, I don’t know how old Kei is, and incest. 17+

See, Devadasy? Even just going the ecchi route, you still don’t appeal to audiences low enough to warrant not being a spoof hentai. I’m not trying to nag, but seriously, why bother with this kind of thing if you’re not just going to go the extra mile?

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SSBS – Zoids (Chaotic Century) Episode 1: The Boy from Planet Zi

Plot: Van is young boy who wants nothing more than a Zoid of his own to pilot, just like his late father. After being chased down by some crooked Zoid pilots, a Guysak pilot in particular named Bull, Van becomes trapped in some old war ruins.

He finds a secret passage that leads him to two pods, and he accidentally opens one of them, revealing a baby raptor-like Zoid that he names Zeke. Bull returns to finish him off, and Zeke tries to protect Van to no avail.

Zeke takes Van and flies them out of the ruins, leading them to an old ruined Shield Liger. Zeke amazingly fuses with the Shield Liger, bringing it back to full form, and Van manages to scare off the enemy.

After the battle concludes, Zeke leads them back to the ruins where he prompts Van to open the second pod. Thinking it’s another Zoid, Van excitedly agrees only to find that the pod contains a strange girl.

Breakdown: Zoids was a show that I definitely followed when I was younger. Here’s the thing though, outside of the bare basics, I remember nothing of the story. I remember Zoids, I remember fighting, I remember Van, Fiona and Zeke, that’s about it. I don’t know if that says something about the quality of the show. Hopefully it’s just my crappy-ass memory.

As for this first episode, it’s pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. They establish basically what Zoids are without going into expositiony detail. They introduce Van quite well, and he’s a really likable character so far. You click with him near the end when you see how excited he is to win his first Zoid battle. His relationship with Zeke also starts out pretty strong.

The enemies…..are….the biggest weak point of the episode. The other two, who pilot Command Wolves, are just blah, which is not at all helped by their completely bored voice acting.

Bull, however, is just nearing ridiculously evil. He whines about not getting one of the cool Command Wolves from whoever his bosses are, so he takes command of a stray Guysak, a scorpion-like Zoid, and tries to prove its worth by killing Van….Yeah I’m sure you’ll look so impressive killing a small boy with a 20 ton battle robot. He justifies it by saying he witnessed something or other, but it’s pretty flimsy.

The other weak spot of this episode would probably be the scene with Van’s sister at their father’s grave. It’s just a big fat exposition dump.

The art is usually pretty good, and even the CGI Zoids look pretty nice and don’t clash too much with the traditional animation. However, there are a bunch of scenes with silly and odd facial expressions. Nearly every shot of Bull is a screenshot for the books, and even Van gets some laughable faces.

The music is pretty good, and the ED has stuck with me throughout the years. Something interesting about this series is that, unlike a ton of English dubbed shows, this one keeps the next episode previews, which I greatly appreciate even if they have a habit of spoiling episodes every now and then.

The voice acting, English, is a mixed bag so far. Van’s VA is pretty good, and Bull’s is alright, but the silver haired Command Wolf pilot was just horrible. He could not sound more bored. Van’s sister’s VA also isn’t very good.

All in all, a pretty good first episode that leaves a nice cliffhanger-ish ending to have you chomping at the bit a little to see what’s up with both Zeke and the girl, Fiona.

Next episode, we learn more about the mysterious girl from the pod, Fiona.

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