A-Z Review season is over and were back to regular old reviewing so lets celebrate by reviewing a crappy OVA from the 1980s, Circuit Angel.
Circuit Angel tells the story of Mariko, a rebellious school girl with a love for motorcycles. Unfortunately this passion draws her into a race against a jerkass rich boy who won't leave Mariko alone because she is connected to some former bike racer who accidentally killed someone, and also because he wants to prove to his father that the rider is the one who decides the outcome and not the machine.
This OVA is horrible, it constantly wastes so much time trying to set up the big race at the end that it fails to properly introduce the characters and give us any reason to support them. Mariko seems to follow a strict template for female characters in the 80s and early 90s but you get the feeling she was destined for a better anime; equally I think that it was also meant to be more adult, the so called flashback Raita has about the accident is poorly choreographed as the person who died has such a wussy crash that the guy must've been made of glass, and this was the ultra violent anime era so no excuses really, although you still get some nudity for backup.
It's not that difficult to make motorsports anime look awesome especially the likes of Initial D and over the top karting anime Capeta. I think the main issue with Circuit Angel is that they draw the bikes better than the rest of the anime.
Final Verdict: It's crap; a poorly structured story performed by a cast of bland characters set in an era that should've given it more to work with. Give it a miss, which is very easy because it's not available in the west, only online on Youtube.
We've now come to the end of the A-Z review season as a final send off the last vote are all Top Ten lists.
Top Ten Lists
Anime Related: Top Ten Best & Worst Magical Girl Costumes
Video Game Related: Top Ten Nintendo charact...
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Were now on the final review of the A-Z review season, and what better way to end than to return to an anime close to my heart, it's Zoids!
The story takes place on a colonized planet named Zi, about a boy named Van who one day discovers a mysterious girl and a robot dinosaur known as an Organoid. After naming the girl Fiona and the Organoid Zeke, Van accidentally activates a bigger robot known as a Zoid, which resembles a Beast Wars Transformer in non human shape, unfortunately this draws him into an ongoing war between two factions the Helic Republic & the Guylos Empire; with help from a mercenary named Irvine and a transporter named Moonbay, the group try and resolve the war while discovering Fiona's past.
Zoids is the anime that bridges the gap created between Gundam and Transformers, it's not quite as angsty as Gundam gets but not nearly as cheesy as Transformers, so the middle ground not only suits it well it makes it look like the better show of the three. The mechs look fantastic and look absolute genius in design, each incorporating it's own unique weapons; the characters are a mixed bag, nothing against the main characters per say and Raven is one of anime's best anti heroes, but the main villains like Prozen and later Hiltz are quite bland and not very interesting, this extends to the supporting cast as well, as most of them can't hold too many scenes on their own, exception given to Karl Schubaltz who is awesome. As for the action, it's pretty epic and not afraid to hold back on the violence, a couple of really dramatic scenes including Fiona screaming after Van gets shot as well as any scene with the Death Stinger & Death Saurer in are guaranteed to get your blood pumping.
It has funny moments as well, Moonbay's transporter song comes to mind as well as some of her mad schemes for getting out of situations including using her Gustav as a wedding car.
There are some things that Zoids doesn't do well in, again it's supporting cast isn't the best at holding scenes together, some plots tend to have a few holes left in them and the CGI is a little shaky but overall it's a good series, decent dub with some memorable performances from Raven especially.
Final Verdict: It's fantastic to watch and fills a void left by Transformers and Gundam when they aren't around, bit shaky with it's support cast and plot holes are often ignored but it's still an amazing anime.
Free Trivia: The franchise actually started in 1982 as Mechabonica, an original model kit from that era goes for thousands.
Were coming to the last couple of reviews in this A-Z so lets kick off Y with Yatterman.
Yatterman started in the 70s as a follow up to the Time Bokan series produced by Tatsunoko which features a boy and a girl team fighting against an evil trio not much different to Team Rocket using robot animals.
Yatterman is about a boy and a girl team fighting against an evil trio not much different to Team Rocket using robot animals......
Yeah the shows don't change much but lets see why Yatterman went on the longest compared to the others. Well male lead Gan-Chan and female lead Ai-Chan are actually a couple, a very close couple despite Ai-Chan doing most of the work, which makes this formulaic series work better than your standard brother and sister or just friends team.
Yes I said formulaic and boy does it run like clockwork, a typical episode will involve an issue of some kind, usually the Dorombo Gang involved in a cheesy crime of some description using a mecha, now this is Team Rocket's spiritual ancestor, we have the lady in charge Doronjo, the brains Boyacky and the muscle Tonzura. With the evil plot taking place it's up to Gan & Ai to stop the Dorombo Gang, doing so with a robot dog dressed like a fire marshal called Yatter-Wan.
Gan & Ai also have some toys of they're own as Gan uses a Kendama while Ai uses a cattle prod as their weapons of choice. Once the battle gets going Yatter-Wan summons a load of mini robots to attack the Dorombo gang which usually wins the battle for Yatterman. Afterwards the Dorombo gang get chewed out by their boss and literally blast off again, which is actually where the term comes from and not Team Rocket.
I have to say, for a show so strict on formula, it is still able to remain entertaining, it helps that the mini-robots change every week and other animal robots come into the story as it goes along, but the chemistry is so strong between characters it rarely makes mistakes, my only real criticisms are a lack of localization for the west, the 70s original hasn't aged that well and the late 00s reboot should've come back sooner.
Final Verdict: Definitely worth the effort of finding a fansub for. I'd recommend trying both versions of the anime but I prefer the reboot to the original.
Next up is popular 90s Super Hero show, X-Men.
In the 90s, superhero shows managed a healthy existence without the demands of some big shot executives forcing it down our throats; Spiderman, Batman and X-Men are still highly regarded as the best cartoons of all time and not many people would argue that statement; and while we know why the former two were popular, X-Men was popular for a different reason. X-Men taught it's audience about grey morality, something that's not touched upon anymore in cartoons; it's more than just a showcase of mutant powers, it's how you deal with those powers and how regular people react to them and how to deal with constant hatred from said regular people.
Also it doesn't just offer you one solution it offers you two; you can decide to follow Professor X, attend a safe environment where you can learn to control your powers and learn how to reconnect with the world that's isolated you.
Or you can follow Magneto and turn against the human race, declaring yourself the next stage of evolution.
Being honest, both sides have good arguments, even though it's obvious that you should be supporting the X-Men, the grey ambiguity of the human race makes it hard to believe that Professor X can make such a peaceful world when they send giant sentinel robots to capture and execute you, equally I wouldn't put my faith in a leader who helped send in the sentinels to prove a point.
The characters are also rich in complexity with little room for mistake.
X-Men is not perfect though, it's humor turns up in strange places, Jubilee is not that interesting yet they focus on her too much at times and the Phoenix saga was the show's low point.
Other than those nitpicks, I loved the X-Men cartoon, the cartoons that followed never really captured the same formula the original did, which is a shame because there's so little to get wrong that it's hard to make this franchise bad.
