Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
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Who will win in this Death Battle?
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You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
This week I had to replace my overworked 8 year old tv with my first smart TV, over in the UK, we are offered a number of channels for free, the contents of said channels especially the animation section are unusual and I would like to share them with you.
He-Man and She-Ra
Perhaps most jarring are 24 hour streams of He-Man and She-Ra, both the original 80s series, no remakes; I've not watched either for decades and it's just as corny now as it was back then, one note on She-Ra and something I heavily criticised the remake for is the design.
Apart from She-Ra's facial expressions rarely changing, her original design is beautiful, then the remake comes along and it is hideous, if not for the remake's story being brilliant, She-Ra's remake would be terrible. He-Man's remakes will need their own entry to describe that disaster.
Voltron
At least Voltron has all three series on hand, classic, CG and modern remake, I'll definitely have to invest some time as this series needs commitment.
Yu-Gi-Oh and Beyblade
So far the only dedicated anime channel has two anime, all seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh and I assume all series of Beyblade but only G-Revolution has played, a rewatch of season 1 Yu-Gi-Oh was rough, particularly as I'm stuck with 4Kids dubbing while Beyblade is playing it's best season but it is the season with Daichi who I despise.
Mr Bean
A slight look at some British animation, Mr Bean's cartoon is based on the live action comedy of the same name, it lacks the comedy timing that only a live action could bring and there is more dialogue than necessary for what is a mostly silent protagonist.
Dennis the Menace
No this isn't the blonde boy troublemaker who is the bane of Mr Wilson's existence, but a boy in a red and black jersey and shorts with spikey black hair and a spikey black haired dog to match, no one knows who came first as both debuted in comics the same year.
Apart from UK Dennis having a much more dodgy history, the character is largely unchanged since his inception, a testament to his staying power as the Beano UK comic is last UK comic book still in publication.
Alvin and the Chipmunks
The CG remake takes much from the crazy popular 90s version making it one of the most faithful modern remakes of all time but modern music really doesn't do this remake justice however.
Rekkit Rabbit
The latest show from Totally Spies creator Marathon, features everything you expect from one of their shows, unintentional fetish fuel. The actual cartoon is about a magicians rabbit who causes mischief for his new owner after being saved from a magician, throw in actual magic and you have plenty of fun.
Miraculous Ladybug and Cat Noir
One show I'm glad gets played frequently is France's best cartoon since Code Lyoko and Oban Star Racers. Miraculous has lore that surpasses most modern anime, even on the level of it's shojo counterparts, it does better than them. A full review coming soon.
That's a number of highlights from the strange world of British TV, it's free at least.
Post Pokemania in the late 90s, every company was lining up to grab what could potentially be the next big thing, the new millennium was setting up to be dominated by the new wave of anime set to hit western shores; for TV networks it was like a market day with Toonami and Fox Kids leading the way along with WB who was supporting 4Kids, but as someone who is from the UK and alot channels like Fox Kids and Cartoon Network were on cable, we had to make do with five terrestrial television channels and this is where it gets interesting.
UK TV Machinations
I suppose a brief history is in order, the most prominent channels are 1 and 2 both owned by the BBC, it's ad free but costs money to run as a separate tax thing called a TV licence, as far as I know, UK is the only country that does this; BBC were never in to the idea of anime, their only dabble at the time was an attempt at dubbing Urusei Yatsura for a special report on anime as a new genre and they may have had Monster Rancher but it's unconfirmed, so were left with channels 3-5.
Channel 3 or ITV Independent Television was our main free channel and they latched on to the anime craze early by acquiring Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Sailor Moon.
Channel 4 was actually the first to showcase anime as accounts from friends and my older sister suggests they showcased the much maligned Grindhouse scene which briefly became a news piece for concerned parents, channel 4 would later buy the rights to Studio Ghibli's film library.
That just leaves Channel 5, the newcomer who was building a solid library with their kids section known as Milkshake, this was pre-Peppa Pig in 2002 so they weren't taken seriously, since ITV had all the best stuff and Ghibli was in Channel 4's hands, they were left with just Beyblade and the we have Yu-Gi-Oh at home Duel Masters, but they also licensed an anime from 2000 which too this day, is it's only known English speaking western TV release making it probably the only UK exclusive anime to date, this anime is Strange Dawn.
What on Earth is Strange Dawn?
The story revolves around two school girls named Yuko and Eri who get summoned by a princess to save a world dominated by little semi-humans, basically taking regular people and seeing how they react to a world of SD characters or Super Deformed the proper term for chibis.
The anime itself to pardon the pun is strange, it's hard not to feel put off when you compare the two girls to the semi-humans, my memories of the series are vague but I remember Yuko being insufferable throughout and the final episode being a "what just happened" moment, after that it never aired again, the only taste America got of Strange Dawn was an incomplete home release through Urban Vision which no longer exists so for collectors, those DVDs will be worth a fortune, the only known existence of an English dub is the English opening theme dumped on Youtube, so the dub at least for now is lost media.
It always baffled me for years why Channel 5 picked this anime over everything else at the time, a quick look at the releases in that period, they could've had titles so much better quality than Strange Dawn.
They could've had Zoids over this but I doubt we would get a story like this again as better licensing means we basically get whatever America gets.
I will attempt to review it after watching the subtitled version so look out for that.
So a quick fun one for you and probably the strangest line up of fighting game characters since Sega tried to enter the Daytona USA car and Pepsiman.
DreamMix TV World Fighters is a Smash Bros style arena fighting game featuring characters from Hudson Soft, Konami and Takara Toys franchises, the line up of characters consists of names that would make a future in Smash Bros including Simon Belmont from Castlevania and Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid.
Other known Konami characters include, Moai from Gradius, Power Pro Kun from Power Pro Baseball and Twinbee from Twinbee, all well known.
Hudson Soft offers Bomberman obviously but starts getting weird with Master Higgins from Adventure Island, Yugo Ogami from Bloody Roar, Momotaro and Binbogami from Momotaro Densetsu and Manjimaru from Tengai Makyo, little rarer than Konami but not bad.
Takara goes even weirder than that, Optimus Prime and Megatron from Transformers is a no brainer but as the list goes down, it gets weirder, M121 Mason and Aska are from Microman and Cy Girls respectively but at least they are from action toy lines, the former being a science fiction action figure while the latter is a crime fighter action figure and then you get Tyson from Beyblade and Licca-Chan, a fashion doll line called the Barbie doll of Japan.
Licca-Chan did feature as a fighting doll in her own anime in 1998 but the model they use in the PS2 and Gamecube game is more Barbie than the yo-yo wielding mall dweller she looks like in the anime.
Konami are the only ones who got the memo to bring actual well known characters, Hudson Soft other than Bomberman features painfully Japanese only characters and two characters only known by near 40 year old gamers.
Takara tried their best but other than Transformers and maybe the action figure lines, Tyson and Licca are so out of place here.
Such a bizarre era of gaming to bring this game to life; this isn't the only bizarre crossover fighting game to include such left field properties, find out next time.
Also coming soon is a review and story behind Licca-Chan.
This is an interesting one because I'm not doing individual characters only the Beyblade teams, this is marked on their ability as a team along with their personality, performance and general presence.
For the record I'm sticking with the original Beyblade era.
Dark Bladers
Start with the dead weight filler villains Dark Bladers who are nothing more than homages to movie monsters get completely overshadowed by the Majestics.
King and Queen
The duo arrived among a very crowded set of villains and while their position as part hunters does give them more of a purpose than cheaters or taking over the world, they really didn't have much weight to them.
Team Psykick
They lack originality being just cyber clones of the four but I give some credit that the bladers themselves are much better in personality compared to other low level villains especially Salima.
Team Zagart
They sort of came in at the end as an invincible force led by one of the most angsty villains in Beyblade history, joined by the most bland, a bad way to end Season 2.
Majestics
I think they wasted a perfectly good team here as it's incredible to see anyone take on the Bladebreakers in some of the best battles the series has to offer yet they were snubbed in G Revolution in favour of the next team.
Barthez Battalion
I was too harsh on them to begin with as their ordeal mirrors a number of real world sports teams, I'm still mad that they did the Majestics dirty but not as much as I used to be.
F-Dynasty
For the short time they appear, I really enjoyed this sibling pair, they easily win out in style, personality and design.
BEGA Justice 5
As the final villains they created the best Beyblade battles of the whole franchise with Garland being the only let down. Brooklyn then took Beyblade to some very dark places with his match against Kai being the magnum opus of the franchise.
Saint Shields
Their place in the canon is weird as their job is essentially protect the main four bit beasts but their method of achieving such a feat is spent being the main villains and considering the strength of Ozuma I was sad to not see him be Tyson's final match in V-Force.
Demolition Boys/Blitzkrieg Boys
The final villains of season 1 and full of edgelord potential with Tala and Bryan being particular favourites, even when they aren't villains they have the edgelord attitude that makes them a joy to watch.
All Starz
It's easy to write off All Starz as a cheesy sports team but that changed when Rick Anderson enters the team where they essentially have to win back respect as Rick is a poor sportsman leading to Kai's most defining moment where he silences a crowd for booing the All Starz, their arc is among the most interesting.
White Tigers
A team initially pissed at Ray for leaving, then becoming a strange hit or miss performing team with some unexpected wins along with some equally bizarre drops in personality for Lee mostly.
Bladebreakers/BBA Revolution
When it comes to G Revolution it becomes very apparent that Tyson really doesn't know how to keep the team together as the other members leaving is a sign that they don't hold his leadership in high enough regard to stay that way and this isn't the first time. When it comes down to it, Bladebreakers are more a team of individuals that only unite for a common enemy but will split any chance that the others can claim Tyson's world title.
Then as BBA Revolution, it's just a sad arc of Tyson being a colossal prick.
Dark Bladers: 3.2/10
King and Queen: 4.7/10
Team Psykick: 6.3/10
Team Zagart: 1.3/10
Majestics: 6.9/10
Barthez Battalion: 7.1/10
F-Dynasty: 9.0/10
BEGA Justice 5: 8.9/10
Saint Shields: 8.6/10
Demolition/Blitzkrieg Boys: 9.3/10
All Starz: 8.5/10
White Tigers: 7.5/10
Bladebreakers/BBA Revolution: 7.1/10
Little back story, have you ever seen a character act in such a way that you could feel the cringe a mile away, that's a character clearly trying too hard by design or personality, these characters are villains and seem to follow a pattern, no order for this and a separate list for heroes will follow.
1. Alois Trancy and Claude from Black Butler
I'll get the worst offenders out the way first, Alois and Claude were the worst substitutes for Ciel and Sebastian period, it just hurts watching them trying to be characters let alone poor imitations.
2. Seiji Noumi from Accel World
Considering that the bullies in Accel World are usually the typical bruts several times the size of lead character Haruyuki, the fact that Noumi is doing pretty much the same thing but could just as easily be beaten up by same bruts is just laughable.
3. Garou from One Punch Man
I'm pretty certain Garou has improved recently but he's the wrong villain for a show like One Punch Man especially when he's already been defeated by Saitama and I doubt Garou could defeat Boros anyway.
4. Infinite from Sonic Forces
Cheating a bit with a video game but my god! Say what you like about Shadow, he at least had the right amount of edge and can laugh about it these days but Infinite in a 2017 Sonic game is the most cringe character ever created in Sonic media and that's a well contested spot.
5. Ulquiorra from Bleach
Look at the picture, he looks like Sephiroth after being forced to listen to My Chemical Romance for a week non stop, he's the most emo looking character in anime history.
6. Pain from Naruto
This was a hotly contested spot, I was looking at Kabuto for a while but then I remembered the character who is literally called Pain, painful looks, painful dialogue, painful actions, you picked to lead the Akatsuki, every obsessed fan of the Akatsuki, the Naruto era was a testing one.
7. Mello from Death Note
Look at me, I'm as smart as L and Near, I eat chocolate as well but I'm actually a colossal prick with an inferiority complex, when Near is looking like a better character you know you've failed.
8. Gladion from Pokemon
Thankfully toned down in the anime, Gladion with those stupid arm poses was so off brand for Pokemon it gave me bad 00s flashbacks.
9. Tomura Shigaraki from My Hero Academia
If Gladion had more hands he'd happily copy the most ridiculous looking villain in anime history, why the disembodied hands? You already look intimidating without them.
10. Zeo Zagart and Brooklyn from Beyblade
Beyblade really struggles with villains, the only successful one has been Tala who looks genuinely terrifying in battle.
Brooklyn is trying too hard to be Kai.
Zeo is just trying too hard to be anything, he didn't work as a Pinocchio like character nor does he work as a cyber newtype mind controlled puppet, it's a toy anime I guess.
