Remember I said I'd review this at a later date? Well here's your later date as I review it right now. Lets Review Burn Up Excess.
In a slight mirror image of the Burn Up W story, a number of crimes take place that hide a much deeper underlying plot only this time more episodes are given to flesh out the plot better and make the payoff from the final episode a much more rewarding experience than the climax Burn Up W offers.
The cast is exactly the same as before so I need not repeat what they do but there are now more episodes to offer and more opportunities to expand on the character's personalities and dive into their backgrounds a bit, which works well with the likes of Maya, Rio, Nanvel and Maki but Yuji and Lilica stay grounded as a result but then again Yuji being the only guy in a group of sexy policewomen you're never going to be anything other than a pervert which is flanderized to it's maximum in this show, in fact flanderization is the perfect way to sum up the experience as many of the character's already unique traits get maxed up even more, I suppose this was inevitable anyway being a longer series than Burn Up W and already gaining a reputation for obvious fan service which led to the creation of the legendary jiggle counter but at least they could've done was have a little restraint.
Overall Burn Up Excess still maintains the fun Burn Up W was trying to accomplish with it's tiny episode count and succeeds in telling the story it wanted to tell by expanding and fine tuning the details that Burn Up W used in their own storyline. It's living proof that you can make an OVA series into a decent TV Series and while Excess does push flanderization to it's limits it never goes too far that the quality suffers for it.
Dub is similar to Burn Up W but voice cast changes have improved the quality of their performances.
Final Verdict: This is the anime that Burn Up wanted to be in the first place and succeeds in all areas, while it's hard to over look the flanderization of the characters, it doesn't spoil the experience on offer.
Sometimes I need to be reminded of why I watch anime so I dived into my retro collection and dug out an old police anime from the 90s, this review is Burn Up W.
First a history lesson, in the past the Burn Up franchise started as a one off OVA that rounded off the ultra violent era of anime perfectly, this then became the four episode ova were reviewing today followed by a 13 episode TV series and an alternate universe TV series also 13 episodes.
Burn Up W is about a specialist police task force called Warrior consisting of Busty Martial Arts Master Rio, Gun Crazed Lunatic Maya, Perverted Pilot Yuji, Perky Little Hacker Lilica and Genki Tech Scientist (who probably has several law suits from Studio Gainax) Nanval; all of whom are led by the deviously cruel Maki who is apparently the same Maki from the very first Burn Up which is odd because that Maki is blonde and looks suspiciously like Rio.
Anyway the first mission is a hostage situation but the four guys doing it are only after weird requests like demanding a Baseball Manager to publicly castrate himself or asking an Idol Singer to bungee jump naked, in the meantime the proper terrorists who setup the whole hostage situation attempt to try and market a so called Virtual Drug by testing it on certain hostages behind the scenes.
Team Warrior go into action and deliberately mess around with the terrorists demands with Rio pretending to be the naked Idol Singer to grab the Terrorists attention and take them out, that's just episode one.
Being honest episode two is the worst, the quality is dire, the story barely makes any sense and the sound quality in the dub is awful, and how a Virtual Idol is significant to the whole Virtual Drug thing is not explained and the attack android the enemies have, comes out of no where, not to mention Nanvel building a cheap knock off of EVA Unit 01 which explains the early joke on lawsuits.
The final two part episode takes things in a more serious approach as a traitor within the Police Ranks stages a terrorist attack in the Police Building killing Rio's best friend along with many other officers. Warrior are deployed to take out the terrorists and win but a curious epilogue left more questions as the villains use their influence over the President to disband everyone investigating the Virtual Drug and it kind of leaves it on that cliff hanger.
It's clear from the epilogue that this was meant to last longer than it did but thankfully Burn Up Excess manages to satisfy the fans hunger for this series which will be reviewed at a later date.
Burn Up W is just plain fun, the first episode alone is my favorite first episode of any anime, it knew it had to grab attention and grab attention it did, while episode two is horrible the final two episodes that round this off deliver an episode that perfectly balances drama, action and comedy and knows not to over do it on all ends.
With only one duff episode out of four, Burn Up W was onto something special which is why a new series was green lit with the same cast of characters. The dub is great, the art style really shows great detail at times and the overall run of the story is very entertaining to watch.
Final Verdict: Burn Up W is plain fun and is the diamond polished from the rock of it's older sister the original Burn Up. While the second episode is very much a miss and the epilogue adds more questions, the other episodes more than make up for it.
Now the second review, this time it's Clarence.
Clarence is about an optimistic kid of the same name who loves fun and each episode is basically whatever fun scenario that can be created from a basic plot. That's about it really, there's nothing much to talk about in that regards.
So having just finished Uncle Grandpa and not really hating it, do I feel the same about this show?
Well yes, the difference is it takes from another classic medium of a group of kids with the central character being the class clown and it really doesn't do a lot wrong. My only issue is that I'm not a fan of the art style and it doesn't do anything I would consider great but again there's no real reason to hate it either.
This kind of enigma that seems to plague shows like Clarence in this era is rather jarring and makes it difficult to find a strong definitive opinion for, even more jarring when the creator of the show was fired by Cartoon Network for sexual assault. But I will say it again this era still surprises me and even a normal cartoon can't be considered bad anymore.
Next time a top ten list.
There are a few shows that I want to get out of my system particularly from the Cartoon Network stable. So expect the second review to follow immediately after this one as we start with Uncle Grandpa.
Uncle Grandpa began as a spin off show to the forgettable Secret Mountain Fort Awesome about a magical old man who is everyone's uncle and grandpa, how that works is baffling but not the weirdest thing the show offers.
A typical episode would have someone having problems and Uncle Grandpa solving it in his own eccentric way, he does this with a magical belly bag, a disgruntled Green Dinosaur named Mr Gus, a sentient Pizza named Pizza Steve and a Giant Realistic Flying Tiger who is propelled by rainbow farts.
Yeah the weirdness in this show is unbelievable at times especially when they perform an Animaniacs style sketch in between commercial breaks and episodes, the recipe for this show sounds like the worst possible cartoon, yet I don't actually hate it.
I've been fortunate enough to have seen a large enough library of cartoons that whenever a modern show goes back to the basics of slapstick and weirdness that early Disney, Tex Avery and Looney Tunes gave us, it actually makes me smile more than it makes me groan.
Yes, Uncle Grandpa isn't perfect and it's nowhere near the standard of Cartoon Network's current big three but at the very least it isn't terrible, and still gives us hope that cartoons haven't completely lost the plot, no pun intended.
Apparently today is officially Goku Day in Japan, just for the celebration of anime's finest hero Son Goku from Dragonballz so I figured I review his introduction in the original Dragonball anime.
Do I really need to tell you the story?.........
Okay fine, Goku is a boy with a monkey tail who grows up alone having lost his grandfather, this doesn't seem to affect the kid as he functions quite well on his own. Bulma is a teenage girl in search of the mystical Dragonballs, large shiny stones that when seven are combined can summon a dragon and grant wishes, upon meeting Goku, Bulma explains what Dragonballs are as Goku has one and the two decide to search for the other Dragonballs, this starts a series of fantastic adventures fighting weird beasts, martial arts masters and plenty of juvenile jokes to go around.
And that last part is my biggest problem with this series, it's the juvenile jokes, they haven't aged well in an era that doesn't welcome them anymore. For example an early running joke is Goku trying to identify women by tapping them in a forbidden area. I'll let you work that one out.
Some other jokes are Bulma being a tsundere (you wouldn't think she invented it but she did) Oolong being a coward and a pervert and the first enemy boiling down to an imp dressed as a clown.
The story all round is terrible, but, and this a big but, it improves dramatically as the series goes on as stakes are raised and enemies get better and then you start looking at Dragonball as a fighting shonen anime rather than a mystical adventure one which foreshadows Dragonballz's premier towards the end.
Toriyama is a good artist and can choreograph an excellent fight scene but can't write a story without featuring horribly written jokes and pointless fanservice in an era that didn't feature it mainstream. The Overall experience knowing that this show is roughly the same age as me is slight disbelief that the most significant fighting anime of all time evolved from such a train wreck packed with really difficult to swallow 80s cliches, while it's a long series that does grow up over time, you still have to put up with the really bad parts to get to the good parts.
Final Verdict: This is why Dragonballz was licensed before Dragonball, the jokes really fall flat for a modern day audience and shows it's age badly as a result, while it does improve it takes time to improve and if you haven't already switched off by then, then you will be well rewarded for your patience.
