The 90s was an era that promoted some of the best of cartoons but also promoted some of the worst and became a playground where celebrities & marketing brands believed themselves to be more popular than they really were. To start off this guilt trip I begin with MC Hammer's superhero series Hammerman
The story is about a youth worker named Stanley Burrell (MC Hammer's real name) who one day receives some magic talking shoes by a retired hero named Soulman. When he wears said shoes he becomes Hammerman and saves the world by promoting messages and motivations about common social problems.
During the 90s it wasn't unusual to see cartoons promote messages about social problems, because being the good Samaritan and saving the world was in during that era.
But I can't seem to get over how shameless this promotion looks, I'm sure MC Hammer is a nice guy and he probably has done a lot of good for charity, but this seems like the wrong way to do it.
All I see is a one hit wonder blinded by the popularity of his only successful hit, it comes across as being the same as Shaq-Fu the terrible video game endorsed and starring Shaquille O'Neal.
This is definitely a show worth forgetting and should leave the strong messages to Captain Planet.
It's unusual for me to review such an up to date series especially when it was only released in 2008, but I will break my rule today because I planned a review for Elf Princess Rane and I now have to watch it again because it made no sense in English, so instead I will review Kuragehime.
The show begins with an old fashioned dormitory consisting of a number of otaku girls of various ages and interests referring to themselves as "Amars" which translates as nuns. While on a routine walk home from the store, lead character Tsukimi notices a Jellyfish placed in the wrong tank with another deadlier Jellyfish in which she attempts to save despite the store closing, she is then helped out by a stylish looking woman named Kuranosuke who helps Tsukimi and saves the Jellyfish, however after spending the night at the apartment, Kuranosuke is revealed to be a cross-dressing man. (He definitely wins the award for most convincing cross-dresser)
A problem occurs when the apartment building is brought up for demolition, and not wanting to see a nice old building go down, Kuranosuke uses Tsukimi's knowledge of Jellyfish to make fashionable dresses in order to buy the building off the owner, all the while helping Tsukimi get in touch with her hidden beauty which results in an unusual relationship with Kuranosuke's brother.
Now as many know, I hate anime about otaku but this one does more than present us with a few otaku with poor social skills, it actually takes the word "Otaku" and applies it to everyone, so lets review.
Tsukimi: Jellyfish Otaku
Kuranosuke: Dress Otaku, (which is why he cross-dresses)
Chieko: Doll & Kimono Otaku
Mayaya: 3 Kingdoms Otaku (Good Choice)
Banba: Train Otaku (Although I challenge anyone to find me a female trainspotter)
Jiji: Old Man Otaku (Played better by Negima's Asuna)
Shoko: Sex Otaku
Shu: Unknown but seems obsessed with being boring
Hanamori: Mercedes Otaku (Only Reason for being a Chauffeur)
even the Prime Minister has some uncomfortable habits.
The point I'm trying to make is that it doesn't matter if you come from different sides of the spectrum whether it be normal things or geeky things at the end of the day we are only human.
Many times during the series and the manga the characters are frequently taken out of their comfort zone and seem to do just fine.
In fact the message I read is that normal people are just as fragile and nervous as the Amars, while the Amars are just as confident and popular as normal people. Knowing that message does make it frustrating to watch especially when it's 100% clear that Tsukimi is beautiful, and the ending doesn't quite give us what we want, the manga is still going though so we just have to wait.
Final Verdict: It's message is a powerful one and the characters keep things interesting but where the show falls down is a failure to give us the ending we so want. Other than that I'd say give it a try.
I seem to cover a lot of music based anime having reviewed items based on real bands and musicians, and later on will be digging up a shameless one for the cartoon vault, but to get me back in the swing following Gemucon I shall review Wandaba Style.
A late entry for ADV Films, Wandaba Style is about a boy genius named Dr Susumu Tsukumo who doesn't believe man really landed on the moon, so is out on a quest to get to the moon using the cleanest way possible from his strangely well funded island base that looks like a Disney World attraction.
Then we are joined by Micheal Hanagata, a poor mans Nabeshin who wants to use Tsukumo's ambition to get a mismatched pop group to perform on the moon.
This pop group consists of an Enka singer named Himawari Natsuwa, a rock singer named Yuri Fuyube, a deranged folk singer who can see macho green fairies named Ayame Akimo and a nursery singer named Sakura Haruno (No not that one)
The series runs as a wacky comedy with various failed attempts to get to the moon, followed by a strange afro-alien afterwards.
For it's time, it was very colorful and retro looking but doesn't seem to have spent an awful amount on animation quality saving the best art for DVD covers, promos and ending sequences.
The pop group Mix Juice, as their named in the series isn't a real band but consists of voice actors who are normally singers in real life.
Looking at the absurd plot, it can make for great laughs and the dubbing is top notch ADV at their best but I find a few things to be a little out of left field.
For starters it's explained that Dr Tsukumo made Kiku No.8 after building smaller prototype models as a child but it makes no sense how he got from simple inanimate objects to a little moe robot girl (sorry Satelite Girl) who is as bad at emotions as Tony Tony Chopper. And for a band consisting of different genre singers, each as different as the other, how come they can sing idol pop music so easily? I'm not even going to try and explain the afro-alien.
Tsukumo himself has a strange way of operating, he measures all his theories using the old Japanese Metric system and named all his experiments to the moon as Wandaba Styles, which fits the name of the anime but makes utterly no sense to anyone reading the title.
For all it's faults its still a fun series but quality wise it's less anime and more cartoon.
Final Verdict: With it's retro feel and high color count, it's an attractive series to watch and equally funny but forgettable as the quality is rather low for an early 00s anime and the title doesn't really strike you as being anything other than "what"
I'm back from my run at the 2013 Gemucon convention in Nottingham, UK.
I only need one good night's sleep before I start posting proper again, four hours sleep and traveling back don't mix with three nights of drinking and partying, big spending on more Anime and playing pretty much every games console possible.
Stay tuned for a feature on the convention itself and some more anime reviews.
Writer's Block, I will put a stop to you right now
Let it be said, that I'm not some critic that only picks shows that are so obscure that only the bare minimum have seen, so here's a treat for you guys.
This time it's Hanna-Barbera's most awesome show, Swat Kats.
The story goes that while on a routine mission as part of an enforcers squad in the Air Force, Chance Furlong & Jake Clawson accidentally cause massive amounts of damage to their own headquarters in pursuit of a criminal, despite not being there fault. They are court marshaled and forced to spend their community service in a military junkyard to pay off the damages, this proves to be more ideal as they then build their own fighter jet out of thrown away military parts. Disguising themselves under the nicknames T-Bone & Razor, they become vigilantes to Megakat city fighting off huge Godzilla like monsters and evil super villains that are usually saved for comic strips.
Originally created by two Canadians and syndicated by Hanna Barbera for Cartoon Network, Swat Kats gained instant success under the same banner as the likes of Batman the Animated Series & X-Men as part of the edgier early 90s era that created some of the best cartoons since the Golden Age.
Hanna Barbera barely survived the 80s as they struggled to sell their cartoons to the right audience but taking a chance on something edgier restored faith in the duo but Cartoon Network had other ideas, Swat Kats was the last series produced by Hanna Barbera that gained the same popularity as many of it's earlier franchises even to the point where it was the highest grossing cartoon of 1994, however the What-a-Cartoon project ended plans to extend the series further and Hanna Barbera were made to work on the What-a-Cartoon project as their last official work before their deaths in the early 00s.
It was a shame as the show was cancelled before it officially finished and remains to this day one of the most awesome shows of all time.
The idea of a fighter jet with custom missiles fighting monsters and villains was incredibly groundbreaking and a lack of executive meddling (Mostly) made sure that the themes they were aiming for were kept, after a while you over look the fact that you're watching cats and enjoy what it has to offer which is always a plus for any series that uses anthropomorphic animals.
It would be years before something like this was repeated again but in some cases like the horribly flawed Loonatics Unleashed, it's probably best not to try too hard.
