Following on from reviewing a juggernaut like Frozen, lets dive into the archive and pick on a lost OVA Anime that was shown during the early days of the Mario Franchise, now this is a mouthful as the title is called Super Mario Bros: Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!
The short film starts off with Mario playing a video game, yes kind of ironic that Video Game's greatest known character is a gamer himself. Then Princess Peach appears on the game and exits into Mario's world to try and escape Bowser's minions, Bowser follows and quickly dispatches Mario and takes Peach back into the game world with Peach leaving behind an Emerald jewel much like the one attached to her dress. Luigi wakes up thinking Mario just made up the whole confrontation but changes his tune when he realizes the jewel he has is real and tries to encourage Mario to go save Peach but with no way of knowing how.
The next day the brothers are working in their grocery store, yes the so called plumbers were not originally plumbers, but Mario is too bummed out to work but things change for them when a blue dog named Kibidango takes the gem which leads the brothers to the Mushroom Kingdom through a warp pipe disguised among regular pipes.
Upon arrival an old man named Kinoko Sennin explains the situation that Bowser had his proposal of marriage rejected and in return not only kidnapped Peach but turned the Mushroom people into bricks and plants, in order to complete this quest Mario needs to find the three mystical power-ups of a Mushroom, Star & Flower, meanwhile the money grabbing Luigi is just happy that he can keep any coin they collect and Kibidango comes with them.
From there they basically go through a typical Mario game beating all the enemies you see in the game while Bowser attempts to woo Princess Peach. At one point the brothers come across Toad of whom was freed from being turned into a coin looking strangely feminine complete with pink color palette, now since this film was released in 1986, Toad hadn't been made yet or at least not confirmed to exist back then, so this version would be considered Toad 1.0.
From there it continues like a proper Mario game right up until the final confrontation with Bowser which ends much in the same way as Mario 64 with Mario grabbing Bowser's tail and throwing him around. With the Koopa King dispatched, Mario gets rewarded with a kiss but then to his dismay, Kibidango turns into a Prince named Haru and ends up married to Peach as they were pre-engaged to do so. Even in the anime, Mario ends up with no Princess and from there Mario is told he's welcome back anytime if more rescuing is needed while Bowser ends up running the Mario Bros Grocery Store.
So ends Mario's only attempt at an Anime and to be honest, this is the closest thing you'll get to a proper retelling of the Mario games on tv screens and it predates those that followed it. Is it any good? It's okay considering the time period and how young the franchise was at the time, like I said, Toad had not been invented as a speaking character nor was there any sign of Yoshi and typically being Japanese only, Bowser was of course referred to as King Koopa, mind you some elements never came back like the so called Prince and Kinoko Sennin are never spoken of again in the franchise and pretty much all the designs kept evolving over the years until present day. The availability of this anime is scarce, even a fansub you'll struggle to find as the movie had a very limited VHS release and most fans know how increasingly difficult it is to find those; your only option is Youtube where one uploader has got the movie up as a raw but I'll leave the viewers to find it, there may be a couple of fan dubs and fan remasters but that's it.
Final Verdict: Even without subtitles it's very easy to follow but considering it's rarity, seeking it out is a task in vain, I still say watch it if only to look into Mario's past at it's earliest stages in establishing it's mythos.
Welcome to the A-Z Review season; we first start off with the no comment vote winner, Aoi Sekai no Chuushin De, translated in English as World War Blue. Okay you might think this is an obscure anime title but in reality it contains a lot of well known video game characters in humanoid form. So from the picture below lets introduce you to some of the cast.
So from left to right we have...
Tejirov: Blonde guy with the rod, likes to solve all his problems by filling the gaps with his long rod, he's also a colossal pervert as well as being a genius tactician, he represents Tetris.
Opal: Archery girl, makes bad puns, is an expert archer but later becomes good at shooting energy blasts, she represents Fantasy Zone Opa Opa.
Nel: Young girl with the claw, good at sensing her surroundings and reacting quickly to avoid attacks, based on the same Nel from Phantasy Star II.
Gear: Blue haired shirtless guy, has super speed and is a little angsty, represents Sonic the Hedgehog.
Myomut: Guy with the closed eyes and sweet sword, is a great hero but only says yes and no most of the time, represents Shigeru Miyamoto with the designs of Dragon Quest.
Crystal: Girl behind Myomut, represents Final Fantasy series.
Karvai: Pink haired girl with hammer, very happy girl, represents Kirby.
Zelig: Guy holding the mask and dressed like a samurai, bit of a dick, great at gambling, represents Link from Legend of Zelda.
Marcus: Big guy on the end with the mustache, is actually the villain of this series, represents Mario.
Okay to put the story into summary, this is about the Console Wars of the early 90s told as if it were an actual war and every character is fighting for each company they represent with name changes to protect the properties each character comes from, although for the sake of keeping things simple I will use the names of the characters the cast are based on to describe the plot.
Right at the beginning Sonic's best friend Tails gets killed by soldiers from the Nintendo Empire. Fueled by revenge, Sonic joins the Sega Army and quickly gets placed in a team with other friend Nel and reluctant archer Opa Opa, led by traveling mercenary Tetris.
Meanwhile the Nintendo Empire are having to fight traitors in their own ranks as Sega's rise to power starts creating chaos among the other nations.
Sonic's first mission leads him to Castle Hope in the Taito Nation where he must save Sega's Lead General Alex Kidd, who is later revealed to be Sonic's father; with no chance of saving Alex Kidd, Sonic absorbs his power and proceeds to wipe out the Castle, from there we begin the war in full.
Basically that's the opening from the first two and a half volumes of the manga as well as the short OVA.
So yeah this review is a work in progress and may change at a later date when I eventually finish the series, for now I can honestly say, I want to see where this goes. I especially like the designs chosen for the characters, especially Kirby's character being female, not the only Gender reverse character, Street Fighter's, Fire Emblem's & Pikachu's characters are also female. But overall I like how different they portrayed Sonic, he actually looks like a respectable hero with no arrogance to speak of and that's quite a positive image for a character that badly needs a reboot.
Final Verdict: I really want to see where this series goes, I'm hoping it lives up to my expectations, I wish it were more popular because it's doing a lot of good for these characters.
