Kiss Dum: Engage Planet

I highly recommend it.

Now before I continue, there were only 19 episodes subbed for this series and most of the resulting subs were either sub-par to horrible to acceptable. This was due to having 3 different fansubs from the superb subs from the original fansub group (MENCLAVE) to the infamously "horrible" fansub group Mendoan.When I state "horrible', I meant the English composition that one will read when watching the series from episodes 8 onwards.

Another note: After episode 7, Bandai Visual bought the rights and any viewer of the series will no doubt, notice how inferior the subs got once the announcement was made ... by Bandai.

Now to the series...

One thing that caught my attention was the concept of oversized bug-like creatures who begin to obliterate humankind and they are called the Hadians. The storyline revolves around Aiba Kun who is one his path of revenge against his former boss who betrayed humankind to these creatures. The reason is slowly told in the late episodes. Also in this blood-lust package of revenge, is to avenge the "death" (or disappearance) of his love, Yuno. As the story progresses, Aiba is given the ultimate power of the Messenger from the Book of the Dead, as a savior of humankind. He is guided by 3 cute-girls who are demi-gods acting as Aiba's arsenal because his body can transform into different weapons.

Another thing worth mentioning is the original and superb design of the flying war-ships like the Dolphin and the NES-1 which makes Gundam and Macross look silly. This eye-candy makes me want to buy one (if it really existed and if I'm rich) and that what separates it from the rest of the mecha series that abound in the anime universe.

There are only 19 episodes subbed and there's a rumor after 2 years of no news, that a new season is underway..named Planet Engage R. R either stands for the mythical episode 27 which is the actual fill-in for episode 4 ( a repeat of the past 3 episodes) or signifies according to the last info dated 11-2008 that a season is being produced. It also is ridiculous that Bandai hasn;t done anything in 2 years, unlike Funimation which releases their series as quickly as you can say "money".

A fantastic series, IMHO and worth watching. If only they would not HAVE bought the series rights that we would all enjoy a show whose greatness would have been comparable to Gundam or Macross.

✪ Genre: action (gunfights, swordplay), adventure, mecha (robots, power suits) military, sci-fi (alien, post-apocalyptic), seinen with some elements of romance and dementia


✔Positive Aspects✔

◧ An interesting rehashing of a very familiar concept: an invasion of Earth by an alien genus which is incredibly heterogeneous since it is comprised of countless species, all united in their quest to wipe humanity off the map.

◧ Pretty cool soundtrack: a decent and large selection of songs for all kinds of different scenes, mostly revolving around j-pop, electropop, and techno.

◧ I very much liked the pace of the plot, at least, up until the 19th episode, where the series started ... picking up very quickly and quite unevenly at that.

◧ Decent character development, at least, for some of the protagonist's frenemies.

◧ Decent animation: the characters' designs were unmistakably clear, while the piloted robots and Hardians were sufficiently clear, but could have been better (more vibrant, highly saturated colors).


✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Although I liked the overall concept behind the series, I can't say that I ended the series without any bewilderment and second-guessing of what I witnessed. The series had more than enough air time to sufficiently explain major themes (origins of the alien genus, origins of the 'Book of the Dead', origins of the 'servants', the arrangement of the international political system, etc.) but instead, it opted for wasting time with the protagonist walking around the country (?) killing monsters in pursuit of revenge for his lover's murder. Also, the series ended without clearly explaining the state of the protagonist and his lover's existence, whether they were alive somewhere, dead or reincarnated.

◧ Pretty mediocre action scenes: they tended to not unfold, from start to finish, in a consistent, satisfactory manner, since they were either starting/ending too quickly or developing slowly and escalating quickly.

◧ Inconsistent use of gore elements: they were either popping up during mass killings or not at all.

Overall: The series had potential, but squandered it on the meaningless wandering of the protagonist while he was killing Hardians and screaming in frustration about his lover's untimely fate.

This anime is just plain bad. It had potential, but in the end it's just disappointing. The only reason why I even managed to finish the whole thing was because things didn't become clear until near the very end. If the plot was written differently, it would've been more successful ending at around maybe 12 episode. [spoiler] Because the whole time it was about Aiba taking revenge for Yuno and killing most of his revived friends. The conflict would've end a lot faster if Kyoka,the commander of the NIDF, tries to improvise when the book of dead was used on Aiba by working with him ... finding a better solution, but instead she tries to eliminate him and killing millions of people because things didn't turn out the way she wanted to.[end spoiler] I wouldn't recommend watching it, but after reading this and you still feel like watching it, you can go to doutei fansub website for subtitles of all 26 episode + the ova.