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Dec 24, 2021

UFO Princess Valkyrie (Anime) add

Not Recommended

UFO Princess Valkyrie is an anime that exists. Unsurprisingly, it's an adaption of a manga (never heard that one before...). It feels weird saying this "means something to me" since I heavily dislike this show. I would only say that because this (and its sequels) was the first anime I ever watched, beyond random episodes of DBZ, Naruto, and so on that were on Toonami and similar. I got a friend to watch it with me earlier this year, and he wanted to quit almost at the end. I don't blame him. This show is awkward. That, which for me was a rewatch, was interesting ... because I realize how little I actually remembered of this show, and how much I probably blocked out of memory. Let's start with the positives.

The music isn't too bad. The opening is fine, though not a favorite. The ending is fine too, but I almost always skipped it and the opening, as I usually do, so that's not really saying too much of its quality. The music that plays during the episode is fine too, though I never really felt it was super good. So, I guess to sum it up, it's average. Not bad, but not great.

The dub is fine. The actors try with the strange script and cardboard cutout characters, but their performances sometimes fall flat. My big annoyance with the dub is that things written in Japanese aren't subtitled in any way, so when the camera lingers on a note, or heck, even the title of the dang show, if you can't read Japanese, then you have no way of knowing what it says. It's not the worst thing ever, since papers affixed to doors can usually be figured out what they say based on what happens immediately before or after the note is shown, and if you don't know what show you're watching... one might be in for a big... "surprise."

The art is passable. I didn't think it was all that bad, but some of the character designs are questionable. At least, I don't find unrealistically skin-tight fabric on the boob area terribly appealing. Not to mention, bras don't seem to exist in Valhalla so (adult) Valkyrie and Hydra have their nipples poking through their clothes as well. Because of course. Anyway... the environment art was good and the character animation itself wasn't all that bad. There are a few standout scenes here and there, but it's sandwiched between several episodes worth of blegh. And that brings me to the story and characters.

Let's start with the story. As is common with other anime, there's an alien that crash lands and kills our unwitting protagonist. He gets revived through alien magic, this time around, it's half a soul. As everyone knows, when you give half of your soul to someone else, that ages you down into an 8-year-old nuisance. Our protagonist, whose name is Kazuto, is then forced into a marriage with her by our alien (name's Valkyrie by the way) and her psychotic catgirl maid Ms. Sanada. Despite how often it's talked about, this marriage never actually happens, and Kazuto seems to actually fall in love with the child Valkyrie. By the way, to transform Valkyrie into an adult, she and Kazuto have to kiss. What follows is a very creepy transformation sequence of naked child Valkyrie changing into her adult self, complete with zooming in on her breasts and butt as they grow. Yikes. Hydra gets a similar transformation sequence (oh yeah, she crash lands too, but into the shrine of the childhood friend Akina) and it's no less creepy.
So after all that setup, what happens? Nothing. What happens is a boring slice of life that likes to forget all this set up even happened in the first place. There's a whole episode dedicated to Rika's school life which also serves as a completely pointless recap episode since it's like the fifth episode. Then later on, there's a beach episode. It wouldn't be an anime without a stupid, meaningless, completely filler beach episode. Even if this is in the manga, it's still stupid. Why are beach episodes such a common trope... Now let's talk about the characters.

Kazuto, the protagonist, is very bland and boring. He has a massive fixation on his grandfather's bathhouse, which is understandable for things that mean a lot to people. But when most of the things he says is related to the bathhouse or Valkyrie, it gets boring. Rika is his sister, but she's even more forgettable. All she ever talks about is money, money, money. And studying. That's it. Ms. Sanada is completely insane. The very first thing that she does in this show is (really, it's that she shows how worthless the space airport security is) brainwash an entire legion of completely innocent, teenage girls into actual catgirls that are her slaves. All because Kazuto had the most meaningless of interactions with them. Child Valkyrie is very annoying and abusive of her... pet dog? I'm not really sure what he is, because it's never really talked about. She rides him and constantly pulls his ears and throws him. Adult Valkyrie is "cool" but still eh. Hydra and Akina are there too, and Hydra is constantly trying to prank or do mean things to Valkyrie. Akina goes along with it for no reason.

I actually liked this when I first watched it. I'm not really sure how, but I guess this is just a shining example of how people's tastes change. I might rewatch the later seasons and review those too, but that means sitting through more of this crap. Stay away from this garbage, unless you like this sort of stuff. I was planning on reviewing something good, but watching this with my friend filled me with so many feelings. None too positive ones at that.

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Mar 28, 2021

Getter Robo G (Anime) add

Recommended

Getter Robo G picks up right after the end Getter Robo. With slightly better production qualities and a brand new mech designs and the totally-not-Dinosaur-Empire-2 Hyakki Empire, how does it fare? Find out in my long awaited (said no one) review for Getter Robo G

The story, much like the original isn't really there too much. It's usually just monster of the week most of the time, with once or twice being a multi-episode battle. However, the Hyakki Empire seems to be a lot more hardcore than the Dinosaur Empire as they aren't afraid to turn dogs into bombs and sic them on our unsuspecting protagonists, ... or use a beam that literally cause people to become brain dead. Since it's not exactly an anime with an overarching plot, it's only decent. But, like with Getter Robo, I don't think it matters too much. I had got a lot of enjoyment out of watching the battles, predictable as they could be.

The art and sound is much like the original show, though slightly better. There's fewer reused animations (but there's still understandably a decent amount) and the art is cleaner. The opening is the same "Getter Robo!" as before, but the ED is a new song. It's good, but I like the ED from the original more. Speaking of things I like more in the original, I like the original Getter design and not the new one nearly as much. It just doesn't do it for me.

It's practically the same characters as the last one, but with Benkei replacing Musashi, yet fulfilling a similar role. And of course the new antagonists. One of which who is absolutely not inspired by a certain WW2 era German leader. I don't really have a preference as far as Benkei vs. Musashi. The Hyakki leaders are not super deep or interesting characters but they do what they need to... though if the two generals weren't constantly fighting each other, maybe they'd have the bright idea to send out all their mechs at once instead of one at a time - which they sort of did by the end but still manged to mess up. I know they probably wouldn't want to have an ending where our heroes are defeated and humanity gets replaced by Humans with Horns.

Despite its flaws, I still had a great time with the show, when I decided to watch it. What was also nice was that unlike Getter Robo, where only roughly 2/3s of its episodes have competent English subs, all of G's episodes have subs that were actually written by someone that's fluent in English. If you're looking for a good show by today's standards, this one probably isn't worth your time. However, if you can put up old with cartoons or enjoy something for what it is, maybe consider checking out Getter Robo G. After watching the important episodes of the original if you want, you don't really need to watch it to enjoy G.

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Jun 18, 2020

Getter Robo (Anime) add

Recommended

I initially had very little interest or knowledge of super robot animes. About all I knew was that Gundam exists and that was it. Then I got interested in Super Robot Wars (Original Generation, specifically) and when I decided to try some of the non-OG ones, I got interested in some of the various series that appear in said games. One such series that peaked my interest was Getter Robo, thanks to SRW A's rather prominent usage of Getter Robo.

Story:
There isn't too much of a story here. To be honest, I do not think it's really a strike against the show. It's really ... just an excuse for Getter Robo to go beat up the monster of the week while the Getter Robo theme blares in the background. In short, it's awesome. However, as the show goes on, a certain pattern starts to develop involving characters introduced past the first few episodes which can get somewhat annoying as it falls into predictability.
9/10 for story, despite the fact there isn't really one. Until the last few episodes, anyway.

Art:
This is the second oldest anime I've watched as of the time I'm writing this, so I'm not too familiar with the "par" of 70s anime art. That said, it does what it needs to. Nothing is particularily busy or confusing, most likely because this was made before everything was done in a computer. A lot of frames and sequences get reused but like I said, not surprising considering its age and length.
7/10 - Nothing too outstanding, but not bad.

Sound:
This is one area where Getter Robo excels. It has an epic opening, an epic ending, and lots of great tunes and arrangements of the OP that play during the episode. The audio quality isn't the greatest, but well, it's going on 54 years old at this point. I usually skip the openings of animes because I don't like them all that often, but this was one show where skipping "Getter Robo!" would be a silly move.
9/10 - It's awesome.

Characters:
They're all decent enough, Musashi is often there to provide some comic relief before Monji and his robot are introduced, and well after they are. Ryoma and Hayato are the more serious ones, but even then, they still can joke around.
7/10 - They're good.

Enjoyment:
Could be because it's the first super robot anime I watched, but I had a great time. I just took it for what it is, a silly, hammy, 70s cartoon about high schoolers beating up dinosaurs. I don't think was a time where I was like "Oh yay. Time for Getter Robo..." so in very short: I liked it.
10/10 - I didn't try to take it too seriously. As one shouldn't.

Overall:
If one compares Getter Robo to more modern shows of any type, it's terrible. Tons of reused animation, a monster of the week format that becomes quite predictable, and so on. That is somewhat silly though, because Getter Robo didn't air in 2020, it aired in 1974. Expectations were different then and it's no surprise things have changed since then! It's good for it's time and personally, I think it's still good. Not everyone would agree though, haha.
9/10 - Enjoyable if you don't compare it to modern standards.

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