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Apr 19, 2021
Mahoujin Guruguru Gekijouban ("The Movie") is a roughly 30 minute short movie, an all original story taking place after the events of the first anime.
Hero Nike and magician Kukukuri, together with their living briefcase and travel guide spirit Gipple are still traveling around the world as they hear of the Happiness Pickle. It is said eating it will grant you one wish.
The pickle is guarded by an old Dragon, living on a mountain covered in clouds. They are later joined by religious icon Juju and Old Man Kitakita, two mainstays of the show and manga.
A ragtag group of bad guys, modeled after American movie
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monsters, also wants to get their hands on the pickle.
The story is very simple and feels like an episode right out of the second half of first anime, which was mostly anime original content, right down to a surprise ending, but with with a higher budget for visuals and super fluid quality animation.
All voice actors returned for this version (this was the last time Nike was voiced by Fujiko Takimoto) and all of them did a fantastic job as always.
Music and sound effects are fitting but a lot of it is reused content from the first anime. On the bright side, an all new & catchy theme song was made for this movie.
Having seen every anime episode and having read around half of the manga, for me this was the best Mahoujin Guruguru experience and I was satisfied from beginning to the end. Well worth hunting down if the first anime's interpretation of Mahoujin Guruguru fits your taste.
The only downside of this movie version are that it requires prior knowledge of the anime/manga to get fully involved, as well as the short runtime and some recycled jokes from the previous stories.
Give this a try if you get the chance, its worth it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 1, 2021
Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru is a gag heavy, late 80s anime with a super robot and fantasy theme.
Japanese grade schooler Wataru is chosen to become the hero in a parallel realm and travel their holy mountain Soukaizan, a fantasy world, structured like a videogame with various layers and bosses ruling each layer. Wataru is brought there by a dragon called Ryujinmaru, who can also transform into a giant robot. His ultimate mission is to fully liberate Soukazain, which is currently occupied by Demon Lord Doakuda.
Wataru is soon joined by naïve and energetic Ninja girl Himiko and samurai warrior Shibaraku, who often becomes the butt of many
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jokes.
Temporary guests are the shady birdman and know-it-all Kurama, Himiko’s ninja father and a rival type character called Toramaru. Although he’s clearly a fan favorite and often seen in promotional materials, he has a rather minor roll in the show until late episodes.
Animation and artwork is decent for a 1988 show, with the quality fluctuating between episodes. The spiritual sequel Granzort, released just one year later, raised the bar quite high. Later Wataru shows objectively look better, although I personally prefer the chubby look of Wataru 1.
The action is nicely animated but it has to be mentioned that Wataru also has its fair share of reused scenes for robot transformations and combat.
Character designs are simple, effective and fairly unique. I haven’t seen any characters that resemble the main cast. Most characters are drawn in a half chibi style. The characters, especially Wataru and Himiko, are cute, but without feeling forcedly so. Adult characters have chibi bodies with realistically drawn heads. It’s kind of gross at first but fits the tone of the series. I missed that by the time they largely dropped it in (Super Wataru, the 3rd Wataru series. The giant robots our heroes and villains use for combat share the giant head theme.
Music is good, not too many themes aside from the main theme and ending theme though. Sound effects are a standard affair, pretty much the same quality as in contemporary robot anime and up until the mid 90s.
Voice acting is excellent, with the only criticism I have is certain enemy character’s actors were reused of the course of the show multiple times. Mayumi Tanaka does an excellent job as Wataru, younger viewers probably know her more from her work as Luffy in One Piece.
The series creators seemingly enjoyed playing with Japanese language. Having a certain grip of Japanese language is not required to enjoy it, but certainly makes the experience better (e.g. many names are actually puns). What is required though is to kind of flow along with the action and gag oriented story. Real drama and thinking too much about real world rules ruins the enjoyment (e.g. most of Soukaizan should be dark as all the worlds are layered on top of each other)
Knowledge of the toy series and videogames based on Wataru is not required.
I recommend Wataru to anyone that enjoys gag based anime, cute characters (male and female alike), just a hint of shounen genre action and shows with an optimistic theme.
8 out of 10 points
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 22, 2021
Mahou no Angel Sweet Mint is a pre-Sailor Moon magical girl anime.
Emerald haired Mint, princess of the magic kingdom is ordered to restore beauty to the valley of flowers. The flowers there are special as they only bloom when the human world is happy. Mint thus has to leave the magic kingdom together with her pet fying penguin Waffle for some time, living with her aunt and magician Herb (most characters are named after food, plants or music), where she works at her store, the Happyness Shop.
See soon befriends the adventurous (but actually pretty cowardly) boy Plum and the shy girl Nuts. Both of
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them are aware of her origins and also work the shop. Another regular character, growing more important as the show progresses, is neighborhood boy Tact. He’s a lot younger than the rest of the cast and unaware of Mint’s powers.
Interestingly the show does not feature a school that Mint and friends attend. Most of Mints adventures are connected to the Happiness Shop. There’s also no reoccurring antagonist, and most stories are violence free. Said stories usually revolve around a problem that Mint & friends have to solve, e.g. a bakery that closed down due to the owner losing all motivation, a bank robbery, a ghost that wants to see his old hometown again...
Mint’s magic is often, but not always, the key to solving these problems. She can either use it to magnify an objects or persons special traits or to temporarly change herself into an expert of pretty much any field, e.g. baseball star, bike pro...
The show was made in the early 90s but apparently designed to look just a bit older and takes place in the imaginary ToaruTown (word play meaning roughly "a certain town", it appears to be 1970s-80s-ish town located in Europe) This gives it an almost fairytale like quality.
The overall artwork quality leaves much to be desired, especially earlier episodes.
Episode 3 marks the absolute low point of the series, with deformed limbs, proportion and perspective mistakes as well as poor animation. Luckily it never drops to that level again. If you decided to watch Mint, best skip this one and watch it at a later point.
Many other episodes are high quality all around and memorable, e.g. Tact fighting for the preservation of a park, Mint’s pet Waffle running off, Mints race against time to recover her magic abilities.
A general problem is that some episodes end too abruptly. This really stood out in one emotional episode where Mint is supposed to deal with a heavy loss, almost feeling like the setup for a two-parter episode, but close to the end everything just gets resolved and the episode simply ends, the events never get mentioned again.
Opening and ending were sung by Hiroko Kasahara, voice actress of Mint, herself, and are memorable. (btw. the second of the two openings is extremely well drawn and a must see). Background music during the anime is generally very well done and fits the mood. Apparently there are also character songs but the CD is borderline impossible to get now.
While this review highlighted a lot of the downside I can't stress enough how enjoyable this series was. Despite many technical flaws and a fair share of episodes that could have used more finetuning, I've hardly seen anime that does the feel-good theme so well.
While Mint was mainly aimed at girls, I had no problem enjoying it as male, adult viewer (just as it was the case with the 90s version of Sailor Moon). Ultimately its Mint energetic nature, Plum’s and Tact’s antics, Nut’s good heart and the overall positive message that people can be good and get along that sold me on this.
Mint is a show to watch with your family, or a dear one, or something to enjoy before going to bed to erase the memories of a frustrating day. I give this weill made hidden gem a clear recommendation.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 15, 2021
Edokko Boy Gatten Tasuke is a comedic early 90s anime. A manga version with slightly more child friendly humor was also released.
In a futuristic version of Edo city (the historical real Edo would eventually become Tokyo), life is a mixture of medieval Japan and science fiction. Peace is protected by the police forces. A group of young police academy trainees are at the center of the story. Most episodes set up a case in the beginning, trouble occurs, and the police academy students must find a way to solve the case.
Protagonist Tasuke is a free spirited young boy aiming to become a famous
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policeman just has his deceased father was. While he has a good heart he is also a bit of a pervert and tends to act before thinking everything through.
Tasuke has a pseudo rival in Darth Benkei, a tank-like robot based on Darth Vader and Benkei (a historical warrior monk). High durability but mostly incompetent, always taking the brute force approach.
Kintarou (completely unlike the boy of legends) is a fragile and sensitive computer expert and tactical genius
Ghengis Khan is a floating helmet shaped transvestite robot (shown through a very girlish way of speaking) that can fuse with other machines.
Last and to some point actually least) we have Omoncha, who is best described as a spoiled japanese schoolgirl with… no special abilities at all.
Other characters include Tasuke’s robotic dog, a teacher based on buddha firing lighting from his head when in anger, and two adult and actually competent fully trained officers.
There is a recurring antagonist on the form of Ratman (a mix of Batman and the Japanese “nezumi kozou” thief of legends), however most episodes have a dedicated new bad guy.
Pretty much everything in this anime is based on Japanese history or legends. Language humor and old Japanese words not used in modern conversation are omnipresent, so it can be difficult to understand whats being discussed at times. Other humor is based on slapstick and some juvenile stuff, such as jokes about Tasuke's butt, but generally nothing too fringe.
My biggest gripe with the show is how some early episodes can get really slow paced, have boring camera angles and static group conversation scenes. Not really a good fit for a show with such an outrageous setting and cast.
Visually it’s a generally a nicely looking anime for its period, although I would have preferred a higher level of detail and more closeups, this was all partially solved in later episodes though. Tasuke’s feet (he’s barefoot all the time) for example are often simplified to the point of looking like flesh colored socks.
The opening song is catchy and well done, the ending theme is more serious, perhaps a tad on the melancholious side. Music and Sound effects to support the action on screen are appropriate. Voice acting is well done, no complaints here.
At 22 episodes, its short for a show with such a big cast. This is a big minus as the show was getting better and better with each episode. The final episodes thus comes abruptly, ending a show that I felt that had a lot more life in it. There are so many topics the show barely touches on, such as Ghengis Khan transformation ability or Tasuke’s father.
The last episode is a nice farewell to the series while keeping the door open for a continuation (which obviously never happened) and leaves no sour aftertaste as it kept the comedic tone of the series instead of trying to shoehorn in an overly dramatic ending. I’ve rewatched the show twice and still enjoyed it very much.
Regardless of all criticism, it’s nicely made show that I believe is worth checking out for everyone that can enjoy the old japan/sci-fi setting and wants to explore oldschool anime outside of established and highly popular shows.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 1, 2020
This is simply a compilation video of multiple episodes from the super robot show "Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger" like you'd find it on old pack-in VHS tapes, sold together with toys in pre-internet days.
Aside from the professionally done voice acting (the only characters appearing with new dialogue are the three heroes Kotarou, Rikiya and Yousuke), pretty much everything else is recycled scenes from the show.
Being a super robot show, the characters talk a bit about their superpowers, robots, enemies etc. while reused footage plays. And thats it for content. There might be some interesting trivia now on then, but people looking for that are better advised
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to check the “Eldran series” memorial book on Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger. In general, it sadly doesn’t diversify itself from most other compilation episodes. It’s plain and simple boring most of the time.
Ganbaruger: Hyakka was included in the recent bluray release of Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger, but unlike the regular episodes, it wasn't remastered.
This is an acceptable single time watch for fans of the series to hear the charismatic characters talking new lines, but nothing to go actively searching for. As an unintroduced viewer, by all means, watch the base series instead of this, which is a true hidden gem.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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