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QFT: "So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet from Spaceballs

Too bad in this show evil is equally stupid which makes means good will win despite its best effort to avoid it.

Overall/Enjoyment: 3 and 2 - Hulk didn't want to smash TV so Hulk had to put the show aside.

Art/Sound: 4 and 6 respectively - very middle of the road though the CG drowned gods looked hugely out of place to me

Character/Story: both 1 - if I could rate them zero I would. Why? Glad you asked ...

This is one of a very ... few shows that had me raging at the TV because the characters were behaving in completely unbelievable ways. Summing up the first two "battles" between Team Good and Team Evil:

In fight #1 Team Evil wipes the floor with Team Good and takes one of the four relics sealing away The End Of The World. Then Team Evil monologues a bit and sets up a date to battle over the second relic with the promise that if the protagonists dare to show up they will all be killed and forgotten. Much posturing and flexing of manly muscles on the part of the wonderboys of Team Good in the episodes meandering along towards the second confrontation. Fight #2 arrives and ... Team Good is completely crushed again. Team Evil loses only a couple of hitpoints while Team Good is utterly wrecked. I can only assume that they cut all their real players and has been making do by sending in the cheer squad. Despite the earlier promise to dispose of Team Good, another promise is made to set up a date for a fight over the third relic with the usual menace of "If they impede us again, we'll dispose of them" weakly countered by "when we meet again, I will not lose." Riiiiight. Heard THAT before.

There was enough foreshadowing around the Prime Protagonist having some variety of unawakened power that I expect at some crucial moment she'll finally hit three sevens on the Ultimate Power slot machine and jackpot her team to victory. Which leads me to wonder why the heck Team Evil is even bothering to give them that many chances. Leader Loli ought to let her players go pick up the other two relics and jet. Sure they haven't yet figured out what to do with them but take custody of 'em and figure it out their leisure. Bah.

The first special, episode 0, wasn't anything special and in fact left me rather confused but I expect that's because I watched the episodes in "order" and thus started with it. I'd rate it a 6 overall.

The third special, episode 14, offers some nice closure to a couple of unresolved plot-points from the series and breezes by some rather disquieting social elements that are explored in more graphic detail in the second special, The Devil in the Opium Den. I'd rate the episode an 8.

The second special, which falls somewhere prior to episode 12 of the series, was the one I watched last ... and was, quite frankly, pretty shocking. The familiar characters were passive observers to a kind of public-safety announcement on the evils of Opium Dens (and additional depravities). No conclusion is reached and what passes for a plot made so brief an appearance as to be effectively non-existant. Despite that, I have to rate this episode an 8 also for not candy-coating history. Worth the time to watch, in a Grave of the Fireflies sort of sense.

This episode is useful for filling in some necessary story bits to help understand more of the characters' motivations. Frustratingly, they're scattered in and amongst chunks lifted straight from the first six episodes so you kinda have to pay attention.