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.

kiss dum:engage planet.

just from the tittle you can get an idea that they didnt put much thought into this anime.

The basic concept is simple.A long time ago earth was populated by some good aliens that faught a war with some bad aliens.they all dissappeared and the only thing left behind was a warning and some ancient uber weapons that can only be used by one individual.So you get the basic setup where the main character will aquire the power to kill the bad guys and save the good guys.Not the best background but we've seen it work for many anime.

the story begins with the outbreak ... of the alien infestation.highly adaptable aliens with no particular advantages or dissanvatages that can take any huge form you can imagine and kill stuff,and lets not forget of the basic alien wasp like bugs.There is where the problems start conserning the whole world setup and concept.

These things are unbeatable and they spread all over the earth in a matter of months.Its suprising that the humans never used nukes in the initial invasion something that always happens in these stories.All armies get devastated.And the hero is the only one who can kill these things thanks to his super powers.the aliens dont quite like sunshine but it appears that they forget their weakness as the series progresses.yeah...they just forget about it no questions asked.ok whatever not everything gets explained in anime.

Basicly the aliens overkill everyone exept the hero.And the hero whenever hes in the mood he overkills the aliens.No reason no common sense.It is extremely confusing cause the backstory and concept of the whole world is very poor and its not defined in such a way that the person who watches this anime can understand what was happening in the writers head when he wrote the story.basicly the battles are just meaningless overkills where a huge 100m tall alien beast will smash a little guy with a rifle...at least for the first 9 episodes.i really dont get why the aliens bother with humans cause its not like there is any human tech or weapon that can hurt them.

Its one of those stories that a person with great imagination wrote but due to his lack of experience and story telling he forgot that the people who are going to watch this are not himself.You see that happening many times in many amateur stories.The writer has a very good understanding of the concept but he fails to communicate it to the viewers.Although i think that the possibility here is 1)either the writer was himself confused and was unable to figure out the basics or 2)it was written by different individuals who didnt share the same image over the story and ended up as this catastrofic epic fail of an anime.

So as far as for the story ... it sucks big time.too many wholes.so many gaps to fill in with meaningless side stories,while trying to make up for the fail of the first episodes plus the painfull effort to establish the characters ,that always fails.

the art section is not as good as expected.from wallpapers and character and mecha designs you ll think that this is gonna be a visual orgasm,but the anime totally fails in that.ive seen a lot older anime with better direction,better coloring,better animation.Its just good enough to justify that its an anime but not good enough to make you wanna watch it.The editing is horrible.the only good thing this anime has is the mecha aircraft(lol there are just 2 of them,along with the cockpit mobile armor).thats all.they look nice.but they are not enough.

sound...well it has a few nice songs and tunes.the sound effects are mediocre and are usually lost behind the characters screams and wasted efforts to make you feel the action.

now about the characters.the first episodes are really painfull to watch as you get to meet lots of secondary characters who die just like that.you'll see some of them revived later in the series only so they can get killed again.you get to see some interesting girls but they also die sometimes within 1 episode.As for guys you get the usuall psykos with their confused agendas that die out really fast...that said this animes main focus is the uber super ultra hero and his abilities while everything else fades in the background.if only the hero and his abilities were good enough to keep your interest.Overall it painfully fails to establish the characters ...even the main characters role and personality.i dont know,really, maybe my standards are too high...but it really sucked.the only interesting characters are the heros guides.some kind of deities that are the source of his powers?or some kind of AIs that help him with his battles...whatever,they are the only ones that where fun.And a tsudere girl with a big ap cannon-rifle-whatever that never does any real damage to enemies lol.

there is absolutely no enjoyment.im usually really patient with anime that are confusing and fast paced from the start cause they usually end up being masterpieces but this one is terrible.it was so painfull to watch that i actually dropped the series after episode 9.Its the first time i was forced to dump an anime just like that.As a person who grew up watching anime this anime looks to me as a pile of turd.It might be interesting to someone who just entered the world of anime but it wont appeal to people who were lucky enough to watch a few other great anime.

overall...it really is a shame that so much money and effort were thrown in this anime.They should have invested the production money to charity.thats how much of a fail this anime is.i really dont care what happens after episode 10.it wont be able to make up for the devastating failure of the first 9 episodes.if an anime isnt able to establish its story and main characters until episode 4 (thats one month) then its a total failure to me.Not only that but it fails to help you enter its world.i found my self in the uncomfortable position of googling in the net to find explanations for the concept of this anime.i really tried to understand it but i realised that there was nothing to understand.everything is about an uber hero killing alien mutand things but the hero and his abilities and weapons arent that good.The only thing that looked interesting are the motives of a human woman who seems to be involved with the aliens and was the former commander of the hero.but ... i dont wanna suffer through the series to find that out.

this anime is a fail.dont buy it.dont rent it.avoid loosing your precious everyday free time to watch it.YES THIS IS A HATE REVIEW.i want back the 3 hours i lost from my life watching the first 9 episodes!lol.

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.

Let's see for a series that spent the first 3 episodes speeding through the story at such a fast pace why on earth they'd use the 4th episode as a recap is beyond me. You'd think they had better things to do with episodes if they were rushing so much.

Honestly the pace was so fast i thought i was on the wrong episode or something. But i probably shouldn't complain since i actually liked the recap (which is rare) because i was able to comprehend things i didn't get the first time (cuz it was too fast).

Anyway that was the beginning. Come episode 5 ... things actually get interesting and moves at a better pace. So in other words if you can survive until then u'll feel a lot better :]

Story: the plot is okay. I mean the human world is coming to an end because some alien species are killing everyone off. Its basically the apocalypse. If ur into that sorta thing then there's no real reason you wouldn't like the storyline.

Art: was good as well. I think it got better as the episodes went by. Nanao looked kinda weird at the beginning but come episode 14 he looks proper.

Sound: i really liked the sound. it fit the scenes. Cool music when a fight is in session. Slow music when u need to feel the mood.

Character: I found them really fickle actually. For a group of friends that had so many fun nice times together they sure turned on one another easily. Take blondie for example (the one with the scar, team captain) he was willing to go kill members as long as it was an order. He didn't question it at all. Pretty cold if u ask me.

The crazy brunette too. When he comes back he's all "die Shu, die!" like hello wasn't he the friend u liked best? Forget the rivary u even said he was the one u got along with the most.

and then theres Toun, the girly looking one. He had the cutest personality but no, he sides with a Hardian in seconds. Of course that was cute and all but the way he protected her as if nothing else mattered?

We can blame their characters based on the fact they got messed up by Hardians but then again they seemed pretty sane to me.

ugh and Nanao. I get he likes Yuno. But the way he acted in ep 14 was ridiculous. If anything he was just plain cruel.

...Iera...she's just annoying.

Enjoyment....honestly i just can't wait for the last episodes. Its not a series i feel overly happy watching. It's decent.

I have been searching for these series the whole day and after I finally found a complete set to have a good night watch, I was disappointed.

From the first episode the story is somewhat forced and tense, it doesn't flow naturally. Coupled with moments of inadequate character behavior it becomes annoying up to the point when you start questioning the reasons they exist there at all. I could swallow poor storytelling if these series were short, say 1 OVA. But 26 episodes is enough space and time to tell the story decently. Yet, from the start I kept myself asking: WTF?

And the sinking ... ship start was so promising... However, the makers were unable to keep the mysterious part to the declared mystery. My sense of wonder was stolen.

I won't drop and finish watching this, but I doubt it will get any better after 2 episodes, where the main cast was introduced (and I don't care about any of them flat folks, yes).