Muteking the Dancing Hero

MUTEKING THE Dancing HERO is, in my eyes, a masterpiece of lightweight anime. Really the only bit of the show I don't feel is top-tier is the story, which tends to be on the cheesy and shallow side a lot of the time. The cheese is definitely intentional; it's a Tatsunoko remake, and the plot isn't nearly as important as the world it takes place in and the people Muteki meets. Neo San Francisco is filled to the brim with characters who, even without ever being introduced, are memorable and you come to care about as Muteki familiarizes himself with the city he protects. It's ... incredibly clear that the team working on it is overwhelmingly passionate about the show, even if they're tight on money/time/resources/etc. They've pumped so much genuine care into the series that even when it gets nearly incomprehensibly weird I still can't help but love every minute. It almost reminds me of an Ikuni series. The finale, while mostly satisfying, stumbles over itself in a way that just breaks my heart. Overall, I'd definitely recommend that people give this show a watch.

Also, Vivi-nee is the best character and anyone who disagrees can catch these hands.

I was the first to sing Muteking: The Dancing Hero praises at the beginning of this season, so it is fitting that I am also the first to denounce its demise. I'll try to describe the huge waste of potential that this show was as well as I can, as someone who is not very familiar with the original show, but who saw something in this reboot.

Before I watched the first episode of Muteking, I was honestly not expecting much. I just had too much time on my hands and not really many shows I was interested in. It is fair to say that the ... excellent introduction to the world of Muteking throughout this episode completely changed my mind - I was very close to leaving my chair and dancing myself when the famous song hit! Obviously, not every episode would be like this, but I thought that the show definitely had potential.

Episodes 2 to 4 were mostly formulaic, which is not a bad thing by any means. Muteki, the main character, would visit the same 3-4 locations throughout the episodes and seemingly bond with the characters there: his crush Ms. Aida, the 4 clown siblings (these clowns will be covered below), the mysterious Vivi, and more circus members like Suteking, the brothers, and whoever the fuck else appeared. This portion of the show was obviously meant to foreshadow all these people coming together, as well as Muteking's eventual loss, with the latter being much more rewarding than the former.

Come the end of episode 5, Muteking lost his first fight to a monster. I thought this was beautifully executed - the shot of DJ and Muteki alone after the fight with the former wondering what they were supposed to do next was perfect, and it led to the next couple of episodes being DJ and Muteki bonding episodes, which were extremely necessary and, I thought, decently done. Top this off with another BANGER of a song and a turnaround at the end of episode 7, and trust in Muteking was once again restored.

There is no way the gang could fuck this up, right?
Narrator: the gang fucked it up.

What followed in the show was just pure and utter trash. The Muteki fame arc and Ceo's grand plan were both horrible. At the end, the show wanted to bring all the seemingly useless and unimportant characters together to resolve the big conflict of the show, but failed to do so. It takes a lot of cast building to actually pull this off, and you just cannot unite the following ridiculous groups against a villain:

- The four sibling clowns: the siblings from the arcade, 99% of whose screentime is just a ufo moving on a plain background (I could probably animate that better)
- The other five clowns: Muteki's dad, sister, the two random guys from the diner who no one cared about and the god knows what the fuck he is Suteking
- The two other idiots: Muteki's grandma (she's supposed to be the mastermind of the good guys but no viewer can take her seriously) and the TV rankings guy

This circus cast is who we see for half of the last episodes of the show, which all had horrible animation and were often a chore to get through. While watching them I would occasionally start thinking about how I could make this utterly wasted time up to myself (I will never get that time back). But hey, if you can make it through episodes 9, 10, and 11, 12 has a decent dance fight between Muteking and Ceo's own hero. To actually experience it, though, you have to somehow not die of laughter at Aida's "death" scene and her robot appearance. It is very difficult.

(Rant) Review over. Verdict: don't watch this. If you still want to experience this show, just watch the Muteking transformation sequences and listen to Reol's Aurora songs (which were total bangers btw). While the music in this show is excellent, about everything else will make you want to pull your hair out.

(If you still aren't convinced you should not watch this, Ceo's final attack when he had Muteki beat was a... hug??? Yeah spare yourself the endless contemplating of why in the world you are indulging in this trainwreck.)

If you want an unique but niche series to watch in the Fall 2021 season, look no further than Tatsunoko's Super Hero series of a long lost IP, starting with the 1980-81 show Muteking The Dashing Warror, rehashed as Muteking The Dancing Hero for a reboot/remake. And I feel that because of the recent success of Tsuburaya Productions with the reboot of the classic 1994-95 Gridman The Hyper Agent series done by Trigger (rehashed as the SSSS.Gridman universe), the big guns over at Tatsunoko wanted their own causal Renaissance period as well. And unless you're the type that really wanted to feel what's like of ... the long lost magic of Japanese shows in the early period of the 1980s, then the appeal will be just right for you.

Muteking The Dancing Hero is the epitomy of a wacky and goofy weekend morning kids show that you can just turn off your brain and thoroughly enjoy, and it is just that because the period of the 70s and 80s used to be Tatsunoko's golden age doing shows that aren't like the modern day example of the anime industry. Everything was fresh back then and being in the mindset of kids, it's no wonder that Tatsunoko have made a name for themselves as one of Japan's top premier animation companies in the 20th Century (alongside studios such as Toei Animation and Sunrise) with varied works across the board. Gouging research for Tatsunoko in the 1980s isn't easy, and it's well worth it for at least a history lesson of sorts.

But enough about that, let's go back to what Muteking The Dancing Hero is all about. For context and to link back to the original franchise, only the aliens with their nefarious plan to take over the world with their science and shape-changing powers remain the same, everything else is all new. Directed by VOTOMS director Ryousuke Takahashi alongside Tatsunoko in-house directors Hiroshi Sasagawa (executive) and Yuuzou Satou (assistant), the reboot of Muteking is set in a dystopian 1980s version of Neo San Francisco, where music is lively and there is evil lurking around in the form of aliens forming around the OctinQ coporation (the parody of the modern-day Silicon Valley), advertising their products in the city and with the help of a virtual idol which turns ordinary people into black gold for the aliens to store energy. And who are you gonna call? Muteking, the hero who only knows how to dance and sing his way out to save those in captivity!

For a show like Muteking, it's easy to really have the nostalgia bit of a time forlorn because everything is so simplified, from the story to even the aesthetics that's rife with the standards of a Tokusatsu-esque show back in the day. And especially for a superhero such as Muteking that has been lost in time, the reboot/remake gives enough chance for the current generation to ever wonder how a 20th Century made show would transition to the 21st Century. In the same way, some hits or misses. Let's start with the bad, because the current state of the anime industry is rife with so much superhero business shows and source materials that Muteking can feel absent or absconded, lost within the confines of so much there is to the fame of the Tokusatsu genre. The good thing is that people like Ryousuke Takahashi and Hiroshi Sasagawa are still very dedicated to the business model of the old Tatsunoko ways, and still want to bring their influence into the 21st Century for all to see, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but props for at least trying to stand out in a desolate state of the anime industry.

I mean, the premise is this: DJ meets Muteki, he directs him to become the Muteking hero that saves people from becoming black waste, wash, rinse and repeat until the final moments with the virtual idol Aurora and mastermind Ceo Eight's unwavering confidence of prevail. You can't ask much for a simple story such as this, but it definitely fits into the 1980s era of when kids are just starting to grow up watching the popularity of anime rise up as their childhood. You have to put yourself in the mindset of times past to really enjoy this one wholeheartedly, and I can see why some people do.

Otherwise, I'd thought that since Ryousuke Takahashi of Sunrise chimed in this show would label it as a Tatsunoko X Sunrise collab, but handing the reigns over to Tezuka Productions also works the same way, because both studios go way back with their respective well-known founders. It really gives Muteking a sleek and psychedelic feel that appeals to the children that have now grown up into adults. As much as I kinda hate the fact that Tatsunoko is trying so hard after the fall from grace of their more recent work (Winter 2019's Egao no Daika), this show is but only yet another statement piece that Tatsunoko should stick to producing children's shows instead. At least the OST was really good with ORANGE RANGE's OP and KALMA's ED.

Muteking The Dancing Hero won't ever break the bank for trying to be different, and this reboot/remake will once again be lost to time. But if you ever pick Muteking up, please watch it with an open and unhinged mind, and just enjoy it while the journey lasts. Can't say I enjoy the show, but I can at least appreciate it for what it is and the history of the franchise as but a small footnote in Tatsunoko's long history.