Konpeki no Kantai

Overview:

This anime makes me see one color: RED! Just like the Nintendo Virtua Boy. There are worse made anime on a technical level, but this is for me the most rage inducing anime in existence. It pushes ALL of my buttons at once and does it again and again with infuriating glee! It is a historical fiction featuring: terrible understanding of history, military strategy, logistics, and anything that makes historical fiction interesting. It also is the most insanely nationalistic, militaristic, and virulently racist series to possibly ever exist. This is like a horribly written cartoon version of the Turner Diaries! Japan takes over the world and enslaves or kills all non-Japanese, which we the audience are supposed to cheer and possibly jerk off to! What I am about to describe is in my opinion the single worst anime of all time!

Plot: 1/10

In 1943, Isoroku Yamamoto is shot down and with no explanation ends up in the early 1900s just after the Russo-Japanese war concludes with the battle of Tsushima. Yamamoto despite being educated entirely in military strategy and having no knowledge of engineering is able to describe exactly how to built nuclear submarines, jet fighters, and other bits of advanced technology to 1910 Japan! By the time 1941 comes, Japan invades and beats the shit out of the United States. However, they don't actually invade the US. After destroying the US naval fleet and bombing Los Alamos, the president Hank Roosevelt (names are slightly changed for no reason) has a stroke and the US surrenders to Japanese domination of the US mainland. The overwhelming logistical superiority of the US and the fact America could crank out 15 ships and 20 planes for every ship and plane Japan could produce is simply ignored. The US was simply THAT dependent on the Manhattan Project to win the war. In reality, the US didn't need the Manhattan Project at all. It saved the lives of 100,000 more US soldiers, but it was in no way needed for victory. The primary reason we even used nukes was the threaten the Soviets and assert our global dominance. After beating the US, Japan conquers most of the world and eventually beats the shit out of Nazi Germany, who by 1943 had conquered the Eurasian continent! Japan allows Nazi Germany to keep all of Europe and Russia though, apart from a small chunk of Siberia where Japan "nobly" allows the last remaining Jews and Russians to live in a frozen internment camp! How did Japan beat Germany? By taking over Nazi controlled England of course! Let me fucking repeat that. GERMANY surrenders because Japan retook England! The anime ends in a celebratory manner with Japan ruling the vast majority of the globe and preaching about the superiority of the Yamato race.

I can't even begin to describe all that is wrong with this anime. Consider that despite the nuclear submarines and improved aircraft carriers, Japan crushes Germany in a land war despite showing no drastic improvements in Japanese land war technology. For anyone who as glanced at WW2 history, Japan SUCKED at land war when they weren't fighting 3rd world countries like 1930s-1940s China and Korea. The US ran up a 10:1 kill ratio EVERY TIME we fought the Japanese on land. Japan "won" the battle of Wake Island by suffering a roughly 27:1 ratio loss. The Soviets ran up a 9:1 kill ratio during 1945 in August Storm. The Soviets were NOT known for caring about kill ratio. If they run up a 9:1 against you then you SUCK! The Germans and Germany's allies like the Finns would have had a nearly 50:1 kill ratio against Japan. They would literally have to create a new word because slaughter wouldn't begin to describe the savage beating the Japanese army would take! It would be exactly like the Nazi vampires vs. London civilians in fucking Hellsing! This is a story where logic, logistics, and things of that nature simply die. It is all about "rule of cool" and wunderweapons. That is totally what wins wars!

Overview: 1/10

I gave this series a 1 because I couldn't give it zero. If you don't want to be angered to the point of foaming at the mouth and contemplating murder against the production staff do NOT watch this abominable piece of shit! I simply can't stress this enough!

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The reason why I’m writing this review of an ultra-obscure OVA that’s more than 20 years old now is because it is at long last being subbed (more info on that at the series subforum).
For those who are unfamiliar with KNK I'll just say it's an epic 32 episodes (each one 45 min on average) OVA that run from 1993 to 2003. So yes, it took JC Staff (the studio) 10 years to make it. That can give you an idea of the quality level and the effort that was put into creating this.
The story is set in an alternate WW2 where a Japanese admiral is trying to change Japan's role in the war. It plays out pretty much as a political thriller with a ton of absolutely gorgeous action scenes, all of which are fully handrawn and joy to watch to any (realistic) 2D animation fan (Think Legend of the Galactic Heroes meets Zipang with the quality level of Patlabor 2 or Jin Roh in the action scenes). I guess the fact that I've watched the series several times Raw with my broken japanese should give you an indication of just how good the action scenes are.
I’m not even a history or military buff but I sure as hell am a hardcore handrawn animation fan who loves a good, gripping story and interesting characters. And, really, it doesn’t get much better than this
They just don't make them like they used to and it’s painfully obvious that we won't be able to get any military-political thriller of this caliber any time soon (if ever).

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