Rather than use this opportunity to create an entertaining, unintelligent exploitation piece that will appease bottom feeders such as myself, the creators of this turgid anime have developed a taste for luxuries, and have attempted to give the film a plot that lies out with the abilities of the writing staff. And it quickly turns what seemed like a promising happy hour of hack n’ slash into one of the largest battle to maintain consciousness this reviewer has ever faced.
Our story begins as so many of its contemporaries do; with a lightning fast multiple paragraph explanation of the setting and basic premise of the story. This is seldom used in quality productions and for good reason- it leaves the audience with the impression that the film itself will either be incomplete or inadequate. Both of these hold true in the case of ‘Big Wars’. To summarise, in the somewhat distant future humanity has colonised Mars, and in doing so have awoken the wrath of the ‘Gods’ who may or may not be the creators of the Universe. They begin a long war with the humans residing on both Earth and Mars.
The opening passage does not however prevent the writers from stumbling through irritatingly obvious exposition and awkward dialogue for the first ten minutes of the film. For example, in the opening scene the protagonist arrives at a Martian airport, complete with security so overzealous they make real life airport security seem haphazard: no less than three announcements warning the public of the imminent threat of terror attacks and ‘subversion’ by the Gods. Needless to say this kills any chance of suspense when a terror attack occurs only seconds later. Despite a sizable explosion, the insurgents are quickly dispatched and life returns to normal at the airport. Making his way down an escalator, our protagonist bumps into an old flame, and they promptly make arrangements for the first of many a sexual liaison. These occur several times throughout the film, typically whenever things start to lose direction or things get boring. Meanwhile, the audience is given several hints that our protagonist’s old flame is under the God’s ‘subversion’, in case they were unable to figure it out in the opening sequence. With any possibility for intrigue killed stone dead by the blitzkrieg foreshadowing, the rest of the first half of the film becomes tedious. Eventually the story progresses towards the titular ‘big war’ and the prospect of penance for its quasi-religious meandering in the first half.
Unfortunately, despite the warnings that the attack will be a suicide mission, the level of carnage is a more than a tad disappointing. There are a few gorey deaths in store for the less important members of the crew as well as some extra-terrestrial deicide, but not in levels which can account for the forty tiresome minutes spent building up to it. Instead of the mass slaughter we have been led to anticipate, we instead g et several hallucination scenes featuring our protagonist’s old flame, which are gratuitous without exception- appearing nude in every one and doing all manner of bizarre things.
The greatest strength ‘Big Wars’ has is its animation, which is of fair quality. Similar productions are often wrought with elementary animation errors and cheap production but ‘Big Wars’ maintains an acceptable standard throughout, although this can be accounted more to the lack of high-paced action sequences and the simple character designs. Camera use is fairly standard, but thankfully free from poor panning shots. The biggest problem with the film’s art is that the vast majority of scenes are very dark, resulting in poor picture definition. This is a common problem among science fiction anime from this era but this doesn’t stop it from becoming irritating.
The soundtrack on the other hand is eclectic but completely unfit for purpose; it simply never gets it right. It’s primarily composed of Bossa Nova influenced 80s synth music, which gives off a jungle vibe completely unsuitable for a story set in space or the desert surface of the red planet. It was presumably chosen to emphasise the ‘hallucination’ sequences but even then fails to pull it off. Finally there is the voice acting. A subtitled Japanese version of the film is available but when you’re watching something like this, the English dub is the preferred choice, for comedic value. Though it features the same dry acting you would anticipate, unfortunately the lines are seldom ridiculous enough to be amusing.
On the whole, “Big Wars” felt more like a “Big Waste of Time” and I wouldn’t recommend that you bother, even if you are normally fond of the ‘so bad it’s good’ variety of eighties/nineties OVAs. You could do a lot better watching another series like Angel Cop, Black Lion or Mad Bull 34. On the other hand if you have exhausted these possibilities and you’re desperate this one may be worth your while. However, if you are looking for something genuinely good to watch, this is definitely not worthy of your consideration.
