So what do you get when a Middle School girl named Luluco just wants to live a normal life, but finds herself living in a city full of aliens and drafted into the Space Patrol? Well, you get Space Patrol Luluco.
The first thing that needs to be said about the story and the show in general, is that it's INCREDIBLY short. Each episode runs about 7.5min long and that's INCLUDING the OP and ED...so you will burn through 13 episodes very very fast. The story is meant to be just like the speed of the anime, fast paced, exciting, and sort of confusing. The show reminds me of the Nickelodeon cartoons from way back in the day, like Ren and Stimpy, that had many random and wacky plot twists around a central purpose that is usually pretty flimsy on its own. It is what it is and it can lack consistency, but this is really meant to be comical and fast-paced, so taking this too seriously is a mistake. Despite its random nature, it still deserves the 8 that it gets for its originality.
The artwork is standard-fare anime style, but that's only if you're paying attention to the foreground alone. The backgrounds and other artwork are pretty intense, and you can tell THAT'S where the lion's share of effort went into. A lot of the ships and cityscapes are really well done, so you have to pay attention in this fast-paced anime or you could miss it. A lot of the action shots will have great effects and artwork on them as well, but again you have to stay on it to catch a lot of this. Because of that fact, it falls short of being a 9.
On sound, the theme song was pretty catchy and got you in the mood for the show. The voice acting seemed good and suited the characters. Not much else you can say about it, it was good but nothing I'd call groundbreaking.
The characters were really hard to get a feel for because of the fast pace of the show. You felt like you were just getting to know Luluco and the show was over. The more outrageous the characters, the better you understood them. The Chief was AWESOME and Midori was pretty cool as well. Nova was rather bleh, but the ending makes sense and explains why he's that way. Luluco was cute as could be, you can't help but love her and her lame middle school lovey dovey obsession.
This was a very enjoyable anime, but the lack of slower pacing made it seem like it was over too quick and didn't make much of an impact compared to other anime. Don't let that keep you from watching it though! It was a genuinely good anime and I wish there was just MORE of it. I get that it enables Studio Trigger to put more into the artwork when the show is not so long, but at the same time it felt like a series of cartoons they play between shows on other networks. You could sit down and blaze through this whole series in one sitting, EASILY. Redeeming factor is, you'll have fun doing it :)
I'd check it out if you like fast-paced anime and something with cute humor to it. I think a few swigs of Mountain Dew or Redbull are in order beforehand though, you may blink and miss half the episode ;-)
