Review #105: Diamond Daydreams

• Published: 04 (JP), 06 (US)
• Episodes: 13

Atsuko lives in the port city of Hakodate in southern Hokkaido, living above a seafood store with her mother in the market place. The pair are deep in debt, with little chance of getting a lot of money anytime soon. Wishing her daughter to not have to worry about debt and a life of hardship, Atsuko’s mother tries to arrange a marriage between her daughter and the wealthy heir to a local inn, Minoru. While he’s a nice guy and keeps saying he wants the best for Atsuko, she wants to choose her own life. That in part has to do with her fascination with an older man that visits the shop named Kurata. When the issue of the debt comes to a head and both Minoru and her mother ask that Atsuko go through with the marriage, she instead runs away to Kurata’s apartment, leaving Minoru to chase her down and her mother worrying. Kurata finally helps talk her through her troubles while avoiding her infatuation with him, and finally Atsuko decides that she’ll give Minoru a chance, on her own terms.

Karin is a girl staying in a hospital in northern Hokkaido suffering from a collapsed lung. While she could get surgery to fix the issue, she keeps refusing since her father died during surgery when she was young. Instead, she spends her days writing a webpage on her laptop where she keeps a journal of her dreams. One day a new doctor comes to take charge of her care, Dr. Amakasu. When she gets angry at him for calling her spoiled and writes about it on her homepage, she gets an email from a fan telling her to stay strong. The fan keeps emailing her pictures from around Hokkaido showing their travels to try to cheer her up. When she accidentally discovers those exact photos at Dr. Amakasu’s desk, she suspects that it’s him sending the emails. After she finds out the doctor is seeing her attending nurse, Yuki, nurse Yuki reveals that it was her sending the emails all along to try to cheer her up and open her up to others. It finally takes her brother Mitsuru collapsing from overwork to help pay her hospital bills to show Karen that she’s been selfish all along and she finally agrees to go through with the surgery.

Kyouko is a young filmmaker attending university in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s largest city. A part of the film club, Kyouko’s driving goal is to get her film to win awards at the amateur film festival coming up. With that goal in mind, she drives for nothing but perfection from her work, to the detriment of everyone around her. As the actors and assistants from the club start to voice their concerns to her, she isolates herself from them, leaving the club to make a film on her own. When even her boyfriend leaves her without a word, she realizes she’d put her ambitions above what was really most important, her friends and loved ones. Once she does, remembering the love she felt for filmmaking, she goes back to the club and starts to renew her friendships and happiness.

Suomi is a world famous figure skater from Finland that’s living in Hokkaido to train. When she was young, her and her friend Hanna had made each other a promise that when they won the gold medal when they grew up, they’d break it in half and share it. One day however Hanna accidentally skated into Suomi and hit her leg with the skate blade, taking Suomi out of competition and starting a rumor that Hanna had done it on purpose to take out her competition. Believing Suomi helped to spread that rumor, Hanna distanced herself from her friend, causing Suomi to distance herself as well, losing interest in skating. All that changes when she meets a boy named Haruto who gets into a fight with his friend over figure skating as well. After helping him work out his problems, Suomi decides to go back to figure skating professionally and try to reconnect to Hanna. After a rocky start, she finds her inspiration and talent again, and the two girls bond once more as friends.

Shouko hosts a Sapporo radio show called Cappuccino Break, a lunch time show where she answers questions on romance from people that write in. Secretly, Shouko has her own romantic troubles as she’s been seeing a man, Takeda, who already has a wife and a daughter. After he stands her up over a promise of seeing her on her birthday, then later shows up unannounced for sex, she demands he leaves. She finally has a break down on air after a question comes in about a woman cheating with a married man. Emails and faxes come pouring in after an obsessive fan that had been giving Shouko gifts burst into the studio and told her she wasn’t alone. Finally feeling like there really were people out there that cared about her, Shouko kept up with the show and moved on with her life.

Akari lives alone with her father in a small home in eastern Hokkaido. Her father spends most of her days trying to pan for gold off in the streams around the city, usually finding nothing, while she works to support them both at a bakery, where she keeps having run ins with a former worker there (now a delinquent) named Kurokawa. She finds out that Kurokawa quit because he didn’t believe that he could make it as a pastry chef. On his way home he runs into Akari’s father who tells him to go for his dreams. However, the old man seems to have a violent fit of sickness, telling Kurokawa to mind his own business when he asks. It soon comes out that he has a brain tumor, and that he has for long enough that since he didn’t get treatment for it, it’s incurable. As a last wish, he asks Akari to go with him to pan for gold, and she agrees, taking Kurokawa with them. The three have a fun day, but the next day her father dies. Akari learns her father’s real past and hopes, while Kurokawa finds the confidence to go back to the pastry shop and try harder.

All 6 stories tie together around the theme of the “diamond dust”, a phenomenon where ice gets in the air and sparkles beautifully. There’s a belief that if you see the diamond dust and make a wish on it your prayers will come true for romance and happiness. All the stories come to a head in the end as the girl’s pass and meet, and everyone sees the diamond dust. Apart from that, each tale is like a separate story unto itself, with each girl living in a different part of Hokkaido and having their own 2 episodes for their stories to build up then resolve.

The art is wonderful in DD, a mix of lovely characters and photo based locations, the transition screens even showing famous Hokkaido locations. The music is much more low key and in the background, soft and melancholy for the most part, but it leaves more room for a very talented group of female lead voice actors, each girl well done and with a terrific supporting cast. Each story is short, with the two episodes each story gets being less than an hour, but they’re each quite basic, with a small cast of characters that allows the story to be well told in that time frame. My favorite was Akari’s story, the last one, which ended up quite moving, though none of them were poorly told or uninteresting.

On the whole, DD is a cute little anime, with a few funny moments but a lot more thoughtful ones. While I’d gone in thinking the series was a lot more of a romantic drama piece, there is only a few stories where romance plays a larger part, and all of the stories resolve well, even if not perfectly. That’s what I liked most about Diamond Daydreams; it resolves well, but realistically. People are still hurt, there’s no feeling like everything just worked out, and it’s much more like a real situation that you can relate to than most anime drama. The theme of focusing on Hokkaido, the people living there, and the locations of it was a very nice departure from the normal story around Tokyo, and it made me even do a little research on the side. It might not be an anime for everyone, especially those looking for something with a longer story rather than 6 shorter ones. Nor is it for those that like a lot of action or laughs, since it’s a much more drama based series. Still, it leaves you smiling in the end for the most part, and for most people, you’ll come away from Diamond Daydreams appreciating the many ways the world can be.

 

Review #104: Blue Gender

• Published: 99 (JP), 03 (US)
• Episodes: 26 (95 min movie)

Yuji Kaido was a normal student with friends and family, living a normal life in the year 2009. His life changed when he was diagnosed with an incurable disease, giving him only a little time to live. Believing that they would have a cure in only a few years, doctors decided to put Yuji (along with others with the same disease) into cryogenic stasis. One moment Yuji closes his eyes… and the next he wakes up to see he’s being wheeled down a dark hallway by men that look like soldiers, who soon come under attack from a huge bug like creature. As the attack goes on, Yuji’s pod is knocked open and he tries to run away as a huge robot barely saves him from being eaten by the same huge bug.

Finding himself in a stasis room, Yuji discovers he’s the only one left alive in his clinic, all other pods destroyed and the people inside turned into green balls of body parts and organic fluid. Just when he’s attacked again by more bug creatures, the robot he ran from before catches up and manages to destroy the attackers. The pilot’s helmet is damaged in the battle and Yuji sees its a girl. As the battle ends she takes off her helmet. Saying her name is Marlene, she tells Yuji that he’s been taken by her group to be brought back to Second Earth, a space station where the remnants of humanity live. The surface of the planet belongs to the huge bug like creatures, called the Blue, who have destroyed all major cities and driven the few human survivors from the planet. Yuji finally agrees to follow Marlene, seeing little other choice.

As the group of soldiers travel on, Yuji keeps asking to help how he can rather than be dead weight. The group finally agrees to help teach him how to pilot one of the mechs. As the group moves on toward the extraction point, they lose members of the team to the Blue, just as they lose their way up to Second Earth. Yuji, Marlene and the others end up traveling over to Korea and further, Yuji finding out that not only are there people still barely surviving on Earth, but also that the people of Second Earth consider them already dead and not worth saving. Between the hopelessness of losing the other members of the extraction team one by one (except for Marlene), as well as the heartlessness of watching the poor survivors of Earth die as they live hard lives, Yuji slowly becomes despondent, depressed, and angry.

Yuji’s own emotions slowly open Marlene up as she has to confront her own life and past. The pair slowly bond as they travel across the whole of Asia in a slim hope to get back to Second Earth, finding more survivors, Yuji almost deciding to stay. Finally however they both make it to Balinor Space Base, where they have a hard fought battle before finally getting onto a shuttle and taking off for the space station. What waits for Yuji up there is a mystery to him, but they both know they’ll be separated. As Marlene finds out Yuji’s going to be experimented on, she decides she needs to try to see him and, eventually, save him. Even as Yuji finds other sleepers like himself, the mystery of what he is, what the leaders of Second Earth want from him, and what the Blue really are all hang over his fate. Will Yuji and the other sleepers be able to help retake the Earth for humanity? Will Marlene finally open up fully and be able to do the right thing, for herself as well as Yuji?

Blue Gender is a series that mixes horror with high drama. Most of the horror comes from the titular Blue, the non-censored DVDs not hiding a bit as people are decapitated, sliced in half, eaten alive, and left bloody messes. The adult theme stays as the show also doesn’t mind showing partial nudity and implied sex, though it keeps with fading for more graphic parts and scenes. With both of those in mind, Blue Gender is most certainly not a show for children, even though it remains just tame enough for young adults. Both factors also play an obvious part in the graphical style chosen, with Blue Gender having a very realistic look to everything, from the people to the technology. The horror also comes through in the series’ music and sound, with dark low background music and cringe worthy crunches, splatters, snapping, and so on.

The movie, called “The Warrior”, is a compilation of the first two thirds or so of the series, condensed down into an hour and a half retelling. While there are a few new scenes and changes to make the shortened plot work, it stays much the same as the TV series. Coming a few years after the TV series, there are a few things that changed graphically, though both keep the same realistic sharpness and grim darkness. In truth, there’s little reason to watch The Warrior, though the review for the main series more or less works for the movie as well since there are so many similarities.

As a serious, dark anime, Blue Gender has a lot that works for it. While it keeps the anime tradition of having a complex, metaphysical plot, it ends up at least a bit more understandable than other series that pit humanity against life ending threats (ie, Evangelion, Brain Powered). That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of plot holes, which there are. There were too many to count in fact, leaving me wondering again and again why one character did something, or how a different thing happened. It gets so bad that it took me out of the story and left me just shaking my head half the time in fact. My brother wasn’t even able to sit through the series to the end it became so contrived and ridiculous to him.

All the same, and despite the problems I had with Blue Gender, I still give it a tentative recommendation. Horror and drama aren’t my favorite genre by a long shot, but all the same, there were parts of Blue Gender I genuinely liked. While there were certainly a few characters that were aggravating, there were others that grew well as the series went on, and most importantly, both Marlene and Yuji developed very well as characters. The action was diverse and visceral, the visuals and sound effects both working well together. While the plot ended up being a bit too Hollywood blockbuster, it still developed well and had a good variety of slow and fast development. That said, and with my recommendation given, I still have to note Blue Gender won’t be for everyone. With all the blood and gore, the many aggravating characters ,and the traditional head shaking ending, Blue Gender is as likely to leave viewers turned off like my brother was rather than interested. Still, if any of the plot points sound appealing, at least give it a try. You never know what side you’ll come down on.

 

Review #103: If I See You In My Dreams (OVA + TV)

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• Published: 98 (JP), 03 (US)
• Episodes: 3 (OVA), 16 (TV)

Masuo is just your average young Japanese salaryman, living alone and lonely. He’s never dated a girl, never had sex, and barely knows how to talk to them. When he consults a fortune teller about his love life, the woman tells him that he has a bad reading that he’ll be alone forever. Just when he’s about to give up all hope, a woman helps him pick up some papers he drops on a rainy day; She even gives him a handkerchief to help dry himself before she leaves. Smitten, Masuo can’t help thinking about her all the next day. By chance he runs into her again and thanks her for the handkerchief…but forgets to ask her name.

Masuo’s life ends up being a series of struggles trying to get to know the woman he met, who eventually introduces herself as Nagisa. This is where the TV series starts, with Masuo and Nagisa already having met. In both versions of the series, Masuo has horrible luck trying to convince Nagisa he’s sincere about his feelings for her. For his part, this occurs because of accidents; The OVA has Masuo facing competition from the muscled Kaizuka and real estate mogul Kujira, while the TV series has no male suitors trying to steal Nagisa away and instead plays up the crush his co-worker Miho has on him. Thus leading to many instances of Nagisa catching Masuo with Miho in compromising situations.

While both series focus on the growing relationship between Masuo and Nagisa, they both move along with a different feel and endings. The OVA has three thirty minute episodes, allowing for a more focused story of the two with only a few situations, ending with Nagisa and Masuo kissing and officially becoming a couple. The TV series, in contrast, has sixteen episodes, but each is only eight minutes long. While still longer than the OVA, the TV series’ format makes for a more rapid paced story that bounds around quickly. It doesn’t end with the two together, instead having Masuo transferred away from Tokyo just as Nagisa realizes her feelings for him, telling him she loves him just as his train is pulling away.

At first glance, the series I was most reminded of watching IISYIMD was Suzuka. For those that haven’t read my review of that series, my main hang up on disliking it was that I found the main characters unlikable, the main male too obsessed and the main female too tsundare and flighty with her emotions. This series, in both its iterations, suffers from the silimar maladies for its main couple. Once Masuo has his mind set on Nagisa, he doesn’t give up on her, even after repeatedly being told that she doesn’t want to see him again. Nagisa on the other side repeatedly denies liking Masuo, only to change her mind in the end. The series similarities don’t stop there however. Both series have a second girl that genuinely likes the main guy, gets lead on, then left. Both Suzuka and IISYIMD end with an epiphany from the main female deciding all their refusals before were denial and that they DO like the main guy.

So, why did I like this better than Suzuka?

First off, both the TV and OVA were shorter than Suzuka, meaning that neither dragged out as long as Suzuka did, making the processes of discoveries and confessions both easier to deal with. IISYIMD also has slightly more understandable characters, even with the shorter time to develop them. While Suzuka seemed to be cold for cold’s sake, Nagisa was a virgin that had had a man she loved leave her before, leaving her emotionally distrustful of men. The main male from Suzuka was obsessive to the point of being painfully obtrusive, taking up track only to impress Suzuka. Whole Masuo is no less obsessed, he never gets to the point of being anything but himself to be with Nagisa.

Even with liking IISYIMD better than Suzuka (and in fact even LIKING it), I still only give it a tentative recommendation. While the characters as a whole for both the OVA and TV series were more likable than Suzuka’s, that doesn’t mean they were great. It says a good bit that my favorite character, and the one I found most open and honest, was the coworker Miho. As with other series with a second girl vying for the male protagonist’s hand, if I like the rival more than the main girl, than I’ll have a VERY hard time liking the series (Suzuka was like this, as is what I’ve seen of Shakugan no Shana). Still, Nagisa is more understandable than most girls in the same situation, and Masuo is more active than most main men. The series is cheap to own and not a long watch even with both OVA and TV, so give it a watch. While still not entirely my sort of style of anime with the story, If I See You In My Dreams is a cute little series about two awkward people finding out what love is.

 

Review #102: Legend of Himiko

• Published: 99 (JP), 03 (US)
• Episodes: 12

Himiko and Kutani are two ordinary high school students, at least on the surface. Childhood friends, Kutani helps Himiko’s father in his archaeological work. As it turns out, Himiko was adopted as a baby at the very ruins her father and Kutani’s father were working on. It was Kutani that found Himiko, though how is something he keeps secret. Finally one day he tells Himiko that she shot out of the ground in a ball of light that passed through his body, only to settle on some stairs with the help of a small flying creature, which went into a pendant that was around Himiko’s neck. When Himiko tries to find the exact spot Kutani found her, she’s enveloped in a ball of light, and just as she starts to disappear, Kutani leaps after her and the two vanish in a flash.

The Legend of Himiko starts with a different story however, a story unknown to Kutani and Himiko. In a world of magic, the kingdom of Yamatai readies itself to crown its first human ruler. For years upon years of peace, the kingdom has been ruled by the divine flame, the Bokka, but finally the keepers of the Bokka have found 6 candidates that the Bokka will choose a queen from. Just as the ceremony is underway however, a shadow falls over Yamatai. The floating fortress island of the Kune nations, Biwa Island, looms over the castle, the island bombing and letting down tanks and troops that burn the town, kill the people, and take over the castle. The man in charge of Kune’s invasion, Shikara (the son of the king of Kune), breaks into the ritual chamber just as the Bokka has started its choice of queen. The six queen candidates are sent off through the ceiling and scattered around the land to protect them. As Shikara demands that the head keeper, Enki, gives him the power of the Bokka, he takes Enki’s child, kills his wife, and thrusts the girl into the flame to kill her. The child, Himiko, instead becomes a vessel for the Bokka. It’s absorbed into her and she disappears in a flash of light.

As Himiko grows up to a be a teenager in Japan, three years pass in the world of magic. The six queen candidates work together to preserve Yamatai as best they can, though one candidate, Fujina, stays in the palace as a Kune prisoner and advisor of sorts. Where the alter of the Bokka once was, now there is only a font of darkness, a tool that turns the dead into undead creatures. Shikara uses the font to raise his own loyal army in secret, even as he carries out attacks to root out the other five queen candidates. One day, the seer Seika, one of the queen candidates, has a portent that something will happen at the underground shrine. The candidate Imari and the Yamatai general Iga break in only to find the font of darkness and Shikara in the middle of making an undead soldier. As soon as he leaves they sneak out from hiding, only for a bright ball to come out of the ceiling containing Himiko and Kutani. The group is surrounded by the undead and they’re forced to flee, but things go awry as they get separated on their way out.

It’s soon revealed that Kutani has some power of the Bokka inside him, just as Himiko has control over the Bokka. The six candidates all feel the power in both of them, seeing them both as the last best chance to restore the Bokka to its rightful place and bring back Yamatai. The Kune forces soon see the same however, wanting to capture the two to control the Bokka for themselves, Shikara realizing the Bokka could control the world. The king soon visits with Biwa island however, making an already complicated situation more so. Kutani’s soon convinced that he wants to help the people of Yamatai, vowing to restore them before helping get himself and Himiko back home.

The Legend of Himiko has a voice cast and visual style taken right from Record of Lodoss Wars. While that’s not any sort of pass for good or bad by itself, it turns out to be a good thing with Himiko. Not only do the voice actors turn in just as good a performance, the art is just as visually pleasing (though it’s more in the style of the Lodoss TV series, for those that prefer the darker OVA style). All of the characters are very visually distinct and easily recognizable, with a bit of fan-service in some of the characters, though nothing comes of it in any negative way. The music is very 90s anime, with catchy intro and credit music and simple but complimentary background music in the series itself. As an overall package of sound and sight, there’s nothing I can complain about.

That’s the easy part of course. Does the story and plot execution stand up? The story itself does, being a deep and fascinating story and world, with many characters, multiple nations, and a style all its own. The problem (and really THE problem in Legend of Himiko) comes in the execution. As is common enough in anime, Himiko is clearly an anime in need of time and money. Though it spans a good 12 episodes (as long as the original Lodoss), there are points in the series it was clear they had to cut out exposition and plot to fit the characters and plot all into the time frame they had with the anime. What’s there works, but when they released the Himiko Playstation game and manga, it was obvious they had more story they wanted to be able to tell.

Even shorter than I thought it should have been, it’s still an anime I highly recommend, especially for those that like 90s anime as I do. It’s a serious anime with a good plot, doesn’t drag, doesn’t feel like it has any large plot holes. It was good enough to leave me wanting more, and wishing they had more time and money to DO more, so obviously I liked what I got. The series is a bit less well known, and with its age, that makes it a bit harder to find. That said, it IS findable for cheap on DVD, and likely viewable online, so give it a go and enjoy it!

 

Review #101: All Purpose Catgirl Nuku Nuku (OVA, TV, Dash)

• Published: 92JP/95US (OVA), 98JP/04US (TV), 98JP/04US (Dash)
• Episodes: 6 (OVA), 12+2 (TV), 12 (Dash)

Despite having three different anime series, Nuku Nuku is essentially a retelling of one single story in three different ways. The original OVA is the basis that the other two work off of, so that’s the best place to start. Released four years before the TV series and Dash, All Purposes Cat Girl Nuku Nuku was (as was almost always the case in the early 90s) based on a manga of the same name. The star of the OVA, along with the two series to come, is the titular character Nuku Nuku, a nickname for the Androbot Atsuko Natsume. Created by Mishama Heavy Industries from the brain of a cat, Nuku Nuku was stolen by Doctor Kyusaku Natsume, the scientist leading the project, to prevent her being sold to the military by the company’s project director, Akiko Natsume, Kyusaku’s wife. Kyusaku ends up on the run along with his son Ryunosuke as Mishima hunts them down to reclaim Nuku Nuku.

Most of the plot of the original OVA revolves around this conflict, with the three trying to avoid having Nuku Nuku caught, even as they eventually try to settle down and live a sort of normal life. Nuku Nuku ends up attending high school, she meets a rival androbot named Eimi, and Akiko tries to get her son to live with her rather than her husband (though they eventually try to all live together again as well). The OVA introduces all of the characters main that appear in both the TV and Dash which, apart from the Natsume family and Nuku Nuku, includes Akiko’s lackeys Kyouko and Arisa. In all three series their job is to get Nuku Nuku, whether that be for more personal or company reasons.

Nuku Nuku TV is much more similar in tone to the original OVA than Dash, though it has its own feel that sets it apart at the same time. The OVA has a slightly serious, slightly comedic, slightly action packed feel to it, befitting an original release meant to stand up on its own. Nuku Nuku TV was made without much of the action and without any of the real serious parts the OVA had. Instead of a story based around Nuku Nuku trying to become more human and the Natsume family trying to resolve their differences, TV is much more focused on Nuku Nuku and her life at high school. While the OVA touched on Nuku Nuku’s going to high school, it was a secondary note. In the TV series, most of the side characters come from Nuku Nuku’s class.

Comedy is what sets TV apart the most from the OVA. Mishima is turned from a darker organization bent on controlling the militaries of the world with their technology, in TV they’re a slapstick organization that just wants to sell their products to as many people as they can and rule the world with sales figures. They all dress like comic book super villains and hatch hair brained schemes, but it all has a light hearted wackiness to it ala Team Rocket from Pokemon. The other half of the humor comes from the classmates and teacher;  Each is given one personality trait that gets drawn out and replayed on over and over, but it makes for a good comedy set up with how they react to Nuku Nuku as she tries to figure out life.

Dash was the last of the three released (though not far behind TV, coming out later in the same year), and it also ended up being the one that tried to be the most different from the other two. Where the TV series was slapstick and wacky, and the OVA was still a light hearted series, Dash’s feel was much more mature and dramatic. While this doesn’t show through in everything, the biggest noticeable chang occurred with Nuku Nuku herself, Mishima, and Ryunosuke. In Dash, Nuku Nuku is given a much more mature outward appearance, toning down her pink spikey hair to a flat silver, as well as making her more polite and demure rather than her wacky ditsy side she shows in the other series. Mishima is turned from a corporation into an evil organization seeking to dominate the world with the power of androbots. Ryunosuke goes through the most changes however, going from a young boy trying to get on with his life to a punk looking teenager that spends all of Dash sighing over Nuku Nuku.

Where the other two series were colorful and bright, Dash supported its “serious” atmosphere with a much darker palate of colors and tones. The art style was less cartoony as well, though not with a great amount of detail. This all lead to a more dramatic and action style anime. In fact, the action in Dash was a lot more pronounced to match the series serious feel, complete with Nuku Nuku being given a sleek, shade wearing, spandex suit wearing “battle mode” that she transforms into. That’s not to say the series is bloody or violent, especially since one of the key dramatic struggles is Nuku Nuku’s programming to preserve all human life versus her identity as a weapon.

As a whole, the Nuku Nuku series is a fascinating look at what different creators can do with one core idea. While the OVA and TV were similar, there was enough different to give them different feels, and while Dash kept the same core people and plots that the other two had, it treated them all in a much different way as well. Unfortunately, none of the three version was very exceptional, even if I enjoyed all three. Being a comedy fan, I enjoyed TV the most, but that was despite a series that had no real plot or progression. Other than the start and a bit of a note on the end, you could rearrange the TV series’ episodes and not lose any story cohesion. The OVA was a bit more coherent, but lacked uniqueness that the other two had, leaving it the least memorable of the three. Dash had the strongest plot, but also lacked a TRUE action and drama feel, clearly being too weak for either being based off what was essentially a comedic anime.

So can I recommend the overall Nuku Nuku experience? I suppose so, yes, though with the note that it’s not really all that revolutionary or memorable when all’s said and done. The best of the three for me is clearly TV since if anything should be forgiven for being vapid, it’s comedy, and the series pulls off comedy pretty well at that. Dash and the OVA were both interesting to watch, but I have a hard time remembering the OVA, and Dash was middling to below average for an action anime. They’re all easy to find online however, and the 3 series are collected together on DVD for cheap as well. From a historical perspective alone they’re worth a watch, but not for much more than a few laughs.