30 SILLY ANIME NAMES (or, a quest to briefly understand Japanese animated television before I waste too much time), Part # 3

11. Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure

Episode 1, part 1, English Sub.



PAUL'S COMMENT: Same old, same old. Nothing to say about this. A Mecha show with an 'unwanted Harem' (i.e. the protagonist is surrounded by girls and is embarrassed by the fact, whilst the girls, for the most part, exhibit more extrovert behaviour).

BEN’S COMMENT: You should give this one another go Paul, I think you’re selling it short – it seems pretty well made, smart and interesting to me! It seems to tell the tale of this kid who spends his whole time fantasising about giant robot battles, and writing stories about them, a hobby that obsesses him to the extent that he not only has no friends and blushes and runs away whenever a girl talks to him, but he regularly has crazy, involuntary visions of his giant robots. I can relate! So it seems that he gets mixed up with this mad professor dude, ala Back to The Future, who sends him into a parallel world where his family & home don’t exist, and where his robot knowledge is coveted by a bunch of fascistic military types, the scientist guy is head of something called the Earth Defence Force, and the girl who tried to make friends with him in his homeworld is an evil, emotionless solider who helps capture him, or something. Quite reminiscent in tone to one of Philip K. Dick’s early novels actually, and the first anime we’ve looked at so far that I’d actually quite like to watch in full, if only I had the time…


12. Samurai Pizza Cats

Samurai Pizza Cats - The Case of the Bogus Billionaire



PAUL'S COMMENT: The American team didn't get a transcript of this one in time to do the English dub and had to write their own based on what the action seems to depict. Hence, the dialogue and commentary run in the style of Danger Mouse (after all, The Magic Roundabout was 'translated' from the French in much the same way). The result is not as good as all that: (1) it is not hard to work out what is going on without a script, leaving little room for invention and (2) Americans wrote it, so it is not funny in the way it is intended to be. A curiosity.

BEN’S COMMENT: Imagine being the poor guy the American producers hired to write/sing a new English language theme tune for this damn thing! The results sound like the work of an utter lunatic, so I guess they must have found their man.

13. Strawberry Panic

Episode 1, part 1, English sub.



PAUL’S COMMENT: I honestly can't tell the difference between this one and # 17 - honest. Hence... see # 17 for comments.

BEN’S COMMENT: Hmm…. more uneventful catholic schoolgirl shenanigans. Less jolly hockeysticks, more hyperreal, dreamlike, chaste gothic romance. Certainly LOOKS a hell of a lot better than the last one of these we looked at too. In my weaker moments, I can almost see myself getting really into this sort of thing, and waking up sprawled across the living room floor a week later, wondering what happened.

14. UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie

Season 1, Episode 1, Part 1, English Sub.



PAUL’S COMMENT: A set of characters in an unreal setting. It vaguely resembles a 'magical girl' series (e.g. Card Captor Sakura, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha). However, nothing terribly out-of-the-ordinary seems to happen beneath appearances, at a glance - quite unlike the name in that respect.

BEN’S COMMENT: Nothing out of the ordinary…?? This show opens with some wonderfully realised scenes inside a vast spaceport of some kind, with all kinds of aliens wondering through customs etc., before switching the action to the travails of this wistful looking young guy whose day job involves managing this sort of communal public bath wherein a whole host of cute girls with cat ears seem to gain an inordinate amount of pleasure from lounging around in the nude chatting to blobby alien types. Our protagonist seems to be assisted in his bath-related labours by a whole crew of oddballs, most notably a strange, hyperactive little girl who is indeed dressed as some Japanese equivalent of a valkyrie, and who seems to live in the swimming baths and just kinda gets in everyone’s way. Cut to some school girls standing on a bridge, watching our hero pass by beneath. They seem pretty enamoured with him, but swiftly change their minds when they notice he’s walking hand in hand with the weird valkyrie girl and conclude that he must be a paedophile. Wistful guy and valkyrie girl watch a rocket taking off, and he explains to her that, yes, the rocket is full of people going into space. She gets incredibly excited at this prospect and experiences some kind of dream vision, or something. Cut back to the swimming baths, and more naked cat girls. They seem to be emerging from this robotic contraption that looks a lot like a transformer. They seem to be finding it very enjoyable. That’s what happens in the first EIGHT MINUTES. It’s beautiful, and dreamlike, and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Those responsible for producing popular entertainment in the west should watch and learn. The theme tune is totally awesome Shonen Knife-style bubblegum punk too. Nothing out of the ordinary..?!?

15. Zombie Loan

Episode 1, Part 1, English subs.



PAUL’S COMMENT: Boring. No, the hero doesn't go to the bank and say 'I'd like to arrange a loan for 1000 zombies'. The explanation is too dull to be worth repeating.

BEN’S COMMENT: This is a kind of gothic horror/action anime that largely seems to focus on these two tall, skinny dudes going about the place looking cool, and doing slo mo action sequences with magic swords and guns and suchlike. More unhappy catholic schoolgirls too. Fair enough. Another awesome theme tune though. (Yes non-Stereo Sanctity readers, I think just about anything with a loud guitar and somebody shouting is ‘awesome’; get used to it.)