Friday, July 28, 2006

Fight! Iczer One


So I've been going over and over the Shoujo ai anime list over at Wikipedia, looking for new stuffs to download. Iczer One is one of those that I downloaded. I figured, hey, it's only a 3 ep OVA, so who knows?

Yeeeeeaaaahhhh... it was bad. Mind you, this is basically a rundown of the entire plot. As if you're going to watch it, so it shouldn't matter, right? Anyway, spoilers ahead:

Visuals
As an anime from 1985, it certainly looks it. Kind of dark since it was all hand-done, lots and lots of lines and details everywhere, cheezy music, cheezy sound effects... it's OLD. One interesting thing, though, is that people are much better proportioned, particularly in the weight department. Our girls have a little meat on their bones - they look HEALTHY.

Story
The anime opens on some spaceship thingey on the far side of the moon. Everyone on board is female and apparently they are all named after colors. Two chicks, Cobalt and Sepia, are in a sci-fi bedroom area talking about a mission to prevent Iczer One from merging with her partner. Sepia tells Cobalt to be careful on her mission, and they proceed to make out. Oh yeah, they're buck naked.

So Nagisa is our main character, besides Iczer One. Nagisa is a schoolgirl, on her way to school when she spots Iczer One watching her from some trees. Nagisa comments to herself on Iczer's bizarre outfit before continuing on to school.

At school, Nagisa starts having daydream/nightmares as she's trying to take a test. This is when I realised this was a horror sort of anime as far s monsters go, something one should not watch while trying to eat squishy food. The kind of monsters with teeth and eyes and tentacles where those items should not be on a body. Really over detailed, slimy, and gross.

Later, Nagisa is surrounded by some masked students on the roof, falls off the roof, and is rescued by Iczer One.

Nagisa wakes up at home and the day starts as if nothing went wrong, except Nagisa's parents turn into those gross monsters like the ones from Nagisa's nightmares. I think the house turned into a monster, too, or something - I dunno, I was busy doing something else when it showed where the giant monster came from. Anyway, Iczer shows up and kills them all. Nagisa goes into a really idiotic fit about her mommy and daddy being dead and demands that Iczer give them back. Because, you know, you can raise people from the dead easy.

We keep getting scenes from on the ship on the far-side of the moon. Apparently, Sir Violet (a green haired woman with a man's voice) is in charge of the ship. She keeps talking to this giant wall of red, pustuley living tissue in the vague shape of a vulva with a really large golden transparent sphere where a clit would be. Inside the sphere is a golden female humanoid curled in the fetal position. Sir Violet does all the talking, we never hear what gold thing says.

As it turns out much later, the gold being is Big Gold (of course) and she, too, has a super deep male voice. She's in charge of this whole ship and all the beings on board. We eventually, excruciatingly, find out that their race are called the Cthulu and are very similar to humans and were apparently once part of earth before they left to... go elsewhere. Their planet is now dead and now they're back, though we dunno why. Big Gold's TRUE form is actually a building-sized super computer, as she is no longer alive. Iczer is a daughter of Big Gold or an artificial being derrived from Big Gold and just called her daughter. Who cares.

So, back on earth, Iczer is running around fighting monsters. She can shoot yellow beams out of her fists and is pretty super strong and agile. She also keeps slipping into Alternate Dimensions. To Quote Iczer, "I'm in an alternate dimension. Oh no!" Which is really pointless and dull.

She keeps trying to convince Nagisa to merge with her and fight to save the planet. Nagisa refuses. Eventually, Iczer calls upon her giant robot, called Iczer Robo, and beams Nagisa inside. While Iczer is in a pilot seat with small pink hoses hooked up to her bustier, Nagisa has to float around in a seperate compartment, buck naked, in some breatheable green liquid, with the same little hoses hooked up all over her body.

Nagisa refuses to fight.

Until Iczer brings up her parents death and suggests vengence. Suddenly, Nagisa thinks this is a hot idea and bOOM, the power of Iczer Robo is complete. By saying yes to fighting, they are now "merged" and fight as one.

And they do. And they win against whatever it was they were fighting. Oh, yeah, they fight Cobalt, who is in another robot. They rip Cobalt out of her robot and crush her.

So Iczer drops off Nagisa in her old neighborhood. The whole country has been overrun with a virus or something that turns everyone into monsters, but somehow Iczer thinks Nagisa will be just fine. Nagisa is suddenly is wearing a flashier, skimpy outfit. She asks Iczer what's up with this outfit and Iczer tells her it will protect her. Yes, of course - less clothes = more protection. Didn't we learn anything from Xena?

On her own, Nagisa goes back to her own house and finds a little girl and her mother, whom she befriends. She goes upstairs to her parents room and finds that the bodies are all gone somehow. But suddenly, monsters come out of the walls and floors and attack with face tendrils, which Nagisa's bracelet fry to a crispy pile of dust. All is saved...
... except back downstairs the mother of the girl is now a bloated monster. Nagisa toasts her, too.

I don't remember what happens next. Sepia is super upset and distraught over Cobalt's death. But the Cthulu have made another Iczer - Iczer TWO, who takes Sepia as her partner. They go down to Earth in a super robot, Iczer Sigma, and fight Iczer Robo. They rip Robo's arm off. Then, Iczer Sigma stomps on the little girl Nagisa was trying to save. With Nagisa horrified by this, suddenly power beyond belief comes to Iczer Robo and they do something amazing and defeat Iczer Sigma.

And it turns out that Nagisa had given her bracelet to the little girl, so she survived after all. So to protect her, they take hte little girl far far away to the countryside to protect her. But while they're there, Iczer Two arrives with Blue and Red and kidnap Nagisa and kick Iczer One's ass.

Back on the mother ship on the far side of the moon, Iczer Two wants Nagisa to be her partner since she's so powerful to Iczer One (who, by the way, seems to be passionately worried about Nagisa all the time). Iczer Two has Nagisa pinned to a wall in a cell and tries to force her to become her partner by having some pod creature at Nagisa's feet sprout tentacles, which menacingly wrap around Nagisa and hover over face in a threatening bukake pose.

Interstingly, with as many tendriled monsters as there are, none of them were sexual at all the way tentacles ALWAYS are nowadays in anime. This was the only scene with even REMOTE "sexual tentacle tension" and it wasn't much at all. Which is fine, as I don't care for tentales, but anyhow.

Also odd, as desperate as everyone is to destroy and stop Iczer, all the monsters always corner Nagisa, the source of Iczer's power, and then just... kinda hover there and watch. They never DO anything! Stupid monsters!

So... Nagisa, threatened by Iczer Two and the tentacle pod. Nagisa says she'd rather die, kill me now. As the tentacles near, she screams out for Iczer One.

Iczer one is unconcious in a field. Iczer Robo appears, beams up Iczer One, who then wakes up and beams to this monolith thingey, destroying Iczer Robo in the process of smashing through the walls. Iczer One is now surrounded by monsters and fights and kicks ass, before Iczer Two appears and brings out Nagisa, who now has glowing green glazed eyes. Telepathically, Nagisa calls out to Iczer and tells her she cannot control her own body -- shoot me before I shoot you and kill you. At first Iczer refuses, she's crying and torn over killing Nagisa. But then she shoots her anyway. Nagisa thanks her, then dies and we see her spirit drift toward Iczer and apparently get absorbed because suddenly Iczer gets her second wind, has super super powers and destroys Iczer Two.

Then Big Gold kills Sir Violet And shows up to congradulate her. Now let's take over the world. Iczer One says, "never!" so Big Gold suggests they fight in their true forms. Nothing happens to Iczer One, so that must be her true form, while Big Gold turns into a gigantic pillar of golden light. Calling Nagisa's name, Iczer surrounds herself with a gold bubble, draws her blue light saber, and flies into Big Gold, which causes Big Gold and Iczer to merge into one being, but technically, Iczer is the dominant personality/apperance/etc.

Stuff blows up.

Iczer is floating around in space or somewhere over Earth, holding Nagisa's body. She's saying now she has the power of Big Gold, she's going to find the Cthulu a new home and watch over them (so they don't go bad again). She's also going to grant Nagisa's wish to put Earth back the way it was. Which she does. Next scene is basically the same scene where we first saw Nagisa, waking up and getting ready for school. And on her way to school, she sees Iczer again but doesn't recognize her, while Iczer stands there with a goofy sad smile and tears in her eyes as Nagisa takes off with her friend to get to school on time.

The end.


Conclusion
Really gross monsters, stupid-stupid dialogue, trite characters with no depth. Hated the animation, hated the music and HATED the sound effects. There was very little yuri. The very brief nude makeout scene at the beginning, and then Nagisa and people are naked often, but that's about it. Nagisa depends on Iczer for protection but doesn't seem to love her or anything, and Iczer is just weird. She seems randomly obsessed with Nagisa the way Najara was for Gabrielle but no good vibes necessarily.

The whole thing is a super drama, no humour at all, and no POINT at all.
There you have it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The real question, however, is...
Where DID you download it?
I love things that are just so terrible that I can't help but to laugh out lout at them.
And I've been trying to find/download it for about a week now. No results.

Kara Stenberg said...

I really can't recall where I got it. I only use three sites and of them it was most likely boxtorrents.com.