(13 episodes)
What’s it about ?
A weird sci-fi-ish and conspirationist tale that features half-naked girls on their way to taking over the world. Words fail me to describe the plot’s sheer mentalness.
“An anime-original project by the director of Wolf’s Rain and Darker than Black” doesn’t help, as it’s completely unlike those shows.
Characters
Asuta, our point-of-view character. He immediately earns brownie points for non-genericness by telling his father to get lost through a phone call, and running away from home. Unfortunately, before he can even get any food there’s a big city alarm : terrorists are attacking !
Kate is a young girl on a bike he meets in those empty streets. Despite looking (and sometimes behaving) like a grade-schooler, she claims to be the leader of the Zvezda organization, and on her way to conquering the world. No, seriously. There’s even a ridiculous flash-forward showing she’ll eventually succeed somehow. After a while she starts wearing a “combat” suit that barely covers anything.
She’s got a bunch of followers : what looks like a dude in full armour ; a woman who can slice a tank in half with her sword ; and another remote-controlling a robot. Also, for some reason, Asuta’s dad as a low-ranking (and completely incompetent) footsoldier.
The authorities seem at a loss on how to deal with Zvezda, as sending a bunch of tanks against them has completely failed. There’s also a couple of mysterious girls uttering some ominous dialogue hinting that they may have a clue what’s going on. Good for them.
Production Values
Well, it looks good, and the action sequences work. Shame about the stripperific outfit for the 8-year-old, though.
Overall Impression
What. The. Hell ?
I’ll give it that : it’s certainly bizarre enough for my curiosity to be needled, and me to try out another episode. It feels like a bizarre satire of… something, but I’m not entirely sure what. It does have some good comedic timing, at least. But unlike, say, KILL la KILL, I can’t see any method to the madness. For now, it feels like a random collection of elements that’s just kind of a mess.
