(32 episodes)
What’s it about ?
As far as I can tell, this is series is very loosely adapted from Journey to the West, but shifted to a post-apocalyptic futuristic setting, with maximum toyetic flavour.
Characters
Yakumo, our female protagonist, is one of the few humans left alive. She woke up in a deserted lab one day, with the advice to go west (of course) to the mythical land of Shinzo (where there may or may not be other humans). Her main characterization point is that she’s absurdly respectful of live, despite most of the anthropomorphic animals around trying to kill her. But Killing Is BAD, and she’s sticking to that rule.
Mushra, a beastboy that totally didn’t try to swindle the locals and got hung to dry for it, honest ! He was totally framed ! She rescues him because that’s what she does, and he sticks around as a bodyguard in gratitude (while a bit baffled by her no-killing stance). His “Hyper-Mode”, which can transform him into a red-armoured humanoid, should be quite useful for that.
Kutal, a catman who offers to guide them through a shortcut that’s totally not a trap so that he can eat the tasty human. It backfires horribly, but somehow Yakumo still trusts him to accompany them after that.
There’s a blue-armoured guy hanging around the fringes of the plot and occasionally lending a helping hand.
Our Mook of the Week is a mantis-like bounty hunter who can (sigh) shift into Hyper Mode by eating a card. As you do.
Production Values
Okay-ish as far as saturday-morning cartoons go, but the characters designs are really dull and uninspired. And then there’s… well, read below.
Overall Impression
Oh, dear. This is one of the few shows in this project where I could only locate a copy of the American dub. Unfortunately, it seems to be a case where the localization was a complete hatchet job : both literally (as it looks like the first two original episodes got fused into one), and on every other level. The plot gets put through the wringer : Yakumo’s origin story, presumably the meat of the pilot, gets reduced to a 30-second opening narration. We can’t just have a girl getting the lion’s share of screentime through half an episode, after all ! Ah ah, no, we must instead open with Mushra’s predicament, whatever havoc that wreaks on the world-building.
I’m not saying the original show was a masterpiece either ; it was clearly already quite uninspired and toyetic as heck. I would have gotten bored either way. Still, this kind of massacre is infuriating whatever it happens to.
Obviously, there’s no point in watching any more of this.
