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It's time for a pick-me-up. Here's an anime movie from 1985 with a giant robot. ... OK. Literally 3 seconds in, I have to stop for a second and really take this in. Here's the opening scene of this movie, OK? We've got some generic dude. He makes funny faces while in that blue-tint letterboxing deal. We see he's staring up a a girl in this totally ridiculous metal-bikini-over-red-bodysuit deal. He explodes, with his eyes popping out all weird-like, to reveal some kind of big red squid monster. Ridiculous girl shoots him with some kind of fist ray. Pardon me while I back out and double check that I'm watching this in terrible dub mode. Man. Do you remember when you could say "anime" and that was the sort of thing that immediately came to mind?
Now here's two naked girls with pink eyeshadow talking like valley girls about how taking over the earth sounds, like, totally cool. Boobs by paragraph 3 activated by the way. Then girl B goes to pounce on girl A to make out, but they're called into a meeting by their mysterious council of evil leaders, who generally are half black and half white, and at least one has a big goofy eyeball where his mouth should be. And apparently they're living on the moon, which they've weaponized into a deathray. Now here's a blue haired human girl with a smiley face stuck to her hair. She's late for school. Is she going to run off with toast in her mouth? Is she? Huh. Apparently not. What was it that first started that trend anyway? I've only really seen it in self-aware form that I can recall. Anyway, she sees Pinkini on the way, who is apparently some kind of elf, and... dagnabit movie! Stop being awesome for one minute so I can explain how awesome you are! Anyway, her friend doesn't see her. So she goes to school, and sits in her Protagonist Seat (more on that when I catch my breath), and sees a ball bouncing out the window. She zones out, and suddenly it's night, and everyone's gone except for the girl in front of her, the back of whom's head opens up into some sort of weird monster mouth, from which this big tentacle snake thing leaps out to menace her. Pinkini bursts through the window to fight it, then she wakes up. Then she goes up to the roof for lunch and her friend comes over, and her face turns into the thing with the mouth eye and menacers her. She falls off the roof, but Pinkini catches her in a force field, decloaks, and says "so how are you doing?" She screams, runs off, falls through a wall, and is confronted by eye-mouth and a couple totally awesome looking monsters. She screams, Pinkini catches up, and kills monsters with a lightsaber. OK. This fight scene here? This is the first time I have a chance to catch my breath. ALL of the above? That was just in the course of like, one minute, of this awesome awesome movie. Oh and eyemouth turns into another red squid monster, in schoolgirl outfit, and prances away.
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Meanwhile, in space, lead council weirdo is taking orders from a little girl floating in fetal position in a ball glowy ball in a wall of meat. Glowy girl communicates only in horrible screechy sounds. Blue hair goes home, takes a shower, without any gratuitous boob shots, and asks to sleep in her mom's room because.... man, what a day that was. Meanwhile, Pinkini falls into subspace, apparently, and is confronted by a monster. The next day, at breakfast, Mom and Dad explode into like, evil grasshopper monsters with vagina mouths. Meanwhile, Pinkini is still busy with a fight scene against some kinda robot. Oh and tehn two big monster arms just kinda reach out through he wall to hold Bluehair down. Also, robots apparently have like, 4 tongues. And are full of pink goo and 50 more tongues if you blow'em up. So are grasshopper things. Oh yeah, and those two lesbian space villains from earlier? Their names are Cobalt and Sepia. And the wall arms apparently belonged to some kind of wall monster, which I guess is like, attacking from subspace or whatever. Pinkini explains that her name is Iczer-One, and yeah, those really were her parents that exploded. They're trying to kill Bluehair because... they got the memo that Pinkini has chosen Bluehair as her official sidekick apparently. Meanwhile, a giant space marble falls to earth in the middle of the city. From it emerges a giant robot. Because we needed one of those. Pinkini is all we've got to hurry! Bluehair is all No! Get away from me you freak! My parents are dead! Pinkini just grabs her and teleports off anyway. Meanwhile, Cobalt, piloting the giant robot says, direct quote, "Where are you Iczer-One? I come like death." Also, the robot has a tail, because why not?
The humans launch their Godzilla style super-plane to fight it, with missiles and one of those radar dish blue-lightning deathrays. The crew are really weird looking... but it's pretty much immediately blown up. Bluehair is still freaking out, but Pinkini's all "There's no time, you've gotta syncronize with me." So I guess they do that. So she summons her "other self" Iczer-Robo Pinkini just keeps spouting stuff like "You must syncronize! Don't you want to protect your homeworld!" and Bluehair's all "No!" and "I want my clothes! Let me out!" Yeah, this is one of those robots you can only pilot by locking a nude blue-haired girl in a pod full of water in the heart it seems while you ride in the head. Eventually, Pinkini goes "Don't you want to avenge your parents?" This sends Bluehair into some weird mode of shouting "I will avenge my parents" over and over in surprisingly level tone, and they fight and win. Also, lots of boob shots. Now Sepia vows vengeance against Pinkini, and Bluehair finally has 5 seconds to realize her parents are dead and break down crying. Credits.
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OK. Wow. That right there? That was a solid half hour of unrelenting crazyawesome. And this is apparently an OAV series disguised as a movie. The credits are just on a plain blue background. Because I guess all the montages of awesome craziness were already used to make the episode. Seriously though, this thing is like a potentially lethal overdose of 80's anime tropes. Nude lesbian tentacle monsters are late for school with lightsaber duels! Hurry robot elf girl in bikini armor! Summon your giant robot!
So yeah. Episode 2 here. This... looks like a different wad of badguys. Oh, aha. These are Sepia's subordinates. I guess she has those. And I guess the badguys, or maybe the monster of the week, are/is called Big Gold. "Oh how could you! You put me back inside of the robot!" Yeah, she's still not on board with being the exploitastic batterypack for a giant robot. Now here's a superfriends-y thing about the Earth Defense Force finally noticing the moon-sized spaceship behind/attached to the moon. "Huh? What's that?" says some dude right before a pink tentacle covered metapod leaps from the darkness to eat his head. Meanwhile, Sepia goes to see the corpse of her girlfriend, but is immediately freaked out by how, you know, it's a mangled corpse. Good to get some closure I guess. Also, the lead badguy here? Or, at least the one directly under command of giant fetus girl? Everyone keeps using male pronouns, and he? has a pretty darn masculine voice but... those are totally boobs, and that's lipstick. So... yeah. Oh and back on earth, Bluehair is given special protective armor. Which happens to take the form of a cheerleader outfit. She also asks why she has to be the robot battery. "Because I love you."
A cop immedaitely trys to arrest Bluehair for being dressed like a total slut. Upon grabbing her arm, he gets repelled by her forcefield. Then reveals himself to basically just be a big meatsack full of tentacles. Fortunately, her bracelet laser spams it to death, which she's forced to admit is pretty awesome. Fleeing the scene, she sees a little girl freaking out over her passed out or dead mother. I assume one or both are also monsters, because the safe bet here is that everyone is a monster. Meanwhile, Pinkini is "trapped in subspace" again, and has to fight another robot. That just... happens to her now and then apparently. So yeah, more lightsaber fighting. But... seriously. I think this is like a random encounter thing. Every so often the screen wigs out, and she's stuck in a generic fight location with something, and she has to kill it to leave. Meanwhile, WoMan here is introducing Sepia to her new partner, Iczer-Two. Who is... just kind of a living bust in a cloney tube so far. I guess robot summoning elves are cloned from the head down. Meanwhile, wow, we have an actual brief calm happy moment with the kid and he apparently just fine mom.
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Also meanwhile, the EDF are beset by an army of grasshoppers. Also, their vehicle of choice here has a big pink flower embossed on the front and at the center of the bridge. It's another big Godzilla-ish super plain apparently, with hanger bays full of lesser jets. And... yeah. As soon as Mr. Robot dies, Pinkini is free... or at least sent to another pocket dimension to fight another one. Still, these are so totally console RPG battles here. Hey! How dare you go a whole 3 seconds without craziness going on Iczer! Wait little kid! Don't go upstairs! My parents corpses are still all over the floor! Oh hey, they aren't. That's... probably a bad sign actually. Yup. Oh no! It's a floormaster! Oh, no it's just some kind of giant space dragon phasing through the walls. Also, man, monsters sure like licking people in this. Also, kid's mom is getting menaced and possibly killed. Bluehair's all I don't want to fight, then she remembers, of yeah, little kid. Also, oh yeah, I have a thought-activated wrist-laser deal that kills things in one blast, not really hard to do this.
So yeah, the wacky Godzilla-y military attacks Sepia's ominous black pyramid she just kinda dropped on the city, and die horribly.Anyway, another robot dead.... except for the charging legs, OK now dead. So I guess it's about time for another giant robot fight then? Oh, no. It's time to fight Iczer-Two, your... evil clone sister or whatever. Man, Iczer-Two here looks so much snazzier than Iczer-One I guess I should call her Bluekini for consistency's sake, but this armor is less bikini-like and more actual armor-like. Well... OK, it isn't, but it has big shoulderpads. Also, watching this dubbed was so very much the correct choice. Speaking of which, Bluekini eventually shoots Pinkini right in the shoulderpad. Oh yeah, and Mom2 here is now totally monstering out. Her head kind of explodes as 20 or so tongues burst out and stab the wall. Little girl is kinda freaking out, which is understandable. Oh, and apparently the shoulderpad is like, Pinkini's weak point or something. And wow. That's a groovy wad of monsters facing down Bluehair.In order to deal with so many monsters suddenly, she remembers of yeah, she can just summon that big giant robot whenever. Doesn't even get into it, she just summons it, so it kind of appears and squishes all the monsters. Seeing that it's Giant Robot Time, Bluekini goes off to get hers.
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Man... the dialog in this show. I could quote every word of it and you'd think I was just doing my summary fake quotes. Seriously, it's all just hilariously literal and over the top. Also, cliffhanger. So oh yeah, I mentioned the Protagonist Seat thing earlier. Here's the deal. The other day someone in the Gamespite forums noticed, and provided evidence, that like... all anime set in schools has the main character sitting in the far left column of desks, next to the window, one seat away from the back wall. Here, look. Also, these credits have different music. Huh. And... wow, this recap music, which is weirdly lacking in dialog, is REALLY Mega Man-ish... and... OK, what is this? It's not an opening credits thing, I don't think, is it like... a silent music video explaining the plot so far? We're playing groovy J-Pop over a bunch of muted dialog scenes and stuff. I'm... really baffled quite frankly. It's way too long and not nearly as jump cutty as is called for for whatever it is, but, hey, song's cool. Anyway yeah, I really appreciate the goals of this particular project. Clearly, some guy just went I LIKE AWESOME THINGS! I'M GOING TO MAKE A MANGA FULL OF AWESOME THINGS! And then it was adapted as an OAV. But uh... yeah. You can wrap this intermission or whatever the heck it is up any time now and get on with the third episode. Ah, here we go. Seriously, that was just weird.
So... ignoring how we left off with a mid-fight cliffhanger, here's some random space girl louncing around on the couch kinda bored and pondering maybe taking over the earth to settle it with all those nude girls she has in tubes or something. She also apparently has a pet bunny abomination. It's real freaky looking. Seriously. And... I guess this is a flashback? And the fetus of doom (looking like an actual fetus, not an adult) appears before her, turns her bunny abomination into a squid monster, and says yeah OK let's go take some planet over, I'll help. Anyway, yeah, back to that fight scene we were having. Uh... or an orbital death beam can sheer off Iczer-Robo's arm. That works too I guess. Ah. I guess that's a thing Evil Giant Robot can do. Also, giant robots bleed. So do regular robots though, so, I guess that goes without saying. This is actually a pretty boring and slow paced giant robo fight. I guess the animators needed to catch their breath. Also, man, people have some shiny lower lips in this. Bluekini is about to win, but suddenly gets distracted by how there's that little girl watching from the sidelines. Sepia's all "Yeah, that's just a baby, finish Iczer-One." but she's all, screw that, goes over, and... stomps on Little Girl. So.... she's dead I guess. Even Sepia's all Dude WTF? So... yeah. The good guys win, because their battery gets all vengeful, while the evil battery is all no seriously, that's @#$%ed up, I'm done. Also, apparently the kid's fine, since she was borrowing the forecefield bracelet. Which I kinda figured, because, well, duh.
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Now here's another nude girl in a tube. Oh no wait, here's Iczer-Two in a tube. I guess it's one of those healing tubbes. She has new sidekicks named, dead serious here, Redis and Blueba. They are red and blue respectively, and apparently some kind of samurai robots. Also, Big Gold is apparently the name of the Fetus... which can talk all normal-like, and also has a baffling man-voice.... and is I guess a genie. And aha! WoMan is secretly the laid-back queen of the aliens here, whose wish for a new planet to live on Big Gold decided to grant by... turning half of all available life into hideous monsters and using them to kill the other half. Queeny protests, more, that that totally was not remotely what she wished for. And... did we just call the alien space babes "Cthuloids?" Let me check the sleeve here... ah. Cthuwolds. Close e-frelling-nough. Oh and it's apparently Red-Ass not Redis.... that's much worse. Or we just prouced it weird thi one time. Anyway though, yeah, fight scene. Pinkini is still weak from her damaged shoulder pat, and I swear I am dead serious about that. So she just uses her other hand to unceremoniously crush the head of Red-Ass, while Bluehair gets kidnapped y Blueba and taken to the moon fortress. Where she gets... sexily electricuted by the floor for a while? Then introduced to Big Gold. Big Gold does not understand the power of love. Big Gold is also secretly V-Ger, apparently, and the sworn enemy of Pinkini. "Big Gold, why?" asks Bluehair. We don't really get an answer to that though, because exposition is not what Iczer-One is about. Here's another big human military wacky space plane. "Surprise attack on the far side of the moon! Fuji-3, launch!"
If I didn't know better, I would swear this thing was trying to do an Excel Saga style spoof of everything ever. It seems to take itself pretty seriously though. And... yeah. Cool Military Thing #3 gets blone up before it's even one launching, by Big Gold, the evil floating man-woman-baby-space-probe. Who laughs maniacally afterwards. Now here's some more grasshopper monster people. In business suits! Now Bluekini and Bluehair are having a weid conversation. Wanna be with me? ... Are you coming on to me? Want to copilot my robot and kill Pinkini? Oh. No. Well what if I have one of these metapods tentacle rape you into a grasshopper monster? And then she remembers oh yeah, I can randomly summon that giant robot can't I. Oh, and I guess they landed the whole moon fortress on earth at some point. The giant robot getting summoned into it does some pretty heavy damage, but apparently can't make it all the way in. So then Pinkini just teleports the rest of the wa, apparently. Or... Teleports to the start of the level Mega Man style, I guess. Here's some monsters to fight. They're weird looking. Also, Blueba. But then they all stand down so Pinkini can fight mind controlled Bluehair. You can tell she's mind controlled because her eyes have no highlights. I shouldn't even have to explain that though. You knew that's what no eye highlights meant already, right? She psychically says sorry I'm trying to kill you. Please shoot me. Pinkini doesn't really want to but does anyway. Bluekini's all wait, what? That's not what you were supposed to do! I'm pretty sure she'lll be fine though, because she's ind of the main character. At the very least her nude ghost pops out, flows into Pinkni's breastplate, and "this is it! Synchronization!"
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This is some real... quality dialog here. Bluekini's mainly all DIE! While Pinkini's all, OK, you just saw me get powered up right? Do I really have to kill you, I mean, you know I'm going to win now right? That's how dramatic plot powerups work. But, since that's true, she kinda has to go and kill her anyway. "Prepare yourself! I'm going to kill you!" is a weird thing to say to the last boss. And... the climactic fightscene betwee Pinkni and Big Gold Here is... kinda half off camera. It's weird. Just a lot of close-ups and explosions without any real way to keep it straight. Also? Over surprisingly fast. "Bluehair, let's go!" Charge. "DAMN YOU PINKINI!" Explode. That's it. Then... we show some other random stuff, and return to that explosion. Color me mildly confused. Now here's Pinkini hanging out in space with Bluehair's corpse, having a heartfelt talk. She decides to use the godlike powers she apparently has now to... fix the entire population of the earth having been turned into monsters and made to kill each other, Bluehair and her parents included, and really just generally hits the reset button on the whole movie. Memory wipes and everything. Man, that's such a THING. I've never liked it, or seen the point. It's like, hey! You know all that character growth you just had? Yeah, UNDO! Also, I love you, but I'm going to just wander back off into space after wiping your memory. A LOT of things do that.
So... that's it it seems. There's sequels to this though, and I'm going to have to track them down at some point. Especially since, well, there's this picture I've had lying around on my hard drive forever I've been trying to figure out what it came from, and this IS pretty much what Bluehair's hair looks like.
