Anime Meta-Review
Metal Fighter Miku
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Title Info
- seen: 1-3 of 13
- type: unknown
- grade: flawed
- genre: magic_war
- made: 1994
- Review created: A while ago, i'll revise it eventually.
- mod: none
This anime is primarily flawed in that it is just such a predictable amalgamum of anime tradition. You can almost imagine the production meeting. One guy wants fighting, one guy wants pretty girls, the solution is pretty fighting girls. Add onto this a wrestling angle, so you can have magical girl transforms, silly outfits and attack names to yell out and you're almost there. Finally add in the `coach overcoming past troubles' but with the coaching secrets that will lead the naieve girls to success and you have metal fighter Miku. The specific story is set at some point in the future where girls in (poorly designed) power armor fight in neo-wrestling. The head of the premier league, in an effort to strike at a hated rival, sets up an all-league wrestling competition and drives Miku's novice team into the competition. And this is all the reason needed for some wrestling biffo and sports-philosophy (no, it's not quite an oxymoron) as these novices are on the road to sporting glory.
I thought this could be a good title if, like the very similar `ayanes high kick', (or any magical girl show) it combined this interest in fighting with the normal life of young girls. However this is way at the shounen end of the curve, the combat starts immediately and these girls have no interests or lives outside of fighting. The fighting itself is okay, with lots of unbelievable aerial attacks, thematic costumes and attacks and solid impacts. Indeed at this point I still don't know if the sport is lethal. Some moves certainly look lethal, and are called killer moves, but it is (intentionally?) left ambiguous as to the outcome. The power armor is designed for visual impact and is really illogical, seemingly required as a prop allowing unrealistic combat and solid impacts without messy fatalities. The animation is not too bad, but is workable rather than impressive. Backgrounds are simple and combat backgrounds often fade out entirely. The voices are acceptable, although I saw it subbed. The girls we follow also don't look much like wrestlers, looking more like very young school girls. Still, if you like the idea of cute girls jumping around and hitting each other, and the whole idea of secret training and `guts' bringing victory, then this should be right up your alley. Personally I'll take Yawara any day over illogical fluff like this.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:22 WST 2009