Anime Meta-Review
Superkids
Index's
Home
Alphabetic
Quality
Genre
People
Recent
By Date
Title Info
- type: movie
- grade: archaic
- genre: magic_war
- Other elements of this title:
- This title has been commercially released in Australia.
- made: unknown
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
I don't know what this is, so help is welcome. I must admit that initially I thought it was part of the dragonball family, but now i'm not so sure. This dusty looking title was at a local video store. Anyway it has a tiny synopsis on the back (the superkids fight the space badguy) and the statement about being a cinema release three years in the making. Perhaps so, but that must have been some time ago because it is pretty primitive looking stuff by any (remotely) modern standards. Given that the story is pretty damn superficial, and that we are obviously meant to know these characters from elsewhere, there's not much left. Basically a bunch of super powered kids, fight it out with a powerful space monster and a couple of minor characters.
The title is pretty spurious, since the lead character is 300 years old even though he looks and acts like a kid. The team also includes aliens, a `humorous' fat martial artist and a 100 year old flying monk. Calling these guys the super-kids defies any brand of logic i'm familiar with. The team themselves are pretty sad, with everyone flying, surviving monstrous impacts and possessing fairly ridiculous attacks. They are likewise limited in dialog and character. The story really is nothing more than a long, and fairly repetitive punch up. seemingly it wants to rely on the effects, but this doesn't work for a tape this old. Alternatively it might be that these are beloved characters from some TV series, but this doesn't work for a western fan either. There's one atmospheric bad-guy, who simply looks out of place, but the main bad guy is basically a big elephant man. What can I say, it runs for one hour and 40 minutes and only the very patient and tolerant will find it worth watching.
And the animation and general production makes up for a large part of that. I should first mention that the tape I saw was very dark, much darker than the screen shots on the package, so perhaps the tape was less than ideal. Still, the animation is dated, detail low, character design primitive and the action stilted and formulaic. I simply can't see anything that would interest an adult and the duration is probably way too long for most kids, combined with the lack of any impressive effects or events. The voices are fairly basic, but not too painful, but then not much is asked of them.
None of my regular sources have a review for this movie. Of course without knowing what other names it has, like the Japanese release name, finding information is difficult.
According to a reliable source this was actually a Korean release and may well have actually been three years in the making. As such it doesn't count as anime, but what the hell. It certainly helps explain why it is influenced by dragonball even though it has no formal connections to that show.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009