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Virgin Fleet
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Title Info
- seen: 1-3 of 3
- type: OAV
- grade: burnable
- dur: 90
- form: sub
- source: fansub
- made: unknown
- Review created: Mon Mar 5 10:17:22 EST 2001
- mod: none
Was it meant to be cute, clever or deep? It doesn't matter because what we actually have is another fine member of clan burnable. It might not be as bad as M.D.Geist, but it serves as a sterling example of turgid, messed up anime from people who obviously should have known better.
Anyway, in some strange anachronistic version of reality a version of Japan is under attack from a powerful enemy military. And since the enemy is doing a beach landing on Japanese shores it looks like things are going fairly badly. However, sailing into the harbor, comes a lone battle ship from the `virgin fleet'. It begins to glow and radiate an awesome power which smashes the invading foces (who look suspiciously american) and immediately turns the war into a protracted cease-fire.
It turns out that some girls can harness `virgin energy' and, naturally enough, the japanese set up a virgin training school to ensure that they have a ready supply. And since the war hasn't actually ended it's likely they'll be needed again. Mind you, since none of the original virgins survived, i'd be thinking pretty carefully before I signed up. In any case one member of the school has actually been concealing her power because she intends to, and promised her dying parents that she would, marry the son of the family that looked after her. However, having accidentally revealed her power, which is greater than the rest of the school put together, she find herself called upon by her nation as the possibility of war re-emerges.
The main question is where to start putting the boot in. I guess I should say that the entire foundation of the plot is entirely bogus and demands a suspension of reality I am incapable of providing. The suggestion that virginity is capable of summoning awesome and seemingly limitless energy powers is perhaps the stupidest thing i've ever heard of. The suggestion that an organized `virgin squad' is the ultimate military power? Gah, what where they smoking when they came up with this plot. I can almost see how it could be made to work, some religious element to it, but this doesn't even come within 100 miles of being believable. And then, to cap it off, the story doesn't really come to any sort of conclusion.
And the `small' elements are almost as stupid. The dramatic and insane growth in her personal power. A stupid conflict between a military downsized in order to support a ship full of 36 virgins. The political plots, the personal plots, they're all so terribly dire. And, at the core, there is supposed to be the young girls decision to marry or fight for her country. Gee, perhaps they could get married but leave the bonking until after the war, how difficult is that. The personal interaction, dialogue and story is just a complete and abysmal mess. And it has the gall to think it's being cute, powerful or even funny...sorry, i'm not buying it.
And let's not forget a big drop-kick for the production values. The characters are entirely two dimensional and their character designs even worse. They're badly drawn, have incredibly bad blocky coloring and are ugly to the eye. They all look more like dolls or charicatures rather than humans. Animation is choppy, confusing and amazingly undramatic. Technical design is simply horrible, and very poorly explained. The whole thing looks like a real slap dash effort. Add in the painful voices and `funny' music and you've got a real horror here.
However, let's be really clear here. I've seen anime much worse than this. But this one really aggravates because it clearly should be so much better. It's AIC production, it's got a well-respected producer and it probably even had a reasonable budget. But the final result simple fails to interest in any way, barring wondering how they stuffed up every single element. It's almost impressive, in a sick sort of way.
Other Reviews
This is exactly the sort of thing where i'd like to read other reviews and see if this is just a personal hatred. Sadly none of my sources have a review of this title. And I care enough for their mental health that I hope that situation continues.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:26 WST 2009