A little over a year ago, I began getting Ultra Jump magazine, when Hayate Cross Blade moved to there from its former home. One of the other series in the magazine was the manga Needless and, being the manga omnivore I am, I gave it a try.

I picked it up in the middle of a fight between a bunch of girls, whose underwear the reader was shown repeatedly and a buxom woman with evil eyebrows, whose cleavage the reader spent a lot of time looking down. There were two older guys with silly facial hair, a bunch of people in the background and a lot of screaming.

Now, about 14 months later, Needless is still in the middle of the very same battle, with the very same characters in the same locations and lots of screaming.

So, when the anime was announced, you can bet I had no expectations. And so far, I’ve been right on with that. ^_^

In a post-apocalyptic setting, Needless is the name given to people with special powers who spend most of the series yelling and fighting. The story is surprisingly Shounen Jump-ish (well, not *that* surprisingly, after all UJ is the older creepy brother magazine of SJ.) The fights include standard shounen screaming of creative attack names, and Yu-Gi-Oh-esque character designs, endless fights in which power-ups make the bad guys able to come back from death blows and good guys miraculously rise from the ashes over and over. The crux of each battle is figuring out the *one* crucial clue that will unlock the other person’s ability. I have no doubt that there is an actual overall plot, but have yet to see sign of one in either anime or manga. Arc by arc is as good as you get, it seems.

There is no visible Yuri in the manga, but I counseled you to look for Yuri in the anime. Why? Because I just knew they were going to add it in where it was not really. The manga is full of Yuri-service, I had no doubt the anime would be as well. Naked women rubbing together and a ending sequence with the aforementioned schoolgirls kissing is exactly the kind of thing I expected. That’ll be good enough for most. The fact that the series is actually about a boy is beside the point.

Too old to buy Shounen Jump without thinking that you’d like to see Sakura naked once in a while? Needless is for you.

Ratings:

Art – I mean it when I say SJ. This is Saturday morning cartoon art.
Story – I suppose one will eventually show up.
Characters – Eve’s habit of renaming people is the most likeable thing anyone does.
Yuri – The ending sequence of the anime.
Service- All of it.

Overall – 6, if you take it for what it is

If Melody of Oblivion and Yu-Gi-Oh had a slightly impaired child, it would look like Needless. ^_^