Archive for the Battle Athletes Category


Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, Guest Review by Eric P.

July 14th, 2021

Happy Guest Review Wednesday! Today we welcome back one of our long-time friends and Guest Reviewers, Eric P., who is taking a look at the newest in the Battle Athletes franchise, Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, streaming now on Funimation. Please welcome Eric once again. The stage is yours, my friend!

Set in 5100, 100 years after Akari Kanzaki’s victory at the Cosmo Beauty competition, humanity has extended beyond Earth and even further into space, and a new generation of athletes gather to compete in the Divine Grand Games to be crowned Cosmo Beauty once again. Since winning said crown is not just a mere title but grants them Queen-level authority, each athlete has their own goal in making the universe or at least their home worlds a better place. From Venus is Shelley Wong, a physically disabled athlete with prosthetic limbs who wants to especially prove her capabilities. From Pluto is Paglia Raspighi, an aspiring genius doctor who wants to advance her home world’s medical technology. From Mars is Lydia Gurtland, whose father’s company is a supplier of weaponry that instigated a civil war on the moon. There is Yana Christopher, a Lunarian refugee from said civil war, and who gets suspected of plotting terrorist activities within the competition (drawing some rather on-the-nose parallels to Middle East conflicts). And there is also Kanata Akehoshi from Earth, an unassuming potato farm girl (who could easily be besties with Sasha from Attack on Titan) that enters the competition as a promise from the distant past to another athlete. Said athlete is a quiet, mysterious girl named Eva Gallenstein who does not even remember Kanata, but plays the role of a puppet for an evil behind-the-scenes organization called the Solar System Control Committee.

As one watches Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, it does not feel so quickly certain whether or not it is a direct follow-up to Battle Athletes Victory, or if it just takes inspiration from the original. Aside from the names of past Cosmo Beauty champions, the events of the original anime (such as the Nerilian invasion) are not alluded to in this new story. Almost all the new characters share the same last names as the original characters, which would imply that they are descendants (as well as imply what may have transpired with everyone in the 100-year gap), but it could just as easily be fan service for viewers who have seen the original. Kanata bears such an easy resemblance to Akari but still does not share the same last name. It really is not until the very end of the series that we finally get affirmed clarity that ReSTART! is indeed an in-universe sequel to Victory, with surprise cameos from both a certain person and song I will not directly spoil here.

My personal fan service was seeing what appeared to be Ichino Yanagida, only it turned out to be Tamami Yanagida who just bears an uncanny resemblance, both facially and in attitude. She works in coaching the athletes at University Satellite, something I imagine Ichino would have likely ended up doing if ReSTART! had taken place a mere decade after Victory. Two other characters that are interesting in a specific way are Shelley Wong, descendant of Chinese athlete Ling-Pha, and male police detective Jeff Natdhipytadd, descendant of African athlete Tanya. Ling-Pha and Tanya were both criticized as ignorant caricatures of their respective nations/continents. Granted I could be over-speculating, I could not shake the vibe that Shelley and Jeff were created as a kind of apology to make up for those past insensitivities. Where Ling-Pha was a conniver whose friendship was shaky at best, Shelley is both driven and loyal to a fault. Where Tanya was hyper-animalistic, Jeff’s only “eccentricity” is that he declares himself to be a warrior for justice with a gung-ho attitude—which is actually fine, since he is competent at his job and plays a key role in trying to protect the athletes and the games from outside evil activities he is investigating.

As far as Yuri goes, where Victory was not just overt with it but was even driven by it, ReSTART! comparably just dips its toes. In Episode 5, Kanata gives Shelley a motivational speech about taking pride in our imperfections (in light of Shelley’s physical disability), saying that perfect people can stay still while everyone else who is not perfect are able to keep running. It makes enough of an impact that Shelley responds with “I might be falling for you.” Despite the complications between Yana and Lydia due to their conflicting backgrounds, the two still form an unlikely friendship and even express their mutual affections. In the last episode,Shelley comments on Lydia appearing angry about seeing (a sleepy) Kanata clinging onto Yana, to which a blushing Lydia insists “Yana and I are just…” but does not get to finish her sentence. And in the closing shots we see Shelley cozying up with a girl back home, who may or may not be her girlfriend. What little we get adds to a bare amount compared to the first time around, but with just 12 episodes to work with, the story’s thematic focus seems to be more on friendship and determination anyways.

When all is said and done, Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART! has turned out to be the kind of follow-up that was made to exist but ultimately does not feel necessary to the original, or even all that remarkable for newbie viewers. At the same time it is still there, harmless, adding nothing to the first series but not taking anything away either. It has an intentional old-school feel to it which often happens with reboots/sequels/homages of older titles. The humor is not as over-the-top this time around, although Yana for whatever reason has a literal boxing kangaroo companion in contrast to Kris Christopher’s cow. This companion series to the original classic can still be a pleasant treat that just manages to have its own charm if given the chance, even if just for a one-time viewing.

Ratings:

Art—6.5 (Neither high or low quality, just serviceable, although some galaxy locations/ships get neat little 3D updates)

Story—6 (At 12 episodes, it does not even try reaching the epic heights of the original, but instead settles for something concise and simple that does the job, even if it is still a little uneven—while it deals with themes of politics interfering with sports, it never really goes deep below the simple, superficial plot)

Characters—7 (The characters and their dynamics/motivations are what really help make the story worthwhile, including Eva’s actual goal, and Kanata as a heroine could be seen as an improvement over Akari in some ways)

Service—3 (Most of it happens in the first episode, with convenient body shots of the athletes and an especially non-subtle one of Paglia being introduced on-camera boobs-first. It is like as if it was all dumped there for the purpose of getting them out of the way so viewers can focus on the story and the characters’ journeys for the remaining episodes)

Yuri—2 (Again, there is not much to go on beyond the little indications that would seem obvious enough, albeit mostly to old-school fans)

Overall—6.5 (Just on account of it not being quite as worthwhile as the original, even if I am speaking from nostalgic bias, it gets scored just a notch less)

Erica here: Thank you so much, Eric!  It’s always a pleasure to have you do a review for us and I really appreciated hearing your thoughts on this series, which I’m watching right now.  I look forward to discussing it with you when I’m done. ^_^





Battle Athletes OVA/TV Anime Complete Blu-Ray set, Guest Review by Eric P.

February 3rd, 2021

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today we welcome back our long-time friend and Guest Reviewer, Eric P. It’s always a pleasure to have him here and today he’s going to take a look at the new release of Battle Athletes Complete TV Series & OVA Blu-Ray! As always, please give him a warm welcome back. Take it away Eric!

Set in the far-off future of 4999, Battle Athletes centers on young Akari Kanzaki who follows in her legendary mother’s footsteps.To do this, she attends University Satellite to compete in various sports tournaments for the top title of Cosmic Beauty, meeting different people along the way and growing up as both an athlete and person. That is the basic story  for the 6-episode OVA, while the TV version, Battle Athletes Victory, included far more elements in order to fill out its 26-episode length. In the TV-length series, Akari’s journey starts with her training to be a contender for University Satellite, followed by the actual Cosmic Beauty competition.  Everything culminates with—Akari and the other athletes fighting to protect Earth from an alien invasion. Turns out Cosmic Beauty was a front in searching for the best athletes to help decide Earth’s fate by tournaments, like a bloodless version of Mortal Kombat.

If that last part sounded goofy, it is, but it still works in its strange way. The TV version is sillier in nature than the OVA, with the humor driving much of the plot (the big revelation of Akari’s mother in the third act still makes me chuckle—it is something neither the characters or the viewers could ever see coming). Some viewers may better appreciate the more focused storytelling of the OVA with its minimal episode count, along with its more solid characterization. Akari herself develops at the right pace for the protagonist she is supposed to be, whereas in the TV version she is more likely to test viewers’ patience. As a consequence of having multiple episodes to pad the time out with, Akari struggles that much longer to come into her own. The real reason she is deemed special by everyone around her is due to her mother’s blood, and it takes quite a lot in drawing out that greatness like she is some kind of prophesied hero—which, she actually is by the end.

At the beginning of Victory, the one most responsible in driving Akari to be her best is her tomboy friend/fellow athlete from Osaka named Ichino. There are indications of something stirring between them as we follow them, but it never fully blooms due to their mutual denial. By act two they are forced to part ways, and the University Satellite is where Akari meets her new teammate in both the OVA and TV, Lunar-Priestess-in-training Kris Christopher. In the OVA, Akari gradually develops feelings for her that she later finds impossible to deny. Kris however remains a sexually ambiguous enigma since everything she does, including her kiss with Akari in the end, all get explained away by her religious customs.Victory is different in that regard, for there is no subtext in Kris’s love-at-first-sight attraction toward Akari. Her relentlessly obsessive pursuit drives Akari to maintain a distance much of the time for comedic purposes, although later on Akari does come around to embracing her teammate; if not so far as reciprocate her feelings quite yet. Once all the athletes gather to fight for Earth, as you might guess, we get the Yuri love triangle/rivalry that seems inevitable—the inhibited Ichino and uninhibited Kris have it out, with Akari helplessly stuck in between. Just as inevitable, the triangle ends unresolved, since leaving it up to the viewers to decide who Akari would choose was apparently meant to be part of the appeal.

This Sci-Fi Sports Yuri Comedy series was one of my gateway titles into Anime while growing up in the 1990’s. Like most Anime fans, I have watched several others as the years went by with only so much time to revisit old favorites now and then—then Discotek came along to license-rescue and re-release the complete collection in one Blu-ray set to be discovered anew. Originally standard-format, this is not an HD transfer so the picture quality remains the same as the original Pioneer DVD’s. Regardless, we get to have everything on one single disc including the special features. There is one other highlight that Discotek deserves kudos on—always missing from the Pioneer release but now restored, is the epilogue montage through the final TV closing credits, showing where all the characters wind up after the story’s end.

Having watched this series for the first time in so long, much of it still holds up well enough entertainment-wise—while some of the elements did not hold up as much as I would have liked. When I was younger, I thought it was neat how Victory was made up of a diverse cast of multicultural characters, with one athlete representing a major nation. Now I can finally recognize the outdated culturally ignorant stereotypes attributed to these characters. Some stick out like sore thumbs more so than others, especially with the conniving Chinese athlete Ling-Pha and African athlete Tanya, whose hyper-animalist nature will no doubt rub plenty of viewers the wrong way (she is more sensitively depicted in the OVA). Also, even though this series takes place in the far future when humanity is at its most advanced, a clear sign of the 1990’s is when the surrounding characters still react to homosexuality like it is something strange and stunning (and use dated language like “swing that way”), although Kris never views her feelings as such.

Despite the warts that mark it as a product of its time, my appreciation for Battle Athletes has not lessened, now that we have a new version. It is still a classic with charm one can only find from the 1990’s—one has to take it for the light, fun entertainment it was meant to be without taking it too seriously. Especially for those wishing for a newer sports-themed Yuri story to happen in the near future, there exists the original such title as an option until then.

 

Ratings:

 

Art—OVA:7, TV: 6 (The OVA being Original Video Anime, of course the animation would have more to it than the more limited TV series with the latter’s still/recycled shots. Either one is very ‘90’s, but not in a bad way)

Story—OVA:6, TV: 7 (The OVA and TV versions both have their strengths and weaknesses the other does not have, making it a matter of preference. I just happen to get more out of Victory, with the additional character stories and its inclusion of Ichino)

Characters—7 (The characterization may be more solid in the OVA, but we get far more characters and get more time well spent with them in the TV version, so it rounds out either way)

Service—OVA:7, TV: 3 (Both versions have it, yet the OVA is comparably more voyeuristic. Even without the scenes of nskedness, the camera takes plenty of convenient shots of the female athletes in their uniforms and body positions—it helps even less that the OVA version’s headmaster character is depicted as a stereotypical “loveable”[??] lech toward the athletes)

Yuri—7 (I would be remiss not to give a quick mention to two other athletes, Lahrri and Mylandah, in which at least one of them closely fulfills the traditional EPL role. Victory reveals tidbits of their complicated rivalry/friendship, but you will not find the same thing in the OVA)

Discotek’s Release—9 (If I had just one complaint—both inside and outside the slipcase the cover features almost each major character, yet it somehow misses Kris everywhere, while Ling-Pha somehow always appears twice. What’s the dealio, Discotek?)

Overall—lucky number 7

 

Erica here: Thank you very much Eric for taking a look at this now-classic Yuri series for us! I’m glad you didn’t forget Mylandah and Lahrri. They will always be the reason I love this series. ^_^

 





Yuri Anime: Battle Athletes Victory, Volume 8

February 21st, 2008

In keeping with my tradition of being out of step with the large majority of Yuri fandom, I would like to take some time today and review the final volume of this mostly-unknown-to- today’s-generation-of-Yuri-fans anime.

Battle Athletes Victory Volume 8 is arguably the worst final volume of an anime I have ever watched. ^_^ It resurrects every irritating characteristic of the earlier volumes, manages to insert some entirely new, even *more* irritating concepts and then play it all for laughs, so if we get irritated, it’s obviously our lack of a sense of humor that’s the problem, not the fact that the story is a truckload of horseshit.

At the end of Volume 7, you may remember, Akari has won the title of Cosmos Beauty AND beaten her mother’s record, as unlikely as that seems. And, you may also remember, that the aliens chose that very moment to attack.

In Volume 8, we learn that the whole Cosmos Beauty thing was a cunning plan by schoolmaster Grant Oldman, in order to train a cadre of unbeatable female athletes to do one thing – take on the aliens! Oh my god, how clever he is! Not to mention nearly immortal, but they sort of gloss over that.

In any case, Kris is recalled (with her cow), Anna shows up to cook for the team, Ichino is added to the roster along with Akari, Jessie, Tanya, Mylandah and Lahrri, and we face off with the aliens, with “Mister Miracle” as our coach.

Of course, the aliens cheat.

And of course, we manage to somehow hang on despite the obvious bias. And, of course, it comes down to the final race, which is, of course, a dash and, of course, we’re relying on Akari and Kris. And, of course, the aliens pull out the ace up their sleeve. Because they are clever too, they have brought Tomoe Midori BACK FROM THE DEAD to race against her only daughter. Even better, they bring her back at the age she won the Cosmos Beauty title, so she’s actually a year younger than Akari. Bet you saw that coming, huh?

Akari has the usual crisis of identity, and Kris gets her to gambare again and in a complete shocker, she saves the Earth and wins.

The story doesn’t end there, however. The epilogue follows mostly everyone as they set out on their post-alien invasion lives. In most cases they stick with athletics, but we’re treated to a funny final scene with bratty Tomoe teasing Akari, and the absolutely shudder-making idea that her parents are together again and now expecting a baby.

And we all live *happily* ever after.

It just occurred to me that you might think, reading this, that I didn’t enjoy this volume. That isn’t true. I did enjoy it. But not for any of the above. ^_^

I spent most of the volume watching the only two reasonably sane characters left, Mylandah and Lahrri. They spend the entire volume in a world of their own. No one is gonna tell me that they aren’t totally together. And they’re damn cute together, too.

For Yuri fans who like their Yuri a little less subtle, Kris immediately pins Ichino to the wall about her total gayness for Akari. Kris insists that Akari is her’s, but Ichino won’t even admit she’s interested, although she’s immediately jealous. So the two of them engage in a bizarro rivalry throughout.

My one real question about this volume is – who named it “Volume 8: The Human Race”? Because I think that person deserves a blow to the head.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – seriously, it’s so over the top with dumb, it’s practically genius – 7
Characters – 6
Yuri – 4
Service – 5

Overall – 7

In the end, the end of the anime was nothing as satisfying as the manga, where Kris and Akari kiss in front of the known universe and Mylandah and Lahrri retire to a tropical love nest. But it was what it was. If Kris’ cow and Grant Oldman’s panty fetish made you laugh in the first seven volumes, you’ll probably think volume 8 was just fine. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Battle Athletes Victory, Volume 7

October 15th, 2007

Properly speaking, Volume 7 of Battle Athletes is the penultimate volume, but realistically, it’s the conclusion of the story. Everything that has been masquerading as the plot for this bundle of clichés is tied up neatly here. In other words, we finally learn who wins the title of Cosmos Beauty.

Did we, in fact, have any doubt who would win? All we needed to do was watch the first episode and note that our protagonist was not only the least talented, least deserving and least competent person in the show, but also the most annoying, to recognize that she would of course, be the winner. I’ve talked a lot about the idiot savant hero/ine here. Akari is pretty much the epitome of the type. Her mad skills only kick in when she’s boosted by an outside stimulus. Thankfully, there are many recent anime that go the other route and show us the hero/ines practicing until they drop. Because I am not naturally talented at anything, and everything I have ever become even mediocre at has been because of long hours of practice, it’s no surprise I prefer that latter stories to the former. :-)

But.

Battle Athletes was from way back in the stone age, about a decade ago. It is decidedly old school in its power-ups – as well as in animation, music, voice acting and, well pretty much everything. As it also is rife with Yuri, I’m inclined to be generous. Plus, if you’re watching Battle Athletes in the first place, you gotta know to manage expectations anyway – this is not and never will be high art. :-) (Remind me to share my recent moment of satori about expectations and anime with you all sometime.)

So, we have two decidedly Yuri-riffic couples facing off in the finals of the CB tournament. The two best athletes evar versus two newcomers. In their defeat, Lahrri and Mylandah find each other, and get a nice little backstory which ties them neatly together, leaving Akari and Kris to have last minute angst at/about one another. In the manga, this was fueled by Akari learning that her father chose Kris over her, for no other reason that that he is (apparently) a victory-obsessed psychopath. In the anime, we learn that Kris cannot run the day chosen for the race, due to religious observances. Hmm…which is punchier plot complication? Hard to decide. At least the manga father wasn’t “Mr. Miracle” the chocolate hound. (Which always reminds me of a very evil drawing in the Jesus Drug doujinshi for this series. It’s just not right that that image is burned into my head…)

In the end, of course Kris gains dispensation to run. At last, Akari and she face off in a final battle.

Because it’s so much better, let me talk about the manga here. (And before I do, let me just remind you that the manga is LONG out of print, so please don’t ask me where you can find it. I got my copy at Book-Off, the used manga store, and I have also seen it for sale at Mandarake used book store in Tokyo. If you have a buyer, you can try looking on Yahoo JP auctions or the Amazon JP marketplace. Good luck.)

In the manga, Akari and Kris tie for first. Then they kiss in front of everyone in the whole world. Having achieved her dream, Kris returns to the Beginners to become a priestess.

In the anime, Akari wins and Kris disappears to return to the Beginners to become a priestess. Akari, having just been crowned, runs after her, catches up to Kris and her cow. Kris gently kisses her goodbye.

Read those two paragraphs again. Can you *guess* which one I prefer? I think you can.

And that’s pretty much it. Akari is Cosmos Beauty and she beat her mother’s time. Wow. Amazing. :-)

Oh, wait, here come the aliens! We’re under attack!

End of volume.

There were so many ways this volume could have been *brilliant*. Instead it was all right. Although Mylandah x Lahrri = win. And they will continue to be win through the farce that will be Volume 8. There really was no Akari x Kris, except in the hearts and minds of fans. Bloody shame if you ask me. But that too will come back like the bad penny it is in Volume 8. Because we can never have enough of our old friend old-school UST, i.e., “unresolved sexual tension.” (Remember, this was a staple for all anime of the time – not just Yuri or Yaoi. It won’t make it less annoying, but it makes it seem less unfair.)

So, for a resolution, it kind of wasn’t. I’d REALLY like to see this anime remade, this time with the right ending. ;-) Kanon, pfft. I want to see an updated BAV.

Ratings:

Art – practice profiles please – 6
Story – clinging to cliches is cheesy – 6
Characters – alas and alack, a lack – 7
Yuri – opportunity and motive, but no crime – 5
Service – as you like it – 5

Overall – slightly better than the sum of its parts, minus one for the cow – 6

For what it is, which is incredibly silly old-school junkiness from Mediaworks, Battle Athletes is pleasantly entertaining, without being good. ;-)





Yuri Anime: Battle Athletes, Volume 1

July 16th, 2007

Sorry for not posting for the last few days – I’ve been juggling trying to get ready for Otakon this weekend, and catching up on myself. Before we begin today, let’s offer up paeans of thanks to Eric who provided us with the subject of today’s review! Thank you Eric!

Battle Athletes, Volume 1 is…old school. Old school art, hair, opening theme, character design, everything. It’s so old school that a few minutes after turning it on, I had to turn it off to regroup mentally. ^_^ Once mentally prepared, I turned it back on – and was pretty pleased with what I saw. It took some retrofitting my brain used, as I am, to what’s currently running now, to enjoy the old animation, the whiny heroine and the screaming. There was a *lot* of screaming.

The story follows Kanzaki Akari, the daughter of the former greatest athlete in the universe, Tomoe Midori, on her quest to become the world’s greatest female athlete and win the title her mother held – Cosmos Beauty.

Unfortunately for Akari, she has inherited few of her mother’s traits. She appears to have barely any athletic skills, is a crybaby and generally whiny. Of course it can’t stay like that, because then there’d be no story, so when Akari is moved to save another competitor’s life, her heretofore non-existent athletic skills skyrocket into hypercompetence.

Thankfully for the audience, Akari is surrounded by much more interesting characters. There’s the offensive Chinese stereotype Ling-Pha, and the strange “weird foreign tribal-type” stereotype Tanya. Then there’s Akari’s best friend Ichino who, voiced by Hisakawa Aya, is the perfect Osaka stereotype. Completing the main cast is Russian stereotype Ayla and America stereotype Jessie. And one of the things I thought while I watched the latter two compete was that, when this anime was made, the concept of US vs Russia athletic competition was far more politically charged and intense than it is now. ^_^ Now, anyone under the age of 20 (if we could get them to sit still for this anime at all) would be like, “so?”

The basic idea of the anime is that we are following these women as they train to attend the Satellite Training Camp, where they will be training even harder to try and become competitors for Cosmos Beauty. So we see a variety of futuristic and often silly “athletic” competition. And a variety of service as well, since of course as female athletes they never wear pants.

Compared to later episodes, Volume 1 is marginally gay…except for those moments when it’s massively gay.

Ichino pings most people’s gaydar right off, something that’s borne out in later volumes. But I kind of think Akari has it right when she says that Ichino is like an older brother to her.

Ayla and Jessie, by virtue of being powerful, talented athletic women who seem to be very focused on one another read totally gay…even if, in a real-world situation, they’d just be excellent rivals and maybe friends.

Jessie, the less lesbian of the two gets the first open proposition of the series. When running around looking for Tanya, in what is otherwise an incredibly stupid episode, another student confesses her feelings to Jessie and asks if she can call her onee-sama; she suggests that they could start off by training in sports, but maybe they could segue into this and that. Jessie replies that she appreciates the thought, but isn’t interested.(This whole scene reminded me strongly of the old schoolness again, because the translation just sort of plays fast and loose with what’s being said. “Onee-sama” is not translated as big sister, much less kept as is. They sort of randomly assign words to what the classmate is saying. And Jessie’s “I have no interest” is, as often is the case for some reason in anime, translated as “I don’t swing that way.” Another phrase I’d like to see corrected in current anime translation. “Thank you for the thought, but I’m not interested in that” is so much less crude than, “No, I don’t swing that way.” Jessie is voiced by Itou Miki and speaks in a tone reminiscent of Sachiko’s formal voice – I really just don’t see her being that crude. But hey, this was translated a gazillion years ago before Onee-samas and Yuri ever made it to the shores of America. So I’ll let this one slide, but I would like to see it done correctly going forward.)

The final episode on the volume is Yuri enough for most, as it follows Ayla’s growing obsession with Jessie, and ends in a swimming match. For many, many reasons, I loved this episode. Mostly for the swimming. I swam competitively as a kid (without ever being good, mind you) and my love for swimming has never left me. Watching these two women swimming and obsessing about each other was definitely my happy place for the day. ^_^

So, I gotta say, Volume 1 was a lot more Yuri than I remembered it being. And it was a good chunk of fun too.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – Everyone other than Akari – 8. Akari – 5
Yuri – 5
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Let me also mention that I have reviewed the Battle Athletes series as a whole, Volume 3 and Volume 6, previously, should you be interested.