
a review by nonbinarypirate

a review by nonbinarypirate
(I am only going to do one review for the entirety of the actual show since the anime is broken into different shows technically but they all follow the same format and ultimately do not require an individual review in my opinion. But I may review the movies.)
I want to start this off by saying yes, this anime is problematic and very of the time with some of its jokes. I started watching this anime because for some reason Youtube started recommending me clips of this show from RetroCrush and I was curious about the character Kaori (who was presented somewhat masculine) since she seemed cute (not even I can resist watching something because of a cute character). So I decided to watch and first few epsiodes in I was on the verge of dropping this show. Why? Because of the main character Ryo. Ryo is so wilding of the time with his constant women chasing sexist ways. It made it hard to watch at first because even though he is the literal worst he somehow dates the girl anyway. It reminds me of Johnny Bravo but if Johnny somehow earned the heart of the women despite being shitty. Did not vibe with it. But for some reason I decided to stick with it. Maybe because of pride? Or simply wanting to see how this show continues. Either way I kept watching and somehow along the way I became hooked on it. I think it's because eventually you get familiar with the jokes of the show and characters and you can apprecite the silly weirdness of this show. It's a "turn your brain off," and if you can get over the of the time jokes, one you can enjoy yourself. That doesn't mean I would recommend it necessarily (despite my review score) just that if you like watching older anime you can find at least one thing to appreciate about this anime.
I think what made me keep watching was ultimately the cast of consistent characters we meet as the story progresses, Karori, Saeko, Umibōzu, and Miki. These are such a fun cast of characters that made watching the show fun for me once we got to see them later in the show. Especially Umibōzu and Miki's relationship, I loved watching that develop as we went further in. Besides the rare few couples we see in the show, we don't get too many romantic relationships shown and I appreciated the dynamic they brought to the table. Oh and I loved the action shots from this show. Sometimes it would be your standard cartoon villian getting beaten up and sometimes they will have Ryo do a really cool trick gunshot that was thrilling to watch! And I liked that eventually we got to see more layers to Ryo, like when he gets actually serious, no more zany persona. Or his serious protectiveness to Kaori and making sure she is safe.
And have I mentioned how much I LOVE Kaori, because if not, I am obsessed with her. Kaori is so cute and once she was introduced it made the show more watchable for me. Going back to the Johnny Bravo comparison, she adds the needed foil to Ryo's womanizing that the show desperately needed. Not to mention I just love her personality and outfits haha. I enjoyed seeing Ryo's and Kaori's relationship evolve as the show progresses, how much they grow to care about each other. And while I won't do a review of the movies here, we get to see it even more in single plotlines with more content (which is important since this show is very episodic when a few exceptions). They deeply care and trust each other by the end of the show and last few movies and it's really cute to see these two rely on the other. (Though my one complaint of the show with Kaori specifically is that I wished they made her more competent when it comes to the action stuff too. We get some cool badass women but Kaori still gets kidnapped constantly.)
Anyway, is this the best show out there, no, its not. But it's a show that has a good charm to it if you can stand to get by the flaws of the time. It's weird, it's silly, and it doesn't take itself too seriously for the most part. Like I said, if you like watching older animes and can get past 80s jokes that don't always age well, then maybe give this a try. At the very least, skip to when Kaori enters the show because she's the only reason why I continued anyway.
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