A few years ago, I saw this wretched OAV called "Mahjongg Battle Scramble". The anime itself was pretty lame, but to make matters worse, the entire second side of the LD (entitled, "Nice to meet you") was nothing but bad music and some dialogue with slow pans over ridiculous idol pictures. Ooh!! They're SHOPPING!

While Mahjongg Battle Scramble was never released here (and probably never will be), I consider the void filled with the release of Debutante Detective Corps. Here we have five supposedly "hot" (and absurdly rich) girls, all with some special ability. They fit the Sakura Wars mold perfectly: There's a well-endowed nerd with glasses (with a gift for electronics), a well-endowed cute Chinese-styled girl (with a gift for martial arts), a well-endowed athletic girl (who's a master of disguise), a well-endowed sexy girl with an affection for guns and high-powered weaponry, and the stupid, crafty, well-endowed bimbo, who leads the team.

Since their combined worth is roughly equal to the gross national product, their status makes them a target for terrorists. It's the first day of school and they're all making their grand entrances... when the bombs start going off. With the police department being less than competant, the girls decide to use their superpowers (no, bust size is not a superpower) to combat the criminals! Ooh! Ooh! I wonder who's gonna win??

The anime was already pretty stupid, but it least it had a nice (albeit cheap) music video at the end with the entire vocal cast (which includes names like Hekiru Shiina and Sakura Tange). ADV must not have gotten the rights to the music video, 'cause it's not on the subtitled release either. Too bad... that was the only thing that was entertaining in this anime.

The new dub doesn't help matters any -- all of the girls have been dubbed to sound absolutely abrasive in their valley girl-ish stupidity. The result is an anime with no redeeming qualities whatsoever: It's not that great visually, the plot is minimal, and it quite willingly dives into every cliche in the book. At least it's not as expensive... the subtitled version of this show is the most expensive per-minute release ever. ($1 per minute!!)