Shelf Life

Quantum Leap

A choicely retro behind-the-scenes video introduces us to the crew, including director Katuhiko Nishijima, who is missing teeth. And did you know all the songs on the soundtrack were sung by American women? Specifically, this trio of ladies, one of whom went on to voice Jem of Jem and the Holograms. But never mind that, look at their huge hair!

In all seriousness, this DVD has one of the best commentary tracks I've ever watched. Yuji Moriyama, the character designer and animation director, recorded a track aimed at American audiences roughly around the time he was directing Geobreeders. He gives detailed descriptions of which scenes were animated by which famous animators before they were famous.

Moriyama openly admits there was never a script for Project A-Ko. The creative team were just storyboarding a bunch of gags for a softcore porn in the Cream Lemon series when they were suddenly given a huge budget and told to make it a feature film. They dropped the porn, threw in some crazily well animated space scenes (think Macross: Do You Remember Love?) and ran with it.

This is a film for people who love animation by people in love with animation. Moriyama says that a lot of the animators were accustomed to working in television, where they always had to cut corners. Suddenly given an enormous budget, they went all-out, using twice as many cels as usual.

Here's the plot, such as it is: A-Ko and C-Ko are best buddies attending the same high school. B-Ko, a super-rich girl, falls for C-Ko and vows to win her love and attention by defeating A-Ko. B-Ko winds up building robots and mobile suits to combat A-Ko every day before school. Did I mention the town was built in a lake formed by a crater created by an unknown object from space (depicted in the space-y opening of the film)? It's like a cool future-of-the-1980's city. Meanwhile, an alien ship is on its way to earth, piloted by a Captain Harlock parody, to find a missing princess.

By the way, A-Ko has super strength, super speed, and we see her panties when she does martial arts moves (which is often). It's a parody-romp through all things traditionally anime, from a girl straight out of Fist of the North Star, to Creamy Mami (their teacher, who was even animated by the original creator of Mami).

The "remastered" picture quality looks great. It's hard to believe this was cel animation! The Japanese audio track(s) sound good, but sadly the dub mix is pathetic. It's like the actors were talking into Styrofoam cups connected by string.

The translation is credited to Matt Thorn, of all people. The dub takes some liberties with the jokes while generally staying true to the spirit of the subtitle script. In general I think the dub jokes have been over-translated, as if the script adapter was worried A-Ko was too weird or not funny enough for an American audience. That said, it's not a completely unwatchable dub, and some of the English jokes are quite funny.

Moriyama went on to direct a lot of A-Ko spin offs and sequels, but Nishijima never returned to the franchise. It's my understanding this film is the best in the series and there's no need to watch the others.

If you've never seen this, it's a treat. The film stands the test of time far better than the hilarious DVD extras (zooming into a mailbox, really?!), but I recommend watching them anyway.[TOP]