RogerBW's Blog

Fuuun Ishi Dai Shogun 05 August 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB

In the late Edo period, Perry's black ships were fought off by giant mystical mecha. Twenty years later in Nagasaki, a young yakuza boss has just unified the town under his rule by beating up everyone who objected. But he's got bigger things on the way...

I'm so ashamed. There's about a third of a decent anime series in here, but practically everyone in the show is a bouncy-breasted hot chick in love with the hero, whose "official" job is as the strong guy for a bathhouse and brothel. Yeah. You kind of have to watch between the massive bosoms and the obsession with virginity (for once, admittedly, male as well as female; see, Our Hero can only pilot the Great Big Mecha if he remains "pure", and there's the idea that he needs to pick one of the girls as a co-pilot or the thing won't move, but this is just used to generate jealousy and then forgotten about for most of the series). Everybody agrees that this series was complete crap.

And yet there were bits of it I kind of enjoyed. If you can get past the prurience, well, there's late-Edo alternate history (including the Shinsengumi portrayed more negatively than usual), the historical Japanese stereotype of foreigners, and some interesting mythology. Oh, and a rather nifty steampunk airship. Animation is pretty basic, the actual characterisation (nobody gets more than one personality trait) and mecha action aren't so great, and the last couple of episodes (which largely consist of mecha action) are often tedious.

I really can't recommend this one, but it had a few good moments.

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