Content Warning: Brief nudity, violence, explosions, animal death, and implied drug use
This one is an old one and I only recently stumbled across the first episode on DVD. Many years ago, when this one first came out, I do remember watching it. I like naval stuff and mecha and naked fish ladies. I’ll take no comments at this time.
This OVA starts off with images a flooded Tokyo (with required picture of Tokyo Tower having yet another bad day) and signs of people making a new life in the now water level floors of the surviving buildings. We get introduced to one of the characters, Kino, as she travels to the home of the other main character, Hayami. In Hayami’s decaying building home, we see all kinds of detritus of the world. Magazines, a record playing, cigarette butts, and later, used needles. Hayami is clearly not in the best place, in so many ways.
We also see our first reference to Professor Zorndyke, once hailed as the greatest mind in the world. Kino has come to Hayami to ask him to join the crew of Blue Submarine 6, a very advanced submarine that tries to protect what’s left of humanity. From what? Well, we’re getting there.
After getting rejected by Hayami, Kino and her African (American?) escort end up leaving and heading back to the sub. Of course, things don’t go as planned and the port is attacked by… Rusty giant robot crab things? It’s kind of hard to see and explain. And this brings us to one thing about this series: the animation. You see, this was in this time period where animation companies started to add 3D CGI animation to traditional 2D animation. While not terrible, the explosions are very PS2 looking. And with this new way of doing things, you sometimes don’t get a good look at what’s on the screen.
Anyway. While these robots are attacking, Kino tries to get back to the submarine, but people are running away from the water, not towards it. When all hope looks lost, Hayami appears with a submachine gun and a fast boat. He swiftly rescues Kino, the junior officer, and an old woman, and makes it to the submarine. Soon, the submarine launches, with Kino and Hayami in a mini sub/mecha called a Grasper. And the battle takes two directions: the Grasper fighting against the mecha, while the submarine tackles the mothership, which turns out to be a whale bioweapon.
With some brains, brass, and a friendly assist, the enemies of humanity are defeated. And this is where things take a weird turn. After blowing the limbs off of one of the crab mecha, Hayami takes part of the Grasper (I guess they can do that, we don’t see it happen) and finds the core unit. As he approaches, the main hatch unscrews, and this nasty stuff falls out. It look biological but we don’t get told what it is. From that goo comes a… Fish woman. She isn’t a mermaid, she has arms and legs, and pink feather looking things that kind of cover her breasts, and this yellow/black coloring that reminds me of a fish (but I can’t remember what one). Since she’s aquatic, she’s choking to death on the air. Hayami picks her up, after she bites him, and he dumps her in the sea. Koni shows up and tries to kill her but Hayami says no. I don’t understand. I really don’t understand.
And the episodes ends there. I will say that the ending theme is really good. Otherwise, this is so… Weird. I have watched the whole thing and this movie helped me remember it but it doesn’t do a great job of setting up the show. I did some research and this is based on a manga originally published in 1967. I suppose it might make sense in the manga but it just… I don’t know. I am thinking about picking up the whole thing, as it’s only six episodes long. Time will tell. If I do, and you want me to do a full review of it, let me know.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Suggestion: I don’t know, it is free with Amazon Prime?
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