Hades Project Zeorymer (1988)

That's right kiddies, the Anime is back and in full effect. This first line of this review can be read in any way, a positive note -- or, in the instance of "Hades Project Zeorymer", perhaps a bit sarcastically. Whenever we get to this style of cinema via my books, I get nervous, this is one of those genres that is either going to be smooth sailing or an ferocious uphill battle, for "Hades" it was the latter. I am not sure when "HPZ" switched from interestingly original to just plain repetitive, but through the only FOUR episodes (that's right, didn't take that long to go from good to bad), I could only watch three and a half before I had to turn it off. This series had terrible things going against it. The first being that it is a two disc set, and each disc was made by a different distributor, creating a mixed viewing experience. Also, I think parts were left out between the two discs because there was quite of bit of sub-plot missing. Difficult to explain because the story continued, it just didn't feel like the first two episodes that I watched. Something was amuck.

With the second disc feeling like a lesser production company rushed it out, I was already not feeling the emotional draw for this film - but I continued, and dozed as this story came to an end. It is within this "story" that my second argument comes into effect. "HPZ" had a decent opening; a boy unbeknown to him has been raised by people claiming to be his parents, but are only in it for the money. He was genetically made to drive this huge monolith of a machine that will determine the end of the world away from this gigantic corporation. It is the simple story of Sampson vs. Goliath, a story that shouldn't be difficult to emulate. Alas, "HPZ" failed. Seven large corporate machines against this sole machine, stolen by the government years ago, now these two children must use whatever powers they forgot they possessed to bring justice to the world (or something as I, for the first time, didn't finish this series) - but battles feel repetitive, the animation seems redundant, and by the end, you - an audience member - just didn't care. The emotion, the heart, the joy of whatever "HPZ" began with failed. There were some extremely cool scenes within this debacle, but in the end - it failed - it fell on its face hard, and everybody should have been there to laugh. I had hopes for this series, I hoped it would lead me into a further realm of Anime, but it gave me no hope nor excitement for whatever comes next. I will watch, but "Hades Project Zeorymer" will be forever resting on the back of my mind.

So, four episodes, three and a half watched - it should be no question as to what will be the summary here. Found in my "500 Essential Anime Movies", this made me feel horrid as I could not finish a measly four episodes. From a horrid story to a bountiful amount of same frame animation, this is obviously going to get a yellow highlight with black mark. Never change horses mid-stream, never change production companies as well - just terrible. Never to be spoken about to me or recommended again. This gets the Mr. Yuck sticker for children.