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Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend: The Fowl Mouthed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles you WISH you had!

10/11/2015

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Teenage Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend was never officially released in the United States. Clips can be found on YouTube. It was officially licensed by Mirage, owner of all things TMNT.

Do not adjust your monitor. There is nothing wrong with you.

Yes, this is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anime.

Yes, it's official.

And yes, it's rated for adults, because WOW the language!!

I want you to imagine the original 1987-1996 TMNT cartoon, mixed with Sailor Moon, with R rated language and generic anime bewbs thrown in. That's what you are in for if you can find a copy of this forgotten OVA.

So once upon a time, it was 1996. While the TMNT craze had died down in America, it was still a hot property in Japan, with a new toyline just hitting the market from Takara. With a blessing from Fred Wolf, the man behind the 1987 TMNT cartoon series, TV Tokyo went straight to work producing a two episode OVA for the newest toys, Supermutants and Metal Mutation. The shows were put on VHS tapes, and launched for the Japanese market on May 21st, 1996.

Fred Wolf, Mirage and the original TMNT team, sent over used cels from the original cartoon, which pop up every few frames, amid newer, anime-style updates of everyone's favorite characters.

You can just smell the merchandise through the screen watching the 25 minute episodes, which speed you through a story before you have a chance to grasp what's going on. And fans of the original cartoon may cringe when they see the updated story.

Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo all call each other Leo-chan, Dona-chan, Raph-chan and Mike-chan, which is funny and hard on the ears at the same time. For those who don't know, -chan is usually reserved for  children, young girls and your ultra-whipped boyfriend. Guys usually tack on -kun, which is for male friends. All four are flakey, and require Splinter to tell them their every move.

April has unsettling peach lipstick, a reduced bust-line and harsh, blue eyes. They tried too hard to make her look more American than she does in the old cartoon. But overall, her character is less annoying than her US counterpart, which is helped by the fact that Emi Shinohara voices her. Emi voiced her while wrapping up work as Sailor Jupiter for Sailor Moon Sailor StarS for those who don't know.

Splinter, BeBop and Rocksteady all look exactly as they do in the cartoon, albeit the latter two have more animated gestures. 

Krang for the most part looks normal, but has the worst anime voice I have ever heard. Shrill and screeching, his laugh is like nails on a chalkboard.

Shredder is the most drastically changed. He can now transform into a hideous (and cool looking) bone monster, but his non-transformed state is that of a teenaged girl, living inside the body of an evil warlord. He's a crybaby, whiny, and not very believable until transformed, picture Sailor Moon as Shredder.

Joining the cast is Crys-Mu, an ancient fairy spirit that grants the Turtles Muta Stones, which allows them to become humanoid, steroidal turtles for three minutes at a time. Her nemesis is Dark Mu, an evil spirit who briefly aids Krang.  In the second episode, we also find a gang of ninjas, who used to be Splinter's students before he arrived in America.

The first episode sees Krang trying to blow up the Earth by harnessing magic from Dark Mu, with the intent of eventually going back to Dimension X, while the second episode follows the Turtles to Japan, where the group of four earns Shogun-style armor in a fight against Shredder.

The language fits the scene, but can be unsettling to long-time fans of the show. We're not just talking an occasional "Damn" like Raphael dropped on us in the first live action film. Oooooh no no no no no. We're talking shit, we're talking questionable references, and the popular fansub never added those in, they are in the original script! Nice going Japan, nothing like adult language and a toyline aimed at 5 year olds!

Half of the animation is all gags and humor-based, while the other half of the episodes features stunning, fast paced action scenes. It's a real shame this never made it officially to America, but YouTube is rife with clips of the 90's fansub.

If you can get a chance , give the OVA a try. There's a twinge of nostalgia hidden in this mass of blatant marketing, and it's a must see for original fans of TMNT. Like the cartoons, it has absolutely nothing to do with the comic book, but the campy humor makes up for it.

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Hi-sCool! Seha Girls

8/14/2015

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Hi-sCOOL! Seha Girls is available on Crunchyroll and on Hulu. While the series has ended at 13 episodes, new figures are being produced by GoodSmile, and the girls are featured in a few mobile video games.

Hi-sCool! Seha Girls is a show that had a ton of promise early on, but needed hefty work with writing towards the end. Still, it's proven to be the best thing for parents to introduce their kids to SEGA with, and has a cult following.

The premise was pretty cool, three girls go to SEGA High School, to learn about SEGA and their video games, and there was plenty of video game humor directed at those of us who grew up with the iconic SEGA theme. The commercial break eye-catches are worth pausing, as they feature awesome video game trivia.

The first three episodes were great with jokes,but as the episodes went along, the acting from the girls became over-acting, where they get too hyper, and their motions become exaggerated. They started having self-esteem issues where the scene didn't call for it, and it started being a little aggravating. Eventually, the show had fewer SEGA jokes, and more scenes of Saturn and Dreamcast freaking out over everything, and Mega Drive trying to over analyze each and every game. 

The running gag of Saturn always being held back, despite being the more powerful of the three was a cute joke about the Sega Saturn console being wrongfully forgotten, but the joke got old after a few episodes, as did the cliche of Mega Drive being an emotionless wallflower, simply because she is older and smarter than the other two, and wears glasses.

One running gag that fits however is Dreamcast's use of the internet. Anytime she needs to look for something online, her brain makes dial-up sounds. It's a very cute gag, for a character that is the most baby-like of the trio. Dreamcast's adorable nature has actually helped to revive interest in the console, and the gag was actually a great way to teach younger audiences about the internet.

The designs of the girls were all done by the artist KEI, and you can really tell, because all three girls look like Miku Hatsune. Mega Drive even has a similar shirt to Miku, while Saturn has very Miku-like sleeves and pigtails, but with KAiTO's jacket opening. Dreamcast is the most original of the three, with a Dreamcast controller as her headpiece. The show was made with the freeware MikuMikuDance, so it's a cute tie-in, but it's very obvious KEI was probably working on another Project DiVA round of costumes while drawing the girls up. Even his other sketches for other consoles are reminiscent of Miku. Since Project DiVA is also made by SEGA, this will be forgiven.

Speaking of, I'm a little surprised that it took an entire team of animators to make the series, when the average 13 year old MMD user can whip out the same sort of show alone. With each episode being under 12 minutes long, it's not hard to imagine one or two Momi Cup winners making the show, and yet this had a team of more than 20 people. Too many cooks spoil the pot as they say. This could be a reason why the show lacks focus.

The opening and ending credits tease NiGHTS and Chao involvement, but they remained absent from the show, save but for background toys. There was little to do with other teased games, like Altered Beast, and even Sonic was barely around except for cameos and one strange episode where the girls rode on him. SEGA royally missed out on the tie-ins here. Perhaps this was a problem with licensing, but it's an absolute shame that the most popular characters were overlooked. 

Predictably, the three girls are Moe representations of the Sega consoles, and other girls they see in a tournament are more of the same. While we never get to see much of them, there is a KEI drawn girl for Game Gear, Pico and a few other forgotten SEGA consoles. And yes, each girl looks more and more like Miku.

The series ends where we discover the school is just a figment of the collective imagination of the SEGA developers. When the three girls graduate, they are sent through time, and each one becomes a home console for a random family. It's a cute nod to the girls' origins, and provides a simple enough explanation for all the weirdness, but ultimately is a tear-jerker ending.

Overall, it's a cute series. It's colorful, educational but isn't very strong. But then too, it doesn't overstay it's welcome. At just 13, 12 minute episodes, it's just right for a TV-G crowd.
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    Codename Sailor earth

    Codename Sailor Earth is a lifelong anime and wrestling fan. IRL she is cartoonist Koriander Bullard, formerly Koriander Ake, a happily married Chicagoan. Her favorite anime is Sailor Moon. A baby in the late 80's, the first anime titles she ever saw were Speed Racer, Voltron and Robotech.

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