Assemble Insert

Title:Assemble Insert
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: KASAHARA Hiroko
KAWAMURA Maria
NAGAI Ichiro
Original Concept - YUUKI Masami
R1 License - Right Stuf Intl
WAKAMOTO Norio
The police are powerless against "Demon Seed", a criminal gang which employs hi-tech armored battle suits. What's more, the collateral damage that results from the futile attempts to stop the bandits has made the police increasingly unpopular. Chief Hattori of the "Counter Demon Seed Special Agent Headquarters" comes up with a bizarre solution: hold special "Hero Auditions" in hope of finding someone who is both capable of stopping Demon Seed and popular enough that the public will forgive whatever damage occurs in the process! The adorably cute and incredibly strong Maron Namikaze seems to be just the girl Hattori has been looking for. "A super idol who can sing, dance, and fight crime will soon be born!"


2-episode OAV series first released on December 21, 1989 and February 20, 1990.
Animated by Tohokushinsha Film
Licensed by Right Stuf International
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 6 6 6 7 7 7 Ggultra2764 [series:1005#1552]
A fun hour of comedy while it lasted, Assemble Insert poked fun of the more absurd elements of mecha/ crime action titles and pop idol stardom shown with a down on their luck crime division recruiting for their division just to make a popular idol out of their recruit Maron and the leader of the Demon Seed syndicate always calling a ramen shop by mistake when trying to call the police to reveal his next theft location. The animation's certainly dated and looks rather simplistic with character designs compared to other works released around the late 80s. The quality of the second episode, as discussed by Stretch, does go down a bit when a plot where Maron was to choose between fame or fighting crime felt kind of unnecessary to be added. Still, the comedy coming from the antics of Demon Seed and Maron's group do enough to make up for Assemble Insert's shortcomings and is worth a look if you have interest in older anime titles.

Last updated Wednesday, May 09 2012. Created Wednesday, May 09 2012.
Rent Stretch [series:1005#628]
Well, this was an amusing hour's worth of anime, but I don't know if I'll be watching it again any time soon. I thought the first of the two episodes was distinctly superior, and made me wonder why I hadn't heard of this show earlier. The dialogue between Hattori and his men was the source of a lot of laughs. I had read that Assemble Insert was supposed to contain all sorts of in-jokes about circa-1989 anime, Japanese pop culture, the entertainment industry, etc, but if so they must have been so extremely "in" that I didn't even know they were taking place. my impression was that there were enough jokes that were readily understandable by anyone who has attained a little familiarity with anime to make the show enjoyable. There was a live action commercial parody which was amusing but was over too quickly to be a major factor (It ran twice, so why did they bother to include it as an "extra" as well?). Character designs were simple, undetailed, even verging on SD mode (some people seemed to completely lack noses!). Music seemed about average. The way Doctor Kyozaburo Demon ran his criminal organization was funny ("When money is spent foolishly, it truly shines"). I noticed a lull in quality early in the second episode. I'm still confused about why the Professor aided Demon Seed. The scene in which Maron is forced to choose between fame and aiding Hattori and the men who trained her seemed almost touching, but not quite. The episode ended suddenly without an exciting action scene--such a scene wasn't really necessary, and I even felt kind of relieved to see that it had been skipped, but the show could have used a better wrap-up in it's place. Fortunately, this was the sort of show that is clearly absurd, and can't be expected to be particularly logical, which is one of the reasons I liked it. One last complaint--the English language credits only listed the VAs from the dubbed version, and I had been watching the subbed one.

My favorite line: "I was drunk when I submitted the proposal and it was approved!" --Hattori

Last updated Thursday, April 07 2005. Created Thursday, April 07 2005.

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