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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Buy | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 |
 Midnighter
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[series:383#94] | |
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It's magical-girl Bubblegum Crisis in space! Tekkaman Blade 2 is a pretty strong anime overall. Though a bit rough at spots, its strong points far exceed its weak ones. As my DVD is bilingual, I had the pleasure of watching both the sub and the dub. The Japanese voice cast is excellent, particularly Dead and David. As a nice surprise, the English cast is quite strong in its own right, led by Tara Charendoff, who voiced Batgirl/Barabara Gorden in Batman: The Animated Series from 1995 on, later reprising the role in the infamous flashback sequence in Batman Beyond Return of the Joker. Her excellent portrayal of Yumi carries the series and sets the standard for the rest of the cast. I got goosebumps when she cried "Teksetter!" when she transformed the first time. The animation is pretty good most of the time. Every now and then a sequence just doesn't work, but for the most part I had no complaints. The character designs were better than average, sort of old school looking, but with a bit of an updating. The Tekkaman Hardsuits were very nice looking, sort of an interesting cross between Bubblegum Crisis and a flower. I also rather liked the music, as I felt it fit the retro feel of theis anime well. The story starts out barely mediocre, saved only by interesting, albeit stereotypical characters. As the series finds itself, though, the story takes a dramatic upswing and goes all out with the introduction of the suicidal and aptly named Dead and the series of desperate running battles with him. The payoff of his tragic past is quite touching, and it's nice to see motivation instead of just the usual "Grr, I'm evil for evil's sake!" I was surprised by the Shoujo aspects of the series. Complete with transformation sequences, TB2 feels like a magial girl show with hardsuits instead of sailorsuits. Cool. Overall, I have to give Tekkaman Blade 2 a buy, as it has more substance than one would think, a high re-watch factor, and the entire OAV series is available on one DVD from Urban Vision. Between Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and Tekkaman Blade II, Urban Vision has drastically improved in my eyes. Let's hope they continue this trend of quality! Last updated Tuesday, January 29 2002. Created Tuesday, January 29 2002. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| The OAVs: Tekkaman Blade II | http://www.phenixsol.com/Miko/TB/tbtwo.html |
| A TB2 site with info and scripts | |
