|
|
||||||||||
| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watch | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
 Ggultra2764
|
[series:769#1552] |
|
Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko is as cliched and formulaic as you can get considering the plot seemed like one big excuse to toss in cute girls and spaceship battles. The characters are pretty much your stock archetypes mixed together from high school and sci-fi genres of anime with the plots mostly episodic in depicting their events with little linearity (the only area being a baddie who threatens Yohko in the second half). Because of the limited running time for both of the OAV titles incorporated into this series, you also get very limited exposure to the future world in which Yohko and her present timeline classmates are tossed into, as well as exploring how the three girls winded up being introduced to the fighting factions. The anime isn't bad enough where I would tack on an Avoid rating for it. But it's quite hard to recommend when it doesn't have anything notable that sticks out with it compared to other notable anime of the 1990s.
Last updated Friday, May 18 2012. Created Friday, May 18 2012. | ||||||||
| Watch |
 Stretch
|
[series:769#628] | ||||||
|
I heard that Rightstuf Anime was getting rid of their stock of VHS tapes by selling them for 99 cents apiece (plus $1 postage each!), and I thought I'd give Yamamoto Yohko a try. I would have liked to have gotten the subtitled versions, what with Megumi Hayashibara playing an "uncharachteristically bitchy role" but those were all gone. When you get 'em this cheap, the real question is "was it worth the time?". Well, I like to think I'm a difficult person to disappoint when it comes to anime (I have yet to assign an "avoid" rating to anything), but my answer would have to be "just barely". The first episode left me unimpressed. There was little sense of drama or danger, or even exactly what was going on. What I liked best was the neat animation that accompanied the ED (ending) song! Things looked up in episode two as Yohko's opponents, the "Red Snapper" team performed a TV commercial--I like it when action-comedy shows don't take themselves too seriously. The visit to the "Crocodile-Banana Garden" was amusing. Episode three didn't make a whole lot of sense to me--I didn't feel much poignancy about the roses that were being bred aboard a space station. Episodes 4-6 are referred to as "Yamamoto Yohko II"--even though 3 and 4 are on the same tape. The credits have a Wild West motif, and the space dogfight animation gets significantly better. In fact, episode four seemed fairly tedious until there was a cool dogfight at the end. Episode five: largely predictable story, no major laughs, hard to hold my attention (though I was pretty exhausted at the time). The final episode, number six, was OK--but this level of quality should have been average for all the episodes. I got a feeling that this series needed a laugh track to prod viewers into laughing at the right moments. Maybe it was the dubbing that messed things up. Yohko's flying a space fighter while wearing a formal gown was amusing. Several website reviewers said whether you would like this series or not would largely depend on whether you liked Yohko herself. Personally, I didn't find her to be particularly annoying. Nevertheless, I'm left feeling sorry for this series--it was definitely trying to be good. My favorite line: Momiji: "Don't you think this is a violation of the sanctity of life?" Yohko: "But it really tastes good!" Last updated Friday, March 21 2008. Created Thursday, April 08 2004. | ||||||||
