Maze

If not for the simple fact that I caught this anime title in a grocery store video rack of all places I would have missed out on one of the most interesting, funny and often WRONG animations of all Japanese time. Allow me to elaborate on that after I summarize the basic plot, though.

A young woman finds herself and her apartment but in a strange world, and she has lost all of her memory save for the fact that her name is “Maze.” She finds out that her house landed on a demi-human, an evil creature who was keeping a princess prisoner. The princess (an extremely cute and utterly annoying character named Mil) sings the praises of Maze and considers her her “savior” and honors her with the title of Big Sister. Maze takes it upon herself in her utter confusion about what’s going on to protect Mil from her attackers, members of the Jaina Holy group.

Along the way Maze discovers that at night she turns into a man, and a horny man at that. He tries desperately to sack Mil, taking advantage of the young girl’s naiveté. Woman Maze never allows this and generally keeps Man Maze at bay, but who he is and why he’s inside of Woman Maze remains a mystery. This gender alteration and seeming split personality inspires Mil to thus call Maze Big Sister Brother. This title of Big Sister Brother and the odd “ukyuu!” noise that Mil makes when she’s surprised contribute to the annoying side of her personality.

Maze doesn’t understand exactly why she’s in this world, but she eventually comes to understand that she is a Luminator, a special breed of folk that can manipulate Phantom Light Power, i.e. the Force of Mil’s world. She can also use this power to call upon a huge mecha by the name of Dulgar, and with it she and Mil frequently kick booty, mostly members of the Jaina Holy group who are after the princess and seek to take control of the entire continent. Their founder, the Holy Creator, is another gender shifting Luminator like Maze, who is revealed to have a rather close connection to our hero, and considers Maze the “Eraser”, the only being that can destroy her/him. Maze must be destroyed and Mil killed, so against Maze is beset a slew of baddies, mainly a fruitcake named Gorgeous and his Brother Chic. I kid you not on those names.

Alongside Maze and Mil gather a fellowship of loyal companions of differing talents, and just about all of them are messed up in one way or another. Together they help Maze to fight Jaina, and Woman Maze comes closer and closer to discovering her past and understanding why she was chosen to erase the Creator.

This show is immensely fun if you have the right mindset to be entertained and like a long continuous story, but it is hardly a shining example of good anime. The animation is clearly old tv quality and seems very weak sometimes, taking away from the enjoyment of the show. Other than that, the English produced version I own is surprisingly well done in regards to dubbing voices, and the company Software Sculptors even went so far as to remove a lot of images of nudity throughout the show. I know the scenes exist because fan sites have pictures of them, but SS used darkening or still techniques or extreme close-ups to get around it. I was pleasantly surprised by that, but that doesn’t make this show suited for kids. The language in it is BAD, and I mean BAD, and also as I mentioned before every character is messed up and sick in one way or another.

Among Maze’s sidekicks are Solude, a flaming lesbian who tries at every stop to get some action from the Woman Maze. She also dresses the scankiest in the show. Her professional partner Aster is a hulking man who is a straight hentai, but a hentai non the less. He’s also after Maze’s affections. There’s an old lecher named Wol who is like a controlled, calm version of Happosai from Ranma, and also not near as ugly. A female knight named Rapier Saris was raised to think she is a man, and so she shuns womanhood altogether, which creates much emotional stress for her but makes her a stronger fighter.

Three of the most disturbing however are Princess Mil, A boy named Ran-Chiki and Woman Maze herself. Princess Mil idolizes Maze so much, and is such an airhead, that she often talks of her love for both Woman and Man Maze, and throughout the show she gropes Woman Maze, talks of having babies and an intimate relationship with both genders of Maze. She defends her “Big Sister Brother” against all who would try and win her affections, claiming that only SHE is allowed the love of her Big Sister Brother. Oy.

Ran Chiki on the other hand is never bluntly stated to be a boy, but you eventually figure it out through the actions of the characters around him. He calls himself “Miss Ran”, and dresses like a girl, and also expresses love for both Man Maze and the King of Pellania. Once I figured out the rainbow haired weirdo trying to get at those two men was a boy I nearly retched, and by far my least favorite character is Ran.

But then there’s Maze herself (themselves). She eventually discovers that Man Maze is her brother, and she his sister. They were somehow bonded together in one body when they came over to Mil’s world, and when her memories of earth come back she discovers that she and her brother were separated from each other because they were in love with each other. Yeah, you got it. Above gays, perverts of all ages and others that have no fitting description, this show also has incest! HAHAHAHA!!! Well, not in the sense that Woman and Man Maze do it or anything, but they clearly express that they love each other in a romantic way, and so the topping on the perv/messed up behavior cake of this show is complete. The only main character who DOESN’T have wacked out perversions 99% of the time is Randy the little fairy, but even she gets her chance in one episode to become a normal sex hungry teenage girl!

So you ask, “Why the heck watch this show if it’s so messed up?” Well, despite all the weirdnesses of the cast it isn’t usually played for anything more than a cheap laugh, and it rarely takes itself seriously. It is indeed morally corrupt and just plain WRONG most of the time, but it’s used as I say for a vehicle for the humor, not some declaration of independence for the sexually deranged, because even Woman and Man Maze don’t pursue their, ahem, “relationship”. Above all the focus is on the war with Jaina, the action, and the mystery surrounding Maze herself. The story stays good paced and interesting most of the time save for the filler episodes, and even though the ending was a bit on the disappointing and lousy side it remained a fun trip right to the end.

Not the title for all, certainly not if you don’t like some of the subject matter they play with, but worse than that I believe is the language. I can’t speak for the original, but at least for the English version there is swearing is great abundance, mostly by the way of the sh— word.

If you want to watch a middle of the road quality anime this one is ok, but you may be frustrated by the fact that Maze often can’t make up it’s mind if it wants to be a serious battle anime, a goofy funny anime or a thoughtful emotional anime. Those elements don’t always flow together very smoothly throughout the show, but it does allow for some good laughs, some exciting fights and some seriously interesting character development, and to its credit the characters no matter how messed up eventually become very likeable.

Don’t take my word for it though. This title depends completely on what you like and what appeals to you, and while I enjoy it I could easily have hated it too.

Story: 1/2 Mostly taken from other sources (or so it seems) and often confusing, but it does what it needs to to get the characters from Point A to B.

Voice Acting: 1/2 The American dub was pretty good, even if some of the characters were often quite annoying. I have seen some episodes in Japanese, and the Japanese voices tend to be cuter and a little more fitting, but I like the English dub.

Animation: Mostly the battles and creatures were what were the most poorly animated. This becomes annoying and makes you feel like the quality of the whole show is very poor indeed after a while, but who knows what the budget was.

Violence: 1/2 Some of the battles get bloody, and there’s plenty of suggested violence or cut around acts that leave something to the imagination only because the animation is so poor or the picture doesn’t really move at all. All in all, pretty violent for tv anime.

Language: Lotsa language too. Lotsa LOUSY language at that, mostly revolving around variations of the sh—word.

Sexual content: Lotsa innuendo, characters with some interesting orientations, and a lot of lecheries going on. Nudity still counts for something even in the cleaned up American version, even if only in cut arounds.

Heart enlightenment factor: You get to care for the mains, especially Woman Maze and her struggles since they seem half way real and understandable (well, not like I’ve ever been in love with my brother or anything, but I think you know what I mean). She’s a sweet character and really makes the show.

Soundtrack: The opening theme gets old fast, but the music throughout the show is original and memorable, and the first end theme “Junk Boy” is a lot of fun. The theme of Jaina is one of my favorites, played hauntingly with an organ sound.

MAZE: THE MEGABURST SPACE