Date: 1986
Rated: Likely middle PG-13
Running Time: Approx. 1 hr.
This is a rarely seen anime in the United States, and some might say with good reason. It’s so rare I could find little information on the Internet for it, and like the main characters of the story it constitutes as an unknown. However it was amusing and just a little fun, so I’ll tell you about this rare piece of work.
First thing you need to know is that female wrestlers Miki and Eri are trying to get their way to the top of the feminine wrestling profession, and their worst enemies are the Foxy Ladies. I swear to my loving God that’s their name. One is a nasty fat chick and the other could have come from a zoo. Actually the Foxy Ladies are the worst fear of EVERY wrestling duo in Japan, as shown by the opening fight between the Fox’s and another team we don’t see again the rest of the movie named the Dream Angels or something. Things get weird quickly when the Dream Angels go against the Foxy Ladies and start losing bad, only to have one of the chicks on their team suddenly buff up like Arnold Swarzenegger. Her clothes rip off and she whacks it to the overweight wrestler of the Ladies. Unfortunately Buffy(as I shall call her) collapses in exhaustion and the match is over.
Flash over to Miki and Eri, a good team but completely outmatched by the Foxy Ladies. Miki at least is confident that they can win, but the less aggressive Eri fears a good whooping. Unknown to them they’re the subjects of some secret experiments to enhance muscle and physical strength due to some strange dealings their coach is involved in, and so they inexplicably get enough power to mop the floor with the Foxy Ladies for a round or two. But the effects are unstable, as one would imagine with dangerous drugs, and the benefits don’t last very long.
They end up getting themselves tangled with the man behind the drug, who for some bizarre reason is using it and the DNA research of frog healing abilities to resurrect his dead father. His old man don’t look so good now unfortunately, for the experimentation has punked him out into a nasty looking purple human/frog hybrid. It’s a truly messed up creature, reminding me a bit of Gabera from Godzilla’s Revenge with its strange warbling gurgle sound. Miki and Eri have to eventually fight Frog Dad with their super strength, or the freak scientist is going to unleash his dad and the dangerous drugs on the wrestling world!
This anime is old, but the animation is fair. It’s short too, which given the story and the general boring genre of wrestling is a good thing. I like this anime on some levels, because Miki and Eri are cute and, hey, fighting super chicks always rock, right? The problem is that the story is hardly original or intriguing. There’s only a Japanese subtitled version to be found, which is just as well as this could hardly have been helped by an English voice over. I’m no fan of wrestling at all, but since this is sci-fi action meets wrestling it makes the movie more entertaining. There’s really not much that could have been done with it to make it any better, save for the end fight with the monster and the story behind that. That was confusing and quite suddenly thrown into the story last minute, and perhaps with some better animation and a little more time in the film’s running length it would have been better. As I said the animation fair, but nothing to be awed over.
All said it’s a rare anime and probably best left that way, but if you ever find it and are in the mood for some violent tag team with a butt ugly monster thrown in last minute, then go for it. It’s not a satisfying anime at all if you like quality work, especially with its weak, confusing ending, but somehow I did enjoy the fill of it between the beginning and the end. At the least you WILL believe that the WWF is just a drug ring in disguise if you didn’t think so already!
1/2
Nothing special at all. From what I’ve heard mostly a ripped off idea with
some slight twists in it.
The Japanese voices seemed
appropriate, and the heroines were cute.
Pretty bad stuff most of the
time, everything in the wrestling fashion from pounding on people, kicking,
punching, slamming, to even more graphic acts like biting, scratching, hitting
with sharp pointy objects and many more. There’s plenty of bloodshed, and
seeing it in competitions between mostly beautiful women struck me as
disturbing most of the time. The death of the monster is not shown as
anything more than its body lying on the cement ground, but there is a
splattered pool of blood beneath it.
mostly light cursing
Reminds me of a lot of
old anime I’ve seen, and the character designs are slightly reminiscent of the
first season of the Ranma ½ series.
1/2 There’s no coarse
sexuality, but there are a few shots of naked women in odd glass cases in a
science lab, in which we get full frontal. The only other shots are shadow
outlines through a screen door of the female heroes that hints at nudity, and
a (no pun intended) barely seeable frontal nudity shot in the first fight.
Nothing to feel too good about
unless you like cute girls getting the crap beat out of them.
Not the worst I’ve ever seen,
and fun for what the heck it is, but it’s rare for a reason and that reason
isn’t because it’s a hidden treasure of an anime.