Well... That Was Different
Anime Geek, Movie guru, into action flicks, comedy fan
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JUN
18
2007
Moeyo Ken Vol. 1: Shinsengumi On The Prowl —
Originally published on otakureview.netIntro
Who knew the Meiji era was filled with so many monsters and scantily clad women?
The Story
In an alternate version of the Meiji era, three daughters of the Mobile Shinsengumi unit are put in charge of fighting off monsters that have decided to invade Kyoto.
In the first episode of the volume, we are very quickly introduced to the three sisters who are in charge of finding unlicensed monsters in the city and get them listed with the city registry and the trio of villains known as the Tsubame Squad, who are attempting to stop them. It seems the business and money has been slow coming in though which means that the president's son is being called in to help while the trio of villains is calling forth a giant monster.
Soon the pleasantries and introductions are made though and the four sisters: Yuuko, Okita and Hijikata are teamed up with the son of their president, Ryuunosuke and his monster ghost cat companion Nekomaru. Though it happens just in time for Sen, the debt collector, to arrive and start reprocessing items to collect on their debts. In order to pay off the debt, the group starts selling stocks in the company (though the girls have a very poor understanding of how the stocks actually work) though it is after this plan that the president, Oryou, learns that Ryuunosuke plans to return to Shanghai after he gets the company back on it's feet. To stop this from happening though, the girls and Ms. Oryou decide to hook Ryuunosuke up with the waitress that he has a crush on with a love potion invented by their scientist.
After destroying the city, the girls hatch a new scheme to hook Ryuunosuke and Sayoko together by taking them to a hot spring. Along with going to an established one though, they decide that their best bet to repay their debt is to find their own in Kyoto and dig it up.
Then after flooding the city, the girls are still plotting on how to hook Ryuunosuke and Sayoko together. Unfortunately for them it just seems like he has no real interest in girls which means that the girls, Yuuko in particular, just have to try harder to teach him the ways of woman at a maiko house. When the girls fail to entertain him, Ryuunosuke meets a young maiko who is having trouble entertaining her clients and so he offers to help her out which the mobile Shinsengumi take as him acting like a playboy.
And that's not even their stupidest plan.
The Good And The Bad
Not knowing a whole lot about this series before I entered was probably the best way to go as I really had no idea what to expect other than it was a comedy set in the Meiji era. When I first started the first episode, I found myself with fairly good expectations from what I saw. The animation was good with crisp colors and the characters were fairly well designed at first but then it all kind of started to go downhill.
I've heard this anime compared to other animes and I agree that this anime does remind me of another anime but not one that anyone else has mentioned: Pokemon. It sounds silly but that was the first thing that really struck me when I saw the character design for Nekomaru and the Tsubame group. The Tsubame group in particular just screamed like a Team Rocket rip off to me through their mannerisms and speech pattern but I have been known to create parallels where there are none and so perhaps I am completely alone on this one.
The writing in this series tries so hard to be funny with constant uses of repetitive jokes about the group being broke and absolutely incapable of actually doing their jobs while getting their butts handed to them every time they go out on assignment, the majority of this volume wasn't even spent on their jobs and instead on trying to get Ryuunosuke hooked up instead which led to a very long volume. Admittedly not all of the jokes are bad and I did laugh a few times at what I saw in spite of myself but rarely was it a real laugh and mostly they were just simple chuckles.
The story itself has really yet to set itself up which is a bother to me. There has been no real central plot lined up which made for a fairly long viewing experience. Though I actually be entirely mistaken and haven't realized that the central plot for the rest of the series will be the girls trying to get Ryuunosuke laid in which case this is going to be a very long, boring series before too long as this joke and story arc has already outlived it's entertainment value.
For the most part the characters in this series were designed well if not a little on the young side. In particular this little issue fell on Ryunnosuke who was designed as though he were 10 years old rather than 16 years old but with the over the top cute factor of this series I can't say that I was overly shocked.
This series really turns up the fan service early and I'm willing to bet that a big part of this is to attract an additional audience which I can't say that I blame them. The writing and story in this series has yet to show me that it has much strength and so I guess if you can't wow them with that, you might as well stun them with as much cleavage and breast jokes as you can squeeze into five episodes.
Music
The music in this series wasn't terrible but I certainly won't be adding it to my collection anytime soon. The opening and closing themes were upbeat pop songs with guitar riffs but other than that they really didn't leave any kind of lasting impression on me. Even after watching five episodes, I'd be very lucky if I could actually hear any of the theme songs from this anime and actually be able to identify where they are from. The background music also tended to be rather uninspiring.
Dub vs. Sub
Both tracks were about as well as you'd expect them to be. Neither track really stood out as particularly great or was filled with particularly memorable performances which once again, are not the fault of the voice actors in the cast. I truly feel that they did the very best with what they had but there really weren't any performances that particularly stood out as fun or memorable. I did find it interesting that so many ADV regulars and veterans played small roles in this series rather than the leads.
Extras
Besides the traditional clean animations and production sketches, we also got something a bit interesting with a commentary track featuring the ADR director Charles Campbell and Edwin Neal who played Nekomaru.
Overall
I really can't see myself looking forward to seeing more of this series. The writing and comedy were uninspiring and didn't lead to a great viewing experience. Perhaps if the next volume shows that they have some intention of setting up a real story and dropping the constant running gags then any potential that this series has will be revealed but for now, I think that most anime fans can pass on this one unless you really enjoy jokes that have no real base other than they are based on fan service.
Final Grade: 71% - C
Moeyo Ken Vol. 1: Shinsengumi On The Prowl is not recommended by scorpioeyez
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