Burst Angel 6/10

Supposedly a cross between spaghetti western and Hong Kong action movie, I'm not sure what part of this show is western other than Jango has a cowboy hat and spurs and Meg wears chaps.

Airing in JP back in late 2004 this show contains all the modern anime goodness such as detailed backgrounds, great animation (when it's not crappy), and decent music. I was not impressed at all by the animation at times, it seems that almost every episode suffers from horrible looking scenes. At least 1-2 in EVERY EPISODE and a few where 3/4 are terrible. I was particularity appalled at the quality of the samurai village episodes. Since this show was produced by Gonzo, who's resume hasn't had a show this poor since the first episode of Vandread, I was NOT expecting this over the 24 episodes. Since Gonzo is involved there are alot of CG mech fight scenes and they are all great so someone was doing something right. I wasn't a huge fan of the OP and ED and the VAs were only average.

Set in a future Japan, Burst Angel is about a team of 4 girls who work as mercenaries in Tokyo using a big mech named Jango to perform various jobs. This usually involves some sort of fight against a monster or big mech and these are all eventually tied to the overall storyline.

The first team member is Jo, the quiet, albino, angry, mech pilot who's battle skills and mysterious past make her the main fighter of the team. The next is Meg, she's Jo's only real friend and is of the red-haired, blue-eyed, huge rack variety of character. She's whiny and not really useful in a fight compared to Jo and her uncanny ability to get captured by the bad guys ends up as an ongoing theme in the episodes. The remaining team members are Sei, the quiet leader with gang ties, the only Class 1 license, and another large rack and Amy the little computer genius girl. Sei's the oldest at 19, Jo is 18, Meg is 15, and Amy is 11.

Most of the show is made up of 2 episode arcs where the team is hired to investigate some monster sighting or fight a runaway mech. Nearer the end of the series it's revealed that all the incidents were caused by a company called RAPT that's experimenting with mutated humans and mechs with insane green glowing brains in order to use them as weapons and rule the world.

I really thought the execution of the overall plot of this show was pretty weak. While watching, the viewer figures out what's going on pretty early in the series but since the team his no interest in investigating the connection between the incidents THEY only find out about it in episode 22 or so. By then there isn't enough time to really get into the details of the bad guy's plan, it's just a matter of now identifying what building to assault and explode in the final episode. Since the episodes were all 2-parters I suspect this show was meant to be eye-candy only and I don't mind that but I prefer something with a little more forethought before episode 22.

One thing that was great about this show was Meg (Sei's no slouch either but she's no Meg). This show has the most jiggling breasts and nipple prints that I've seen since Divergence Eve. Meg's melons are constantly being squeezed into tight outfits (no bra EVER) or she's being tied up and things are bouncing around all over. Her swimsuit in the beach episode is particularly impressive. No full nudity though. How odd.

Ah anime.

I'll recommend this show but keep in mind there's no deep meaning here. It's all explosions and Meg's nipple prints and that's not all bad.