Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure: an Evangelion and El-Hazard Smoothie

Do not immediately dismiss a film because it does not contain the excessive nudity of "Ghost in the Shell" or the graphic violence of "Akira". If you have heard good things about a title like the buzz there is for "Neon Genesis Evangelion", the title is not a waste of money.

Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure:
Visions

Dual Parallel Trouble Adventure!
© 1999 AIC / Pioneer
Distributed by 

Genre: sci-fi (includes a great deal of "Tenchi Muyo!" style comedy)
Length: 100 minutes (4 episodes) Audience Age: 13+

Opinion: One of the better cutting edge titles.

This is a review of the DVD release.

From the creator of Tenchi Muyo!

It maybe that I have not had the same amount of cash to spend on overpriced videos. It maybe that the previews on the videos I do buy are not enticing enough. It maybe that I am spending my cash on the recent ECW, FMW, and XPW videos (this is not a wrestling web site, but look for the first company's tapes first). Maybe it is all these reasons, but I am having a problem finding Japanese animated videos to buy. 

Since I got a DVD player for Christmas, I figured it was time to seriously restart my anime collection, but where to start? While flipping through the discs at SunCoast, I found "Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure". If you have seen Neon Genesis Evangelion, you should instantly become a giant robot fan, and Dual! has them. The disc also had a sticker on its wrapping which boast that it was "From the creators of Tenchi Muyo!" (specifically, writer Masaki Kajishima), and I am a big Tenchi fan. So far this anime was irresistible from this buyer's standpoint.

It would seem to be just an ordinary day in Tokyo, but that is not the case for Kazuki. For him, he has to continue to question his sanity as he constantly sees visions of giant robots using the city as their battleground. 

Despite these visions ability to drive Kazuki crazy, he has been able to create a popular website from his accounts of these battles. This site even gets repeat hits from the most popular girl in school, Mitsuki, who is so intrigued about the robots that she approaches Kazuki with questions about them. 

After saving Kazuki from a beating by the high school's athletes, Mitsuki (this may not be the correct name; but this is what I have picked up as her name after watching this DVD thrice) takes her to visit her father, an assistant University professor, who is also a huge, possibly larger enthusiast of the boy's visions. Such an enthusiast that he offers Kazuki an explanation for his visual stimuli. 

The professor explains that Kazuki's visions are actually the reality of another dimension that he wants to prove the existence of. Fortunately/Unfortunately, we find out he is correct by accidently sending the main character to the alternate dimesion and in the center of a battle none the less. 

So to solve his even deadlier dilemna, Kazuki must find the professor of this dimension and pray that he is a little more responsible than the one from his dimension.

Purchasing Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure really paid off for me. I think what really made this investment worth while was the series' having a plot premise that was similar to "El-Hazard: The Magnificent World", a series I cannot get enough of.

There just seems to be something captivating about an anime based on the idea of a weird boy becoming a hero in an alternative world which has a large population of girls who have some kind of attraction to him. I guess Masaki Kajishima, the writer of Tenchi Muyo! and this series, really knows how to write toward the stereotypical adolescent male's dreams.

Dual!'s great premise leads to good stories, but none of them are as good as the best of Tenchi Muyo! or El-Hazard: The Magnificent World episodes. Some of the attempts to sympathize with the main character make a few of the episodes a little too sappy, and maybe this type of story does not cross over well with giant robots officianados. Fortunately, this series does not seem like it will allow the robot influence to change the light-hearted characters, so if you do not want to see the dark, bleak atmosphere of Neon Genesis Evangelion, this series will not feature it.

These robots may not be appropriate with their story premise, but man do they look good. Most of the CGI (computer generated image(s)) are integrated well with the traditional animation and also looks great. And even with the CGI being almost outstanding, the regular hand drawn animation is good enough not to be blown away by it, so the efforts of the many animators with their pencils are not wasted. 

Dual! is by no means as funny as El-Hazard: The Magnificent World and Tenchi Muyo, but is unique enough to be enjoyable with its great animation, futuristic giant robot plot, characters with bright personalities, and good use of computer animation. If you dislike the animes that this is similar to, you maybe wasting a couple hours at your job trying to earn enough money to buy this, but as far as I can tell, Dual! is definitely one of the better cutting-edge titles which any audience that is suited to see it can enjoy.