It is cool that Angelfire is still around. It is also cool that if you look hard enough, you can find most of the GeoCities websites preserved on a server. If only "@Midnight" was still a thing. It is a shame that they will never capitalize on that content.
Angelfire may have kept my post GeoCities/Web Design Certification (icc.edu) site up the past 17 years, but with Yahoo's betrayal, if you have not created an operating system, I am going to put all my eggs in one basket. Thus, I am going to start moving the original AnimeFlow over to the Blogger sphere. So let us get over one repetitive tangent (look at all the It and I) and getting into repeating my earliest critical works.
© 1994 Toshimisu Shimizu / Tokuma Shoten - JVC
Length: 90 minutes (3 episodes)
Audience
Age: 12+
Opinion: Well animated, average story. This is a review of the dubbed VHS version.
From the creator of the hentai title Rei Rei
If you have seen the previews
for 801 T.T.S. Air Bats,
you probably were able to gain the basic premise of the series which is
girls plus jets means $21.60 worth of entertainment. To a certain extent,
girls plus anything out of the ordinary will bring some profit in this
animation genre, and when a sensitive but less than with it guy is thrown
in the mix, the creator is assured an audience. The concept is cute and
one will laugh in an on again off again pattern, but if it is not a "Tenchi
Muyo" or an "El-Hazard" video,
the consumer may have some regrets about the purchase.
801 gets a few bonus points from
me since learning about jets was once a hobby of mine, but otherwise it
is a lot like what I expect from one of these "girls meet boy, they
meet…what was that again?" animes.
"1st Strike" focuses on the adventures or misadventures of Takuyo Isurugi, a private
stationed with the all-female Tactical Training Squadron, the 801 Air
Bats (is that name redundant?). All the girls have ended up here due to
some disciplinary problem, or in the pink haired Yohko's case, poor flying
ability, so it would seem that the Self Defense Force would rather have
them perform at the air shows than carry sidewinders over the island nation.
After a rough first day for our hero,
wandering in on women changing and they always seem to want to bash the $^!+
out of you, rival pilots Miyuki and Arisa are willing to get to know the
new comer, and his willingness to prove that they are both good people
puts them into a new contest of who can win Isurugi's heart. This added
aggression between the girls could not have come at a worst time for the
squadron since the superiors mean to bring down the Air Bats and any variable
that will result in a bad flight evaluation will do so.
In the job description or not, Isurugi
has to hold the 801 squadron together at the risk of his mental and likely
his physical health. Add in the fact that he has to choose one of the
girls to be in a relationship with, it seems like matters can only get
worst.
Maybe
the three episodes on one video pushed my attention span to the limit,
but since the "801" does not have any bogeys to wax (jet jargon from "Iron Eagle"; bad guys to kill), there is not much action to keep one
interested. As I said earlier, the laughs come every now and then. It is only 80s sitcom funny. The characters
whose quirks and personalities make them pretty entertaining on the surface
are not very deep, and a lack of character development act as preventing
forces in the title's attempts to capture the audience.
It does make a
valiant effort to make us care about the characters in the love triangle,
giving the scenario a good chunk of the video, but the lack of depth in
the characters hardly makes it any better than the less than valiant attempts "Saved by the Bell" made to draw emotion from the audience.
If you are really into the art and animation
aspects of Japanese animated titles, you will not be disappointed. The
character design did not really impress me, but it does have its own unique
style which makes like/dislike an issue of taste. As for the rest of the
animation, the Japan Air-Self Defense Force's involvement in the project
helps give the series a special touch artistically.
801 Air Bats
maybe well animated, but one episode fulfills the viewers need for cool
artwork. If you want story, then this would be one of your average titles.
I would say if you like the girls + the unusual equation, the 90 min.
for a retail price of $20 is a bargain, but you would have to buy one
of the worst dubs I have ever seen. That maybe an over exaggeration. Maybe
the Southern States' dialect has crossed the largest ocean on the planet.
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