Iczer-1 General Review

[Jason_Miao]

Iczer-1 Review:

I have always been annoyed by overused anime cliches: the wimpy too-nice guy with the harem hanging on his arm; the conviction that the Japanese census is heavily flawed, since so many children fake the existence of their dead parents; the trash-talking tyro who wins because he's a living tumbler toy. Usually, these and other similar cliches are indicators that my time may be more constructively spent in other endeavors.

When I saw the three-part _Fight! Iczer-1_ OVA a number of years ago, however, I still managed to enjoy it and, even today, still have no idea why I did.  Certainly, it is not as if I'd never watched a movie about an alien army invading the Earth in the near future for colonization purposes with an impotent Earth military helpless to stop it.  Even the existence of a whole race of space lesbians has been done in Gall Force, and I doubt that there are many people who have not heard of Giant Robots in anime or of monsters who turn the humans they attack into monstrosities similar to themselves.  Years after the show, whenever this sci-fi horror title is brought up in conversations, the first thought I use to describe it is "cliche beyond all expectations".

Perhaps the reason I am fond of _Fight! Iczer-1_ and can forgive it for an attribute I normally detest is that there is purpose to its presentation, and not merely a series of cliches strung together with no connection or overall purpose, as so many popular anime series seem to be.  The Earth military being quickly defeated is shown two or three times, but these scenes take less than two minutes to conclude--just enough to show the relative states of power both sides of the war have without being overbearing.  The background does change when the main character, Iczer-1, fights in similar fashion as they change during the fight scenes in _Ranma 1/2_ or _Rurouni Kenshin_, but rather than just ignoring it as a quirk of production-cost maintenance, it is explained as shifting dimensions when fighting.  To someone as jaded as myself, this would still be considered merely an unforgivably lame explanation were it not actively used later in a trap by the villains to separate Iczer-1 from the other main character, Kano Nagisa, promoting it into a plot point.  Even the random lesbian opening scene is not as random as it first appears, since it establishes the foundation for subsequent events to provide the necessary motivation for one participant to fight.

Another point to take into account is that many anime cliches were probably started in _Fight! Iczer-1_.  The tentacled monsters that would later become famous years later in Legend of the Overfiend first made their debut in _Fight! Iczer-1_ (allow me the digression to state that there is no H), and Nagisa may very well be the first character in an anime OVA to wear an armored-miniskirt fuku.

I think there is a level of care put into _Fight! Iczer-1_ that is rarely seen elsewhere.  I do not recall any reused animation scenes, and every episode has a distinct ending theme that matches the mood of the episode.  I am very hard pressed to think of other OVAs where both conditions are true.

In the end, I think that this anime is not for everyone.  As I mentioned before, it has 80's animation, and the music is more eerie than Jpop, usually enough to discourage many of the more recent anime enthusiasts.  Worse, it was licensed and commercially produced in the US during the early days when companies only released dubs. (If you thought Minmei was the most annoying character in anime, just wait until you sit through a dubbed Kano Nagisa.)  Mostly, though, I feel that it is a matter of perspective.  If you're the kind of person who, upon watching the scene with the atheists in Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter, thought "Jesus needs 10 more years of Kung-fu training before he can make a name in the Martial Arts World", you may wish to watch something else.  However, if you can still enjoy watching older animation like _Star Blazers_ or _Transformers_, _Fight! Iczer-1_ may be worth a try.


[Thanks to Dracos and DFR for suggestions]