Project A-KO

Project A-KO versus Battle 1: Grey Side

This is an alternate-universe type of Project A-KO story. A-Ko and B-Ko are on an alien planet that resembles Dune. They are hunting a sand turtle (yep) and have a vehicle which resembles a spice miner.

Out in space, C-Ko's father is about to hold a birthday celebration for her, but she is kidnapped by an extremely large-breasted blonde who, with no difficulty at all, proceeds to blow up ten spaceships chasing her.

Back on Dune or whatever, there is an accident and C-Ko ends up with A-Ko and B-Ko. They are, of course, attacked by the blonde and her male companion. A-Ko manages to defeat the blonde, but does not follow up her attack (of course), allowing the blonde to regain her strength and attack again. They manage to kidnap C-Ko yet again, fleeing in a submarine-type craft, only to be followed by A-Ko and B-Ko. One thing leads to another and eventually the man actually master-minding all the attacks appears.

You also have an additional character, a six-inch tall member of the space patrol.

It appears the villains want to resurrect some kind of evil god, and C-Ko is the key to it all.

Project Ako vs. Blue Side

This continues from the previous disc. C-Ko's body will be used to house Xena. A-Ko and B-Ko are attempting to rescue her, resulting in a rather wild chase scene through a bedroom, kitchen, and so on. A-Ko ends up fighting the blonde women from the first disc, while B-Ko becomes separated and ends up falling for the villain Gail.

Gail and his cohorts are up to destroying all the universes (alternative universes included) and starting everything all over again. He views it as a religious quest, but Xena just wants to be a goddess in the new universe and to run everything.

They go around destroying planet after planet and obliterating any space fleets sent against them. A-Ko and the space patrol diminutive character finally get to the spaceship housing C-Ko and B-Ko (she left earlier with Gail). The question is, will B-Ko help her or defend her new-found love?

Somehow C-Ko/Xena has to be stopped, but can A-Ko do it alone if necessary? Or will B-Ko realize what needs to be done and help her?

This was a set of laser discs that took a lot of getting used to.C-Ko looks like the "original" C-Ko, but the other two vary too much for me. The personalities are different, and what really got me was whenever A-Ko and B-Ko would have the upper hand they would just stand there rather than finishing off the villains (who were, by the way, responsible for the deaths of countless innocents.)

I know that realism is not necessarily to be expected in anime, but when you have acknowledged villains who have kidnapped a young girl and killed loads and loads of people, you do NOT stand around and let them get their second wind. You finish them off, period. Either kill them, or totally incapacitate them, but don't stand there just looking.

There is a much more realistic level of violence in this than in the "original" series. There the school kept getting blown up, but no one ever really seemed to get hurt. In this episode the violence is harsher; actually, the tone of the entire program is harsher. There is an attempt at some comedy, mainly by relying on exaggerated animating, which to me just doesn't really seem to work well.

The second disc is by far the better of the two, although even there there is too much of the "deformed" style of animation. It seems to me that this story could have been done with almost any characters, including brand new ones. A-Ko, B-Ko, and C-Ko were not absolutely necessary to the story, and if you had never seen any of the other Project A-Ko videos you would be somewhat at a loss about the relationship between the two "older" females.

Rating: I would rate this with a 2. Too much "deformed" animation for my tastes, a story line that didn't really need the major characters we are used to, and some massive lapses of logical actions.