Battle Athletes Victory #1: Training Pioneer 85 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 04/13/1999

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You know what I hate? I hate it when people say "I would've never believed that me and Bob would agree on something but here we are!" Like it's such a huge impossibility that two people who have never agreed before will agree sometime in the future. Here's a news flash. I bet Colin Powell and Qusai Hussein both like chocolate ice cream. Do you want to know why? Because chocolate ice cream is fucking delicious. Now, one of them is gonna go to bed and have a wet dream about gassing an ethnic minority and one is going to write a check to the UNCF but that doesn't mean they can't like something that's delicious. So because you're a liberal and he's a conservative but you both agree that slapping a woman with your cock and then making her lick it clean after you stick it in a tub of margarine is wrong don't be so surprised, because guess what... stranger things have happened! Jesus people, open your eyes! At this very moment the Japanese people are making robots who will some day attempt to overthrow us and control all of mankind.

 

And I know right now, the robots can only do things like run into walls at two miles per hour and pick up coffee cups and move them back and forth like an OCD sufferer who's had too much to drink, but that doesn't mean they're not a threat. When the day comes, and it will, oh it will, you'll be sorry you didn't. But more to the point, I would've never believed I would enjoy something like Battle Athletes Victory but here we are. As shameful as it is for me to admit this, I have something of a special place in my heart for this show. I don't know, it might be the triumphant music (which everyone knows I'm all about) or some of the slick character designs, or the fact that they manage to put chicks in revealing clothing without falling all over themselves jamming fan-service down the throats of the more intelligent viewer. While this show does have it's share of ridiculous crap that should've never been put in (the vast majority of the athletic competitions come to mind) it still manages to be a few cuts above anything else in the market, especially when it comes to sports anime.

 

The basic idea of the plot is retarded; you'll find no argument from me there. Now, I know this is kind of an "alternate universe" from the original Battle Athletes so I'm not sure if this applies, but the first show (which sucked) said that there was this giant war and these aliens came from space and then nobody could win so they decided to hold a special Olympics instead. And then a human beats the twelve foot tall alien in a foot race (which doesn't make sense from a physiological perspective). If I was a betting man I'd wager the way he beat them was using the "power of his heart" or something along those lines. But that's just me. Now, a thousand years later the guys in the Olympics have been replaced by a beauty pageant and the soldiers have been replaced by chicks of the age range of 10-14 who aren't allowed to wear anything that even partially resembles pants. I know that you, being an American reader, might be confused by this but the Japanese really like prepubescent girls. I'm not entirely sure why or how it started but I'd imagine it's because the Japanese people in general are very small. Therefore, they like very small girls, incredibly small girls. But it's hard to draw a midget girl because of those disproportionate bodies and stuff that's why they have to venture into the "grassless field" territory..

 

But Battle Athletes Victory is better than the sum of its parts, though that may not be immediately evident from these four episodes. It's got a slow start and you really have to get into the second disc before it starts to get good but I honestly believe it's worth it. The messages might be clichéd at times, and the costumes might be enough to make one's penis soft, but I'd still be very willing to argue that this show is worth picking up. If you're still not convinced, you really only need to think about the price tag of this show. Sure it's eight DVDs but they can all be picked up from between $8-15 depending on how hard you look. So basically you're paying for twenty six pretty good episodes and, depending on the deal, only paying like sixty bucks for it. That's barely even three other DVDs. The only problem is you'll have to deal with is hiding them when you have company, because who would you want to let know that you watch this stuff? Luckily, you anime fans have experience with hiding all that sick perverted crap. Freaks.

Taking a cue from the Pokemon, I've decided to spice up these reviews for the reader back home. So, enjoy the "incomprehensible athletic maneuver" of every disc of Battle Athletes Victory with me, and enjoy it in style! IAM #1: Jessie Gurtland's FUCKING POWER SLIDE! Jessie is that girl from New York city who doesn't take nothing from nobody. Much like we believe all the Japanese live with the lust for little girl's panties and go to those weird sex clubs and stuff, the Japanese believe that all us Americans grow up in alleyways and keep ourselves warm during those cold winter nights with a very convenient trashcan fire. Also, we're all blond haired and blue eyed. When I think about this maneuver only one thing comes to mind. Remember that sweet slide Denzel Washington does with the SUV in Virtuosity right before he shoots Russel Crowe like sixty times with the shotgun? Yeah, that was freakin' awesome.