Battle Athletes Victory
#3: Tragedy and Triumph
Pioneer
65 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
06/01/1999
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Battle Athletes Victory
Pioneer
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Every once in awhile, something happens in your life, something that's going to cause you quite a bit of trouble. In the case of myself and my compadres, it's a little something I like to call "The pineapple chipped beef craptacular surprise", the Battle Athletes girls have something going on in their lives too, it's one of those triathlons that involve a HUNDRED AND TEN MILES OF SHIT. So I'm not gonna say our folly with the pineapples was exactly -worse- than that, but I will say that I know where the girls are coming from when they complain about stuff. Look, I'll be honest with you. I don't want to write these reviews for many, many reasons. First, Battle Athletes totally intimidates me as a show, it's eight DVDs long and that means I need to get consistent content out for -eight- reviews (which we've proved is not necessarily strong point in the past). Not only that, but every time something happens in this show I feel like I should be tearing up, and that makes me all confused about the state of my fragile psyche and I almost end up throwing myself into a brutal rage wherein I would maim or murder the closest living soul to me. |
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I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "God willing, it'd be Bare, or Jerry." And I hear you on that, I totally do. But the fact of the matter is that I'm so ashamed of my enjoyment of this show that there's no way I'd ever enjoy it in the company of others. So watch out, whoever's sitting next to me in the library. When it comes up to the scene of Akari and It-chan standing on opposite sides of a door, debating whether or not to apologize, you might just be getting the old "Joel special".** So here we are with the short time between the competing girls and the final to see who goes up into space to compete in the space-Olympics. If you're only just now following this show and haven't a clue on who's gonna get picked, here's a hint : You're a moron. Let me detail it to you very simply. Akari has to go because she's the main character. Jessie has to go because she hates Akari and, as I've detailed in the previous review, she wants to dig up Akari's mother and wear her skin in a very Silence of the Lambs sort of way. The final spot in the three can go to Ayla, Tanya, or Ling-Phong. |
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Well let's see. The overwhelming empirical evidence states that Japan hates China with a passion that burns stronger than a thousand suns, as allegoried to us by her cheating ways and so she's straight out before the gates are even open. That leaves us with Tanya and Ayla. Now, let me tell you I was totally rooting for Ayla, if only for the fact that she's a somewhat LESS offensive racial stereotype than Tanya but consider how many episodes she's had devoted to her. One, and it sucked. Tanya's had like SIX and she's in like every scene (for reasons that escape me to this day). Yes, the African bush girl will be going to the space station while the superior athlete is left behind. I had this called the FIRST time I watched the show, and I never figure things out. What really gets me, though, is that Tanya's such a stupid character. Sure, Ayla with a very interesting and not really contrived reason that may make you want to cry at some points it still kind of pisses me off, mostly for the fact that Tanya is a character that you can find in sixteen other shows that have an African character in them (thanks Japan!) while the "Stoic, silent, but wise beyond her years" character isn't new, at least Ayla has some freaking -backstory- to her. What would Tanya's back story be? Do I even want to know? "I ate a bunch of berries and twigs to stay alive until I came here to Antarctica to show you uptights my WILDN'KRAZY WAYS!" |
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But I'm not Japanese, nor am I a script writer, so the chance of me having an impact on a show that came out five years ago is pretty unlikely. Nevertheless, were I able to invent a time machine I would gladly go back and rewrite history, brazenly and without any attention to the rules Time Cop has set before us. Why? I don't need to detail any more reasons why Tanya pisses me off, I figure you've pretty much got it all down in triplicate by now. But that doesn't make it any more right. My final complaint with this banging disc of one hell of a series is this : You know, it's fine that Akari has to qualify to get on the space station for the series to continue and all, but she basically WALKED through half of the 110 kilometer triathlon (I know what you were thinking, "triathlon, that's actually pretty normal". Well, it WAS... before it was nearly two hundred miles long!) So does she have to exercise a last minute 'power of the heart' spiel and somehow blow past the best student in the school and get first place at the last second? That seems too ridiculous, even for a show like this. PS : Fuck Tanya. |
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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 #3 : Ayla Veferascca Roznovsky's "Holy crap Soviet blocks are heavy!" "In Soviet Russia, you don't stack blocks, blocks stack you!" I can just hear Yakov Smirnoff opine while watching the young toddler stack her children's toys in preparation for her long training to become the best athlete in the entire universe! Correct me if I'm wrong, but a child's block ten times the normal weigh of a child's block would be like... twenty ounces. Way to go Russia! First the Space Race, now this. I have to wonder how you can genetically engineer a child that strong when your people are living sixteen to a room and eating bean pies like they're going out of style but hey, I'm not a moralist, I just write these things. |