Nazca
#2: Blood Rivals
Pioneer
75 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
03/14/2000
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Nazca
Pioneer
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I like Dan. When he's not climbing mountains or being an abnormally muscular Japanese man, he's busy chilling with the young crowd and being called "Big Bear" or "Mr. Bear". While most of you would liken that to the stuffed teddy you owned while you were younger, I like to think of him as a cross between Smokey The Bear and a slightly more badass bear, if one exists. Never get into a fight with Smokey, not only does he posses all the skills of his non-vocal bear brethren such as claws and teeth, but he's got a SHOVEL too. Theoretically that's for burying the incriminating bodies left behind by his psychotic nature companions as they peck and claw forest fire violators to death. Believe you me, I'll never light a fire in the woods without making a ring of stones for fear of being ripped apart by seemingly harmless wildlife. Blue jays are the tiny spawns of Satan sent to regulate against eco-criminals and don't you forget it. |
| Thankfully we're treated with the fact that these three episodes of Nazca are completely devoid of any garish CG effects. Nothing kills an anime mood like having to watch stuff more superimposed than Superman movies. You know what I'm talking about, doesn't it make you feel sad for the eighties that stuff like that actually existed and was so highly touted as the pinnacle of technology? Look! Superman's FLYING! Well, none of the characters visit crazy Inca temples in the sky this time so we're safe for seventy five minutes. Here's an odd little thing too, apparently some of the music was done by a dude I like to call John Sebastian Bach.** That crazy composer of such works as... I can't remember any.... I think he did Christian stuff. The music was possibly the best part (aside from Yuka) of the first disc of this mediocre Native American theme series and so it continues to be. At least they've got something going for them because they certainly don't have a badass character to carry the weight. Dan might be cool and all but he's more like the fat guy you like to hang around with because he's funny and outrageous. Kyoji, main character and reincarnated Inca warrior Bilka, is kinda cool, but he's such a sissy sometimes that it's hard to like him. Tate would be great for the role but he's too crazy and megalomaniacal to be a cool guy. Then there's Shiogami, Kyoji's insane rival. He's probably the best character in the show because he's like a car wreck. Nobody likes him, he's sad and disgusting, but you can't look away. I can't help but dislike the purple haired freak, but for some reason he draws me in every time he's on the screen. |  |
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Then there's the girl who I was under the impression was Shiogami's girlfriend. It turns out that she's his half sister and very much in love with him. She declares that she'd rather be dead than not be a reincarnated Incan warrior. Apparently she's decided that if both she and her sibling at reincarnated spirits then they're almost soul mates and that's a pretty sweet deal. After all she just wants to get in with him on some partially incestuous love. There is a long heated battle in which Shiogami eventually says "Hey, give it up you moron, you're not one of us." Then, for no reason at all, she falls off a cliff, thinks about how she doesn't want to die, and rises up in the air in a burst of light, proclaiming herself as reincarnated spirit Elela. Admittedly Elela looks pretty sexy, but that doesn't negate the fact that I don't like her whiney attitude anyway. Screw her and everyone like her, I can actually root for the good guys in this one because the bad guys just suck so much, even if Kyoji does wuss out and not kill his rival when he has the chance. Kyoji seems to have a lot of rivals. |
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Does all that seem crazy? Watching Nazca is kinda like the panty shots in Aika, eventually you just get used to the flashes of absolute insanity coming every few moments and you feel pretty jaded to it. The evil people wanna destroy a whole town as a test of their power? Sure, why not? A whole episode devoted to the battle of good and evil where the good guys have powers like "Nothing" and "Controlling butterflies"? Sounds okay to me. Nazca has some pretty wussy protagonists and unless they straighten up and fly right pretty soon Tate and his cadre of Southern American people are gonna wipe the floor with them, even Dan.
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