180 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 04/17/2001
Reviewed: 05/10/2005

Last week was my birthday, I don't know if you knew that. Now I find myself at 23 years of age. I'm stuck in that woesome time between legal alcohol and cheaper car insurance. Since I don't own car, but I do consume thousands of pints of alcohol a year I figure... so far, so good.

Well this week, where I spent just about six days in a row going out and drinking lots of alcohol (thank god those ages aren't reversed), I was certainly kept busy. Amongst other things, this week was my first experience with a strip club. It was here that I experienced my first lap dance, and after that my first private dance.** Now, normally I would've been more vehemently against these things, but I was drunk and two of my auspicious companions (my brother and future boss) just would not take no for an answer. It wasn't like I was paying for it. So, after putting up less than token resistance, I had to spend the better part of a half an hour trying to not laugh at this poor girl makes the least sexy of sexy faces at me. When I tell you I have never been to a strip club, I am telling you I have never been because of a total lack of interest.

I'm not interested, you must understand, because I think stuff like that can just be too creepy to be real. Besides, paying real live money for something like sex is weird. Maybe it's just me, but part of the allure of those kinds of relations is the feeling of accomplishment that you get out of it. Where's that when I have to stick a $20 in some stripper's underwear? Also, when you extend these things to any duration it starts to get a little hinky on the wallet. That's money I'd rather spend on sandwiches, or more alcohol. The whole thing strikes me as severely disingenuous. So too is Knights of Ramune, a six part OVA of boredom and fan-service so thick you could knock it down and roll it around like a fat kid at recess. The 180 minutes I've spent with this show, on two separate occasions, have been just about more of it than I could ever stand.

Well, actually... the DVD sort of crapped out on me in the fourth episode. I've really only watched approximately 320 minutes of Knights of Ramune, but I hope you'll trust me when I say that it was still more than I could ever need to see. Even if minutes of Knights of Ramune were nickels and I had a big floppy hat in which to catch them.

Cacao and Parfait are what's referred to as "Holy Virgins", a sort of priestess that has to disrobe and grab their bosoms to do any sort of magic. Their job is to get naked (and sometimes accidentally kiss each other). Well, Cacao's one of these Virgin things. Parfait never managed to pass her entrance exams and as such she has to wait until the second episode to flaunt her assets. For no particular reason the two are shot up into space with their no nonsense, sass talkin' blob of red jelly named PQ. It is here they are to seek out the sacred warrior and savior of the universe, the Knight of Ramune. It's not really explained why they're sent out because the only person causing any trouble in the galaxy is (dun dun dun) the self-proclaimed Knight of Ramune!

Obviously this guy's an imposter. And not a very good one, because he pretty much makes it his business to mount naked robots on his wall and force them to watch his brutal torture of twin Chinese women with enormous breasts. It just seems to me that the savior of the universe should probably have better things to do with his time than electrocute sixteen year old girls. You know what I'm saying? Is it wrong that I find this hot?

So it goes for four episodes, just with a lot more nudity than I've described to you. Reread the two paragraphs above you, make sure to click on all the pictures, and then repeat to yourself that still is yet more nudity in this show. It's amazing the length of excess Ramune goes to and it astounds me that there's people out there that would gladly pay money for something like this when they could just spend the $20 on dinner with the prospect of real, live sex. I know it sounds crazy! But I think it just might work. Anyway, through a bunch of misunderstandings they end up scampering around the ship with a twelve year old girl (Hint: She's the real Knight of Ramune), then they get into a robot and fall onto a planet where Parfait discovers that she has the secret power to pilot the robot...

But only when she's naked.