Scryed #1: The Lost Ground ADV 125 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 7/15/2003

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After hearing Jerry building this show up for what must've been about three or four months, I honestly don't think I could've been less interested in Scryed. Having finally watched it, I'll say it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be, but it certainly wasn't nearly as good as both Filipinos and porn lovers alike would've wanted me to think. I can now understand why Jerry has been repeating "It's like Japanese X-men!" over and over again, ad infinitum... but I think that's just because I've been watching so much of X-men Evolution courtesy of Herr Bare. Don't think I'm totally against the concept, but I thought some of the X-men had sucky powers...mthis is nothing compared to the crap that goes in during Scryed. One of the girls has the ability to change objects into WATER with her HAIR. While Kazuma's crazy arm transformation along with the screamed "Shocking first bullet!" is pretty cool, his rival's weird bondage robot is a bit disconcerting. Then again, I've always been known as a fan of attacks that make you scream something out to activate them, especially in Japanese. "World-o Shaking" anyone? 'cause that was like the only worthwhile thing in Sailor Moon. Jerry repeated again and again while watching the dub that it's really "Shock wave of the first bullet" in the original language. I do agree that it would've been awesome, such is not the case. We checked. Sorry Jerry.

 

I guess it's more of a spirital brother to X-men though, as all the characters with their special powers are part of a certain group. I guess they were born with them, or bitten by radioactive spiders. Whatever the case no matter how divergent these things might be, they're all Altar users. Kazuma's arm transforms, there's a whiney fifteen year old that fights with green balls and this rather portly Native American fellow goes all out and summons a giant robot. Also like X-men, there's some secret organization out there that's trying to bring all the mutants...I mean altar users, in and keep them safe from the outside world. I don't know if this an homage or a direct rip-off and to be frank it doesn't really matter to me. I don't read comic books, but I do know that Spider Man didn't have the power to summon a gigantic revolver and terrorize a town. If this is Japan's take on super heroes...I think I'm strangely okay with it.

 

Interesting enough, it seems like one of the Holy organization's many rules is that you're not allowed to pants, if you're a lady anyway. To be fair, this is probably something indicative of the majority of Japan and not just some clandestine organization. The fact remains though, if you are a girl with super powers you are not allowed to wear pants. Let it go on the record right now that I'm glad the eight year old girl doesn't have any super powers...yet. There's some foreshadowing that makes me incredibly trepadatious. Pants or not though, it seems like a major theme of this show is that girls suck. Or that girls are smarter than guys but it doesn't really matter because they don't have any super powers, which you might say is relatively similar to the trend in our very own world. So yes, doctor Mimori and Xeres/Cherise/Ceres/WHAT-FUCKING-EVER might be more intelligent than their male counterparts and they might be finishing graduate school seven years early, I still don't see them blowing anything up or summoning giant robots, failing that...giant robot guns. I mean, at least the guy who isn't an Altar User has a flare gun.

 

Scratch that, a flare gun is a stupid weapon. But again, I guess it's no more stupid than having the ability to to talk really fast. I think this guy's name is Stealth Cougar, or Speed Panther, or something like that. He had a name that sounded like a Metal Gear Solid villain. His power is to drive his phallic car real fast and constantly mispronounce the young doctor's name. Jerry finds this, and the her correction of his mistake every time, hilarious and as such was repeating the line "Mimori desu" every five minutes. I had to admit it's pretty infectious and I was soon chanting right along with him. I guess what I'm trying to say is that "Mimori desu" is like a metaphor for this show. Except it's not. If there's anything that relates to this show it's got to be the game Simon, as readily evidenced by the flashing colors of the intro. In closing, if you like 80s games of light and memorization then you'll probably like Scryed. But for that to be the case you'd probably have to like anime, superheroes and bondage too.