El Hazard


“It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...” El Hazard. Sorry, Mr. Serling, I couldn’t help myself. And you won’t be able to help yourself either, although, if you’re like me, you will at least make an attempt. But it won’t matter, and you won’t care. You’ll get sucked into this rabbit-hole of an alternate world that would send Alice screaming back to her teacups, and you’ll probably love every minute of it.

Makoto, the average highschooler, is just having one of those days…you know the kind, where you, your drunken teacher, and some classmates get hurled through a dimensional divide after an ancient artifact is uncovered in your school’s basement; where you find out that the world you’ve landed in gives you certain magical powers and the chance to impersonate the opposite gender for the good of the kingdom. While one of his friends sets herself up to be the next tycoon of El Hazard, and her brother practices his maniacal laugh and is off bonding with bugs named after the Marx brothers – poor, much-abused Makoto must impersonate a missing princess, fend off the amorous advances of the princess’s personal handmaiden, win the admiration of three voluptuous priestesses (or let them wipe the walls with him), and get upstaged by a cat named Aura (who, despite of all of the oddities present in this series, is always the coolest character), who is his constant companion, and yes, his personal bodyguard (don’t ask, just watch).

“Oh, We’re all Mad Here…” just doesn’t seem to cover it. Despite the fact that Makoto spends most of this Alternate World in a wig and skirt, he still gets hit on by everyone else, literally and figuratively. I mean, it’s a good thing his costume’s a skirt, or those bruises would show. Everybody gangs up on him. Everybody makes a pass at him, and that’s just in the first twenty minutes. The one-liners are worth the price of admission alone, and I confess that this is one of the series that changed me from someone who rolled their eyes and nodded politely at the mention of all-things-anime to a rabid fan begging for more (Ye-ah, Baby!).

Oh sure, Makoto and crew will probably end up saving the world a dozen times over, but that’s not the point!!! You don’t want this one to end. And the great news is, it doesn’t…because just as you think the party’s over and it’s time to pick up the keys, pull your stoned cousin off of the garage roof and go home, they tease you with glimpses of yet another alternate world, and the fun begins again. My tip? Plan for a siege, make sure you have no reason to leave your house and then watch it all. You don’t need no stinkin’ job, and you didn’t want to talk to your relatives anyway. Be a happy little anime sponge. Absorb it all…every episode, every slam, every thing you never dreamed a cartoon could say…and warp your fragile, little minds to your hearts’ content. It’s all good.

Greeneskye gives this five P-chans

---------Review By Greeneskye----------