The Humanoid

Original Title: ザ・ヒューマノイド
Romanized: The Humanoid
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

In the distant future, a powerful race known as the Megalosians all but destroyed their own kind in a war; their emperor fled to the planet Lazeria, where he later died. His daughter, Princess Ignasia, now lives on this quiet planet with a small community of Megalosians and few human researchers--Dr. Watson, his daughter Sheri, and the humanoid robot Antoinette. This quiet life changes when a routine supply mission piloted by Alan, a freighter captain, and Eric, Sheri's boyfriend, ends up crash landed on the planet, and then ambushed by someone not interested in visitors. While trying to get to the bottom of who might be planning to use the lost technology on Lazeria for nefarious purposes, Eric and his girlfriend Sheri are also going to get to teach Antoinette, a humanoid robot built by Dr. Watson, a little of what human relationships are all about.

Quick Review

Rating: 0.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-11-16

Take a rudimentary sci-fi story and pair it with a hurried 45-minute run time, weak directing, uninteresting storytelling, shallow characters, and generally poor visuals, and you've got anime so mediocre it's not even particularly worth making fun of. That's not all; the visuals are impressively inconsistent swinging between dated-but-decent and flat-out terrible, the music is annoying, and even the Japanese acting is overblown. The only high points are a couple of surprisingly good action scenes and that it's over mercifully quickly.

The concept isn't totally devoid of potential, but the execution is. Unless you're really desperate for material to heckle or want to have a field day analyzing how not to make a movie, don't waste your time.

US DVD Review

USM has produced a bilingual DVD, with a "fun facts video" listed as the only extra.

Content Guide

Nothing particularly objectionable, but there's enough violence to warrant about a 10-up.

Violence: 2 - Not particularly graphic, but some violence.

Nudity: 1 - Not nudity per se, but Antoinette's metal form is uncovered a few times.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Some implied romance, nothing more.

Language: 1 - Relatively mild.

Notes and Trivia

One of the first videos that Central Park Media translated, way back in 1991. Fortunately things went uphill from here (it'd have been hard to go anywhere else).

Availability

Available on hybrid DVD from US Manga Corps. There are also ancient subtitled and dubbed VHS editions, both long out of print.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store