Project A-ko

Original Title: プロジャクトA子
Romanized: Project A-ko
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Years ago, Graviton City was wiped out by a falling chunk of space debris. It has now been rebuilt into a bustling high-tech center. A-ko and her lifelong friend C-ko are new in town, and are trying to get used to life at their new high school. This is not as easy as it could be considering that A-ko is a chronic oversleeper and C-ko is an airhead on a scale that makes the people in Clueless look like MIT students. But a few personality quirks seem insignificant when compared to the real social difficulty facing A-ko and C-ko. Their problems are twofold: There is "D", a mysterious agent who is spying on the pair, but the more immediate problem is the alphabetically appropriate B-ko, who has her heart set upon C-ko, and is determined to win her. The only thing that stands in her way is A-ko, and she vows to employ her genius in robotics, her band of loyal schoolyard minions, and her vast family wealth to achieve A-ko's demise. Unfortunately for her, B-ko's undertaking does not prove to be as simple as it first appears, due to A-ko's superhuman strength and fighting skill. Things continue to escalate until it comes time for a showdown between the alphabetic trio, "D", and an alien army!

Quick Review

Rating: 4.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-11

Project A-ko is everything cliche and classic you love about old-school anime compressed into 80 minutes of film. It's ostensibly a parody, and sends up everything from Macross to Fist of the North Star, usually in weird and hilarious ways. It also has functionally likable characters (except for the terminally annoying C-ko) and something like a story, so it's a decent action-comedy anime even if you don't get the '80s-era in-jokes. Perhaps best of all, it's absolutely loaded with action--space battles, ground battles, air battles, mecha battles, the superpowered schoolgirl catfight of the century, and the world's first and only wrist-mounted fully-automatic missile launcher on a battlesuit shaped like a bikini. It all builds to a chaotic, hilarious, action-packed crescendo to make for one heck of a memorable experience--no petering out at the end in this movie. It's also a very attractive film given its age, with smooth animation and spectacular looking action galore, plus has a distinctive (and not horribly dated) English-language soundtrack.

Project A-ko is hard to top as an action-packed old-school anime parody. One word both describes and defines this film: Fun. Well, maybe three: Lots of fun.

US DVD Review

This was one of the first DVDs that US Manga Corps announced (back in May of 1998, if memory serves), and after over a year of delays, they finally managed to get it out the door. Taking that into account, the disc is a bit disappointing. It's the same as USM's other early theatrical DVDs done by Image, meaning that it's nicely done but minimal; there are no special features whatsoever, save a chapter index and the two audio tracks. There may not be any extras, but at least the foundation is solid. The audio transfer is very nice (surprisingly crisp coming from a film this old), and although there's some leftover hiss, the stereo actually sounds surprisingly good. The video transfer is great, too--beautifully bright and sharp. Almost too sharp, in fact. The grain stands out a bit (due to the older film print, I assume), which is fine, but throughout the movie you can see little hairline vertical scratches; it's an older film--and really is a film--so I suppose these physical scratches on the print shouldn't be surprising, but I guess the VHS version wasn't sharp enough for them to show up. It's not a severe problem, and to put a positive spin on it, it really makes you feel like you're watching a movie in a theater. In all, a very nice transfer, and definitely a worthwhile addition to a collection, but minimal as a DVD, and as expected, there is no Japanese cast.

There has since been a re-release of the disc with what claims to be a better video transfer.

Content Guide

US Manga Corps calls it 13-up, which is about right.

Violence: 2 - Loads of fighting, and certainly some deaths (a space station gets blown up), but nothing graphic at all.

Nudity: 2 - Two very brief scenes, and a lot of metal-bikini-clad fighting.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - There certainly seems to be something going on between the three girls, but it's only implied, and may be platonic.

Language: 1 - A few scattered bits of profanity.

Notes and Trivia

Ok, notes and trivia galore for this title.

To start with, Project A-ko is not based on anything, and while there are a variety of spin-off artbooks, soundtracks, CDs, and other advertising material, there is only one comic adaptation: A 2-issue mini series produced by CPM Manga in 1995 for the US market. It's all-color, drawn in anime cel style, and is a fairly straightforward adaptation of the movie.

It's worth mentioning that the names A-ko, B-ko, and C-ko are more than just the obvious alphabet parody: Nondescript characters in Japanese movies (like "Security Guard 1") are often referred to in the credits by letters (i.e. Security Guard A). More specifically, you frequently see "Girl A, Girl B...", which, in Japanese is "A ko, B ko..."

In addition, the character for "ko" is frequently found at the end of female names, and in fact, Eiko, Biiko, and Shiiko (which are pronounced the same as A, B, and C-ko in Japanese) all have "official" kanji writings. Eiko (英子), meaning roughly "English Girl," is a real (and relatively common) name, though it is more often written with another, similar-looking character. Biiko (美子), meaning "beautiful girl," is also a real name, though it's properly pronounced "Yoshiko." Shiiko (詩子), roughly meaning "song girl," can also be a real name (albeit an uncommon one), though again it's properly pronounced "Utako." Note, however, that the title of the film itself is written with the Roman character "A" (A子), in a reference to the 1983 Jackie Chan film "Project A."

Writer-director Katsuhiko Nishijima is, perhaps, better known for high-quality mild hentai anime. Specifically, underwear fetish anime: He is responsible for both the underwear fetish action series Agent Aika and the (admittedly very funny) underwear fetish screwball comedy Labyrinth of Flames.

On that note, Project A-ko was originally intended to be a short in the erotic Cream Lemon series; a book that includes a short comic, character designs, and even storyboards was produced. For whatever reason, it was re-cast as a drastically cleaner (and more substantive) parody for a mainstream audience and a larger budget theatrical production. This origin is likely where the rather ambiguous nature of the three girls' relationship comes from; the original was not at all ambiguous (explicitly so). Based on this, one could infer that the implied relationship(s) in this film (drawn into question in the 2nd sequel and then implied all over again at the end) are indeed what they seem.

Many of the designs for the film came from this original concept, including the look (and names) of A-ko, B-ko, and Miss Ayumi, as well as the Akagiyama 23. C-ko, however, looked totally different, and Miss Ayumi was originally also skimpy-battlesuit-equipped (plus the school turned into a giant robot in a riff on the SDF-1 in Macross).

Elsewhere in the staff are the non-Japanese names that show up in the musical credits. Richie Zito is an acclaimed session guitarist and music writer-producer who has worked in one role or another with acts from Elton John to Art Garfunkel to Cheap Trick. Joey Carbone, on the other hand, while LA-based and at one time the music director for Star Search, is probably best known for his Japanese connections; he claims to have worked with acts as big as SMAP and Max, and is credited with music for some other anime as well, including Rayearth and Child's Toy. Samantha Newark, who sings B-ko's theme, does occasional voice work, but her biggest role was the title character in the classic saturday morning cartoon Jem... and ironically, she did not supply Jem's singing voice.

The movie is loaded with references, but in addition to the rather obvious Macross, Harlock, Harmageddon, and Fist of the North Star nods mentioned in the review, here are a few more: Miss Ayumi, the teacher, probably not coincidentally looks almost exactly like the title character of Creamy Mami, popular around the time the film was made. A-ko herself may be an indirect reference to the pre-Dragonball Akira Toriyama comic and anime Dr. Slump, also popular in the early '80s. The main character of that series is a superpowered schoolgirl robot who looks nothing like A-ko, but Aoi Kimidori, another character, has a nearly identical hairstyle and the odd little critter Gacchan superficially looks rather like C-ko. As for B-ko, her hairstyle looks quite a bit like Minmay's (from Macross).

On a more subtle note, during most of the flashes or other effects associated with explosions or punches, a word (in English) pops onscreen for a single frame; this is probably just goofing around, but I suppose it could be a nod to the comic book history of the eventual "ultimate joke" about the source of A-ko's powers at the end of the film. Likewise, in a scene where missiles are being launched at the space battleship from a fighter, about every 6th one looks like a Pepsi can. On that note, the can kicked in the movie-within-a-movie is labeled "Dr. Bepper."

As for things that didn't make it into the film, the storyboards were released in book form in Japan, and you can see from the originals that A-ko's destructive shortcut to school through several people's houses was intended to be repeated several times. All but the initial run-through was cut. The early scene where A-ko stretches in front of a window was also intended to have her shirt transparent in front of the bright light, and this shot was actually animated, but a nudity-free version was re-done for the released film (the cut scene is included as an extra with one of the later movies by USM).

On a completely random note Project A-ko was one of U.S. Manga Corp's first releases, and in early VHS versions they boasted of it being in "Mangarama," meaning that the film is shown letterboxed, but rather than being evenly spaced, the black bar at the bottom is much larger, and the subtitles all show up down there, so they don't overlap the picture. Anamorphic DVDs have rendered this impossible, but it's a solution that I wish had been more common when feasible.

A final note: If you can't get enough A-ko, there are three direct sequels, all of which are at least amusing, and each of which does something different with the characters and style. The two Blue vs. Grey OAVs, however, are totally unrelated story-wise, and I wouldn't recommend them at all.

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on remastered hybrid DVD that includes the soundtrack CD, or as part of a 3-disc set that includes all the sequels and spin-offs, as well as the soundtrack. Was previously available on a more minimal hybrid DVD, now out of print, and before that on more than one subtitled and dubbed VHS version.

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