K.O. Beast

Original Title: KO世紀 - ビースト三獣士
Romanized: KO Seiki Biisuto Sanjuushi
Literal: KO Century Three Beasketeers

Plot Synopsis

At some point, humans of the Northern and Southern hemispheres engage in a massive war. Eventually the humans of the North split the planet in two and banish the Southern hemisphere and its inhabitants to another dimension. 10,000 years later, the inhabitants of the harsh climates of the North have evolved into beast-creatures who worship ancient robotic weapons as Totems. Unfortunately for these people, the humans of the South have opened a rift back, and are determined to wipe out the beast people and reclaim the land. That's the backstory, but as for what's actually going on...

So far as the story on screen goes, two smooth looking baddies, V-Darn and V-Sion, plus their tiny demonic sidekick Akumako, have been charged by the evil Human leaders with finding the ancient power of Gaia. Only four beast people and one human stand in their way: Wan of the cats, Bud of the birds, Mei-Mer of the mer-people, Tuttle (of the... turtles?), and the mysterious human girl Yuni. Fortunately for the good guys, Wan, Bud, and Mei-Mer each have a powerful Totem fighting on their side.

Review

Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-11-10

K.O. Beast: Doing its part to prove that you can never have too many series involving bickering idiot heroes who randomly transform into animals and try to save the world from posturing villains. Nope, there's about as much original material in here as leftovers on their third run through the microwave, but to its credit there is plenty of manic humor and "little things hitting each other." It neither starts nor ends well, though, so on balance it's only barely worthwhile even for what it is.

K.O. Beast's plot is the sort of embarrassingly bad material you'd expect in a lame kids' show. The series' biggest issue is that at the beginning and end it's moving slowly enough to notice, plus you're not being distracted by the equally juvenile but decidedly better executed comedy. There's a pretty clear bell curve to it: The set-up episode is cringe-worthy if you've hit puberty and the second is only marginally better, but in the third through sixth the lame comedy is fast-and-furious enough to be worth a few laughs. Then it tries to get serious and wrap up the story in the final episode, which amounts to a long, boring cliche. If you're not too ashamed to sit through enough to get to the meat, it's not nearly as bad as it looks.

Here's what not to expect: Any original plot whatsoever (random village leader heroes must save the world from bad people in big shoulder pads), anything resembling backstory (the setting makes zero sense until the pointless exposition of the final episode), or anything even close to character development (so little I can't even think of anything sarcastic to say). Even the jokes, which aim low and hit even lower, are about as stale as they come (with a few rare exceptions). Nope, K.O. Beast is exactly what it looks like: stupid, manic, juvenile comedy.

Thankfully, at least it's reasonably good stupid, manic, juvenile comedy. Once it gets going, the three main heroes (Tuttle, the fourth, does nothing but whine dramatically and wear a cool hat) rev up the banter and insist on putting their own stupidity and base desires above absolutely anything else so relentlessly that it's actually reasonably funny. The pacing is rather harried, running over some punchlines, and the jokes push even my fairly high tolerance for dumb-but-rapid-fire humor, but at least it rarely slows down long enough to realize how lame it really is.

The only other thing worth mentioning is a small handful of sufficiently wacky tidbits--mostly little throwaway things in the background like Mei-Mer's shocked expressions--that are just enough to register on my lame-but-good humor meter. If you're watching the Japanese version you'll also be treated to Bud's dramatic-yet-awkward exclamation of "Son of a b*tch!" (in English) while flipping off the villain (yes, a bird flipping the bird). Bud's Star-Spangled-Top-Hat bedecked grandfather is also out-there enough to elicit a chuckle.

The voice acting carries all this chaos, and is is the series' main strength; the three veteran leads in the Japanese cast pull off all manner of screeching, hollering, panicking, and (in the case of smooth-talking Bud) rapid switches between greasy-smooth cheese and entirely un-cool squawking (both figuratively and literally). He also manages to do a passable job of pronouncing the English his dialogue is heavily seasoned with. On the villainous side the little devil has an amusingly screechy little voice, and V-Darn isn't bad either. The rest of the cast isn't so good--Tuttle is so-so Yuni is really weak--but thankfully neither of them have much to say. Orikasa Ai also makes an appearance late in the series in a semi-dramatic role, but has little worthwhile to do.

The English is, surprisingly, just about as good. The standout is definitely Wan, whose English voice keeps up remarkably well with the chipper, goofy Japanese version, but Bud's smooth-talkin'/high-pitched squawkin' is also right up there. The translators (and actors, and director) also do a remarkably good job with some very tough to follow dialogue, matching the action and original dialogue relatively well while still keeping up the flow and plenty of funny. The dub crew also managed a good transition from Bud's English-sprinkled Japanese dialogue to something appropriately cheesily-smooth without the benefit of being able to insert "I'm so cool" English phrases all over the place.

The old-school visuals certainly do their part to hold up the action. Cute, somewhat old-fashioned art (has that rougher, early 90s look to it), lots of bright colors, and a whole lot of animation that's actually fast enough to keep up with the barrage of humor. About all you could really ask for. Throw in several dramatically cheesy robot transformation sequences and you're set.

Oh, yes, there's also music in there. The background music is barely even noticeable, but the opening themes are quite amusing. On one hand there's the lively classic rock and roll intro that RightStuf used for all seven episodes, and on the other there's a terribly sung but also terribly catchy theme that was originally used on the first three episodes (they thankfully kick it in as a bonus on the first DVD).

In all, K.O. Beast is not for people looking for anything even close to originality, or for people who do not have an extreme tolerance for lame, overused jokes and endless pratfalls. It is, however, plenty manic, and the spunky banter between the lead characters in both languages is enough to at least make for an amusing diversion for those so inclined. Just beware of the "dramatic" episodes taking up space at the beginning and end.

Related Recommendations

When it comes to frantic, stupid, old-school comedy/action, the reigning king is Gokudo--relentlessly weird and considerably funnier. The obscure Dragon Slayer is also worth a look as a truly hyperactive fantasy romp, and there's always Slayers for characters with a mission far more serious than themselves.

US DVD Review

The DVDs from RightStuf are put together reasonably well. The weak point is the video, which is both a bit rough due to age and shows some noticeable compression artifacts in the more chaotic scenes (of which there are a lot), though it's not terrible and the audio is passible. There are plenty of extra goodies, though: character bios (this is actually useful info, since the backstory is totally unexplained within the anime itself), lots of semi-amusing outtakes from the dub, some interesting notes by the translator, some text snippets from interviews with the Japanese staff and voice actors that went with the Japanese DVD release, and one unedited (and subtitled) original opening on each disc. My only complaint is that they didn't use the original opening on the first disc, instead using the same opening theme for the entire series, although the original one is included as a bonus on disc 1 and definitely worth checking out.

Content Guide

Rated 13-up on account of some off-color humor and a bit of rough language, it's generally pretty mild.

Violence: 2 - There's a lot of fighting, but it's not very graphic.

Nudity: 1 - Nothing noteworthy.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Nothing past some off-color humor.

Language: 2 - A bit of rough language.

Notes and Trivia

The original title, KO Seiki Biisuto Sanjuushi is something of a pun; "sanjuushi" is the Japanese title of The Three Musketeers, usually written with characters meaning "three", "gun", and "warrior". In this case, the middle character, "juu" is written with the character for "beast", turning it into a pun something along the lines of "The Three Beasketeers". The first part, "KO Seiki Biisuto" is more straightforward, meaning "KO Century Beast".

The series is actually made up of two OAV series, the first with three episodes and the sequel with four.

Availability

Available in the US from RightStuf on three hybrid DVDs; three episodes on the first, two each on the other two.

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