Review: Hurricane Polymar

Posted On July 15, 2007

Hahaha, oh my god. This is something else. Ok, the plot is an evil organization called the Plutos are out destroy the human race because the human population is approaching TEN BILLION and the world will run out of food and resources! By their logic, humans will and fight and kill each other when times are tough, and they’re probably right. So, the solution? Kill the human race so the Plutos will be all that remain. Wow, very clever guys. So basically what they do is go around TOKIO PLUS (I’m guessing Tokyo Plus, but who am I to argue with Urban Vision’s spectacular subtitles?) setting bombs everywhere to do what bombs do, which is explode and kill people. Also they go around to science labs destroying all the latest technology. I don’t really know why they do this, but I think it’s so their technology will remain superior. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make more sense not to destroy it and just use it for themselves? Whatever. Anyway, the main character, Takeshi, through some horribly contrived plot device comes across the POLY-HELMET which allows him to transform into HURRICANE POLYMAR and teach these baddies and thing or two about JUSTICE. Oh, he works under some dumb third rate detective in a house over water, which is literally falling apart under their feet. A lot of jokes are centered around this fact. Also a lot of jokes are centered around the landlady who always comes around trying to evict them because they haven’t payed their rent in a year. There is also a talking dog. Or something.

Yeah, Hurricane Polymar has next to nothing going for it when it comes down to the normal things that make stories work. All the characters have about one personality trait, the plot is similar to something I wrote in third grade, and the humour and action elements mesh so awkwardly, resulting in a hilariously bad 60 minutes. However, the animation is absolutely wonderful. Extremely fluid and well rendered, especially the fight scenes. The direction also shines, too. This being an early Shinbo work (this is why I watched it, after all), it has a lot crazy colour schemes, hard blacks and dramatic lighting. We get a good helping of odd camera angles and experimental animation techniques too (some of which includes horribly superimposing LENS FLARES fucking everywhere.) Unfortunately the characters designs are pretty bad. By the guy who did Kite, and his stuff just doesn’t appeal to me. It just looks funny.

In the end, Hurricane Polymar is a pretty hilariously bad OVA. It’s good to watch once, but you probably don’t want to watch it again. However, from the point of view of Shinbo scholar, it’s quite interesting. It’s cool to see a lot of the things he does now taking shape in this OVA, from the strange use of colour to the extremely dramatic lighting. Most of this stuff is delegated to the first episode though. About half way through episode 2 Shinbo kind of stops trying. But still, if you watch it from that perspective, it’s a little fulfilling.