Graviton City

Project A-ko 3: Cinderella Rhapsody

After the brilliance of the first movie, and the disappointment of the second, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the third movie. Reading the blurb on the back, it mentioned a love interest for A-ko and B-ko to fight over. A very promising proposition. So I plugged it in the VCR eager to see what would happen in this incarnation of Graviton City mayhem.

The first impression was again one of disappointment. In what turns out to be a C-ko dream sequence, A-ko, B-ko and C-ko are grown up, and settling their differences in a much more civilised way, with a game of pool. The animation in this scene was absolutely jaw-dropping! At least I imagine it was, because the credits virtually obscured the entire screen! When doing the English translation of the credits, the dub director decided to hide the original Japanese credits behind big black blocks with the English words on top, thereby hiding the beautiful artwork. Why oh why couldn't they have just subtitled them? It's not like I find Japanese text offensive.

This is obviously not a problem in the original or subtitled versions of the movie.

You will be relieved to know that "Cinderella Rhapsody" is a tremendous improvement on "Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group". The story line is better (if shorter), the music is better, the voice acting is marginally better and the overall experience is more enjoyable. Some of the trademarks of A-ko are missing, such as the panty shots, B-ko's mecha and surprisingly even B-ko's battle suit(!), but there are some welcome new additions to the comic style, including the 'many faces of A-ko'.

The romance-based plot is another difference from the original A-ko formula, but it works quite well. Despite the fact that he only said five or six lines, Kei is a good addition to the cast. Being an older guy with two teenage girls following him around, you can only have pity for him, and his expressions give away much that he does not say. You have to question his taste in women however. Who would honestly fall for the pre-pubescent C-ko? Especially when you have A-ko and B-ko after you!

The extreme nature of the weirdness in the A-ko series is continued in this movie, but it is perhaps a little easier to swallow for the newcomer. Having said that, I would still recommend seeing the first movie first, purely because it would make a better impression because of the higher quality. The scene of the rallying civil defence force (including a scene in a porno theatre!) is hilarious, with every man and his dog jumping into their own personal mecha.

In summary, this is a good anime movie, capable of standing on it's own, but even better as part of the A-ko series. A great improvement on movie two, but still a long way short of movie one. If you're not sure if you want to shell out $30 for the video, rest assured, while it may not be the sheer brilliance of A-ko 1, it compares well with many other anime movies.