Purojekuto A-ko

Though flawed this is a great and sometimes hilarious anime about a schoolgirl named A-Ko and her friend C-Ko. Meanwhile The Psychotic rich-girl B-Ko wants to have C-Ko as her friend and her friend alone. And this is while Earth is under attack by alien women who look like men. And it gets stranger. With more anime in-jokes that you can shake a Veritech Fighter (Ya know, Robotech... oh never mind) this baby is jam packed with cheeky good fun. And can you find the real alien princess? You'll figure it out after the movie.

This film was an anime that I first caught on the Scifi channel, back when it was still cool to me. It had weeks where they showed Godzilla films, they had the last three seasons of MST3K and they had anime week. That week introduced me to a lot of really cool cartoons like the now well known Akira and lesser known films L. I. L. Y. C. A. T. This is another of the films I saw and while not as good as some of the other features I really enjoyed it. I rewatched it recently though and it has lost a bit of luster to it as it really moves kind of slowly at times and now I have seen other anime movies that are funnier and a bit more clever. Still, it was enjoyable enough on this latest watch.

The film introduces us to A-Ko, a typical schoolgirl who has super strength! She is friends with C-Ko and both of them are about to go to a new school where they will run afoul with B-Ko, a young woman from their past who becomes obsessed with being friends with C-Ko and wants A-Ko out of the picture. Well B-Ko is not super strong, but rather super smart and she uses those smarts to design mech suits to battle A-Ko! Meanwhile, a group of aliens are heading to earth as they may have found their long lost princess!

The film's plot is kind of absurd and at times is just one big swerve as first time watchers are going to think one thing, but the film will hand them another. The characters are quite funny though and the situations so bizarre that it does make for an entertaining film, though not as good as other classic anime films. It also features more nudity than I was expecting when watching an uncut version for the first time and lots of panty shots...

So, it was pretty good, but could have used better pacing. A few of the military scenes just lag on a bit and this gets a bit frustrating when it interrupts A-ko's and B-ko's epic battle. I also wish A-ko was not reduced to being a bit weak in the final act. Throughout the film she is portrayed as insanely strong, able to toss giant robots with ease, but then she is having trouble fighting one of the aliens with a sword, an alien she smashed through a wall and such on several occasions without even giving it a though, but at the end it can stand up to her? Other than this and a few other gripes though it is pretty entertaining, but I think I prefer my anime movies to be a bit quicker paced.

Well, to start, I saw this movie on VHS about 10 years ago. I was amazed at how well Project A-Ko was written and animated. I bought the DVD version just the other day. The fight between A-Ko and B-Ko was well drawn, and is one of the best fight scenes ever. I mean that it got to the point where they were throwing Earth and alien military tanks at each other!!!

There also were quite a few hilarious scenes. The 4 scenes where the guy that was looking for C-Ko gets pummeled by A-Ko's superhuman speed was one of them. Another was A-Ko and B-Ko rescuing C-Ko. A-Ko jumps onto military fighter airplane that's in mid-air, and the airplane gets destroyed because she was distracting the pilot.

This is a review from someone who generally doesn't like anime at all.

Project A-ko is a total send-up of the genre, which is no doubt why I enjoyed it (and its sequel) so much. It has the usual giant mechanical paraphernalia, teenage schoolgirls, and crossdressing alcoholic aliens. Err... where did they come from? Never mind: far more than most of the the famous and iconic animes it parodies, Project A-ko is entertaining, intriguing, and often just fall-down laughing funny. It's sort of like Japanese anime directed by an English eccentric. It's still suitable bewildering in a Japanese sort of way, but with flashes of anglo-style satire thrown in.

Give me this any day, over the usual puerile anime nonsense. A-ko is a real hoot.

Project A-Ko is one of the most action packed, funniest and fun anime's of the 1980's. Basically a comedy with lesbian undertones, as B-Ko battles A-Ko while trying to romance C-Ko, who is a total bubblehead and creator of the worst (but most beautiful) lunches in the universe. It helps to see this if one is a fan of 80's anime since it sends up nearly every single one of them. Just a really fun movie and well worth seeing.