Plastic Little

"Plastic Little" is, without a doubt, beautifully animated. Bright, colorful, and incredibly fluid, it is a joy to look at.

But as for the plot, it is slow, predictable, and completely unoriginal in every way, shape and form. Still, it does not pretend to be anything that it is not, and that is an attempt to be the anime that Russ Meyer never made. Many gratuitious breast shots helped to earn this title nicknames such as "Silicone Little" or "Plastic Nipple" in anime circles throughout the US. "Slow-moving" and "trashy" do not go well together, however.

But the animation quality is NIIIIIICCCCCCCCEEEEEEEE....... So nice, that one can still find enjoyment here if the brain is left at the door.

The main character of Plastic Little is Tita Mu Koshigaya, a young woman who captains a ship, the Cha-Cha Maru, whose business is capturing exotic creatures in the 'sea of clouds' of the planet Ietta, apparently a gas giant of some kind, and selling them to collectors and zoos. By chance, she saves Elysse Aldo Mordish, a young woman of her own age, from a rogue faction of Ietta's own military forces, led by the armored commander Guizel, who already killed Elysse's scientist father. As the military conducts a vicious chase for Elysse, it becomes apparent that she holds the key to a secret that could determine the fate of the entire planet's independence.

Plastic Little is one of the greatest anime ever made. The storyline is thick, the character designs are just incredible and the backgrounds super amazing. It is a cunning, funny and original animated motion pic all the way.

The frame-rate is very high, unlike some anime where you can count the frames. The sheer amount of colors used is mind-boggling: They used about four different shades of color for the characters eyes! The movement of the characters and the amount of detail in the drawings is excellent. Satoshi Urushihara's character designs have never been done justice in anime form until this. However, the story is woefully incomplete: watching it, I got the feeling that the budget ran out and they had to hurry the last ten minutes of the film. The comic version (written and illustrated by Urushihara) is a much better version of the story. Still, if you want stunning visuals, you can't do much better than this (well, except Akira, of course).

Tita is the young Captain of a Pet Shop Hunter ship, inheriting the position from her father who died on the ship. On her way to work one morning (late as usual) she runs into a young girl, on the run from some suspicious men. Tita vows to help her with her problems.

Nicely animated, obligatory anime girlie breast shots, not very long though. Nothing special story wise, the length doesn't allow for a lot of development character or story wise but it's worth a watch I guess. If you're not an anime fan though it probably won't do much to convert you ;)

Somewhere in the future, on a strange planet...Tita is a cynical woman and a member of a crew on a spaceship that captures animals. One day, as she was shopping, she saved a young girl, Elise, from an evil army. That girl is the daughter of a murdered scientist. His weapons were confiscated by the evil army's boss Guisel. Tita becomes her friend because she also lost her father when she was young and her crew decides to fight with Guisel...

"Plastic little" is just like candy: sweet and tasty, but not very nutritious. For a movie that lasts for only 50 minutes it sure is amusing and fast but at the same time it isn't very deep. The director Kinji Yoshimoto has a sense for good style and weird mood, but the happy end is quite predictable.

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Non the less, this is still an anime worthy of recommendation. The main heroine, Tita, is a wonderful character: she is not too sweet, and not too bitter either. One of the best scene's is the one in which Tita wakes up after an injury in a medical bed. She is naked. Then she spots a young colleague sleeping near her bed. Her first thought is that he is a pervert so she decides to kick him, but doesn't do it. Because she realizes that he was just worried for her and fell asleep while waiting until she wakes up. "Plastic little" tries to be like the "Blade Runner". Only "Armitage; Polymatrix" succeeded in that, but this isn't that bad either. It's a fun sci-fi action drama.

Grade: 6/10