Monster Farm: Enbanseki no himitsu

The "rip-off" trilogy, as I like to call it, consists of "Pokemon," "Digimon," and "Monster Rancher." I had seen the other two and decided, what the heck. This has turned out to be my favorite. I normally don't care for the way the dubbing is handled in shows like these, but here I think the voices work well. The animation in this show puts the other two to shame. There are some FANTASTIC monster creations here! My favorite character is probably Golem, the kind-hearted rock monster voiced by Richard Newman. He is peaceful, yet will fight if he has to. And I just love how he forgets to catch Suezo (the "eyeball monster") after he's been thrown up into the air. What really separates this one from the other series is the fact that our heroes cannot evolve. They are what they are, like it or not, and they must learn to accept each other as such. There are some nice stories in this series. Definitely worth watching.

Genki is the Champ of Playstation's 'Monster Rancher' but finds the game more challanging when he's sucked inside of it. It seems the world within his game is in some serious trouble. The evil Moo has been unlocked from his disk and is slowly taking over their world. The only monster with the power to turn the bad monsters ("Baddies") back to "Goodies" is the legendary Phoenix, and Holly, with her power to control the magic stone points the way for Genki and their monster friends Tiger (a wolf out to save his brother), Moochi (a brave little guy), Golem (the giant rock monster afraid of water), Suezo (the eyeball who goes where Holly goes) and Hare (a tricky rabbit out to steal their golds.) But in order to unlock the Phoenix, Genki and his team will have to battle against Moo's Big Bad Four, black dino squads, the jells, and harsh land. Can they do it, and restore peace to the land...?

Cartoon done well even if the idea is not very original.

Digimon and Pokemon have been taught too well which keys to tap to appeal to young audiences.

In the early 21st century there was a whole genre dedicated to kids who would catch monsters and then make them fight each other.

I think the best characters were Lilim and General Durahan, two villains who were the best episode of the series in their departure.

Hm. This was one of my favourite shows. I honestly don't remember too much about it. I just remember that it had a HORRIBLE time slot, so I'd be up at 5:30 in the morning watching it...that's how much I liked it.

Genki is sucked into a video game where he meets a girl named Holly on a righteous quest to free the Pheonix and defeat the evil Moo (man...what a bad name). Along the way, they are joined by monsters who found it in their best interest to join this quest. I believe the monsters were Hare, Tiger of the Winds (I remember the episode where they met him...that was awesome), Suezo, Golem and Mochi.

The thing that really drew me to this show was the in-depth delving into the characters' minds. Don't get me wrong, I was all into Pokemon and Digimon too, but MR was by far my favourite. Like I said, it was the characters. Digimon and Pokemon are more about the fights, whereas MR was more about the characters. I think it was HIGHLY under-appreciated.

8/10 stars.

Was this show ever the black sheep. The third to what I like to call the "Monster Wars" Monster Rancher was a very underappreciated anime that either went unlooked as it was syndicated at the time or Fox Kids just wouldn't give it the time of day due to its Digimon hype.

Th story is pretty simple. Taking the basis from Captain N (another video game inspired/marketng show) Hyperactive Genki recevies a beta game he won from a video game tournament. But upon trying it out, he is literly sucked into it and finds there a real world inside. And its in danger thanks to a evil monster name (wait for it) Moo. The only hope being a young girl (Holly) and her childhood monster Suazo as they quest to find the Phiniox, the only monster who can stop him. Genki joins them ,of course, and along the way they run into other monsters they come across that join their cause.

The animation is pretty standard anime and nothing to write home about. But the storyline more then makes up for it. The one thing I loved about this show was it energy (which ironicly enough was what Genki's name stood for) and the fact that everything was straight forward and more over character driven rather then rely on too much on a gimmick. The battles this motly grew of rebels get into are very fun to watch and you really can't help but root for their uphill fight to overthrow Moo and his evil army.

I'll admit it stumbles in it second season (plus the ending was kinda lame) but it had a good run none the less. It just a shame we didn't get to see it's third season due to lack of intrest and it being taking off the U.S airwaves for good. But in my eyes, this is one of he best anime I've had the pleasure of viewing. Those who been on their Pokemon and Digimon high horses while this was in run and didn't know of its presence. Check it out on one of the few video or dvd out there and see what you've been missing. As the song goes "Monsters Rule!"