Customer Reviews

Fight! Iczer-One

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wow...what can I say? The animation has never looked better with this DVD transfer...the sound quality is perfect and allows one to actually hear the background score with so much clarity it isn't even funny. To me, this is one of the coolest anime I've ever seen. Many anime reviewers of this day and age can't stand it and that's only because they can't watch anything that might be more than a few years old. Well, that shouldn't be the case because this is a great anime title and has some very pulse pounding moments of high octane action and adventure. The animation does show some of it's age by some of today's standards but that's to be expected of a show this experimental made 20 years ago. This WAS one of the first OVA's after all. So, in essence, if you like action, adventure, cute girls, horror elements straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel and giant robots thrown in for good measure than this is the title for you. Give it a shot, keep an open mind and you'll probably enjoy this as much as I have over the years.

"Fight! Iczer-One" is a solid 1985 science fiction anime about an android girl who defends the Earth from an alien invasion. At only three episodes (two 25+ minutes and a 40+ minute finale) there isn't a whole lot of depth or character development, but there is almost everything else one would enjoy from an anime from that time period. Just over a minute in, the audience is treated to two naked women kissing each other. Not for kids, then. There is also quite a bit of violence and cool imagery that calls to mind my favorite two animated titans of the era: the incomparable Vampire Hunter D and the hysterically cool Original Dirty Pair. That's mighty good company.

The plot revolves around an AI-led race called The Cthulhu who seek to claim the earth as their own by using biological weapons called Vedims who are very similar to the creature from The Thing. They possess human bodies and spread, depopulating the planet as they go. As the mysterious Iczer-1 slaughters the beasts en-masse, the invaders send their finest warriors to take her out. This includes a series of robots who can trap Iczer in an alternate dimension and record data during combat so that each series of robots is deadlier to Iczer than the last. Very cool concept. Iczer is aided by the ability to sync with a human girl, and convert her emotion to energy. F.Y.I., this sort of merging/syncing in anime is almost always a stand-in for sex so the Yuri vibe is large here. The tone is extremely dark and serious and there is plenty of violence, action, and unnecessary nudity to go around. I would also qualify this as a major influence on all-time classic Neon Genesis Evangelion as the two share quite a few similarities once the ginat robots come into play. Yes, this is a sci-fi anime: there are giant robots. This aspect of the series doesn't really do much for me, but it does produce some great moments. I figure kicka$z android girl with telepathy, teleportation, cool laser blasts, and a lightsaber to boot was enough, but nope. Mecha always win out in the end. Fair enough.

The music is one thing I really didn't care for in "Fight! Iczer-One". Cheesy as can be. I really dug the dark, brutal, heartless nature of the story...until the epilogue that is. Some ol' hippie BS, that was. The Vedims give the scenes they're in a killer horror vibe and the gore that accompanies their demise is sweet. Probably the coolest thing about the show, in fact. That the Chtulhu are portrayed as tragic and very human beings is pretty impressive as well. It's easy to have villains be evil just for the hell of it, but it's much more rewarding to flesh them out and make them sympathetic and Iczer does a great job there considering the time allotted. It's a short show, -one that could have and maybe should have been cut into a single film- but it's absolutely recommended to fans of science-fiction anime, mecha, girls kicking a$z, and dark 80's animation.

Iczer One was one of the very first anime I became aware of. In my early teen years I even bought a copy of it on laserdisk, even though there was no English track--just the original Japanese.

Watching it much later in English I came to love the mood and story of this underrated film. Ultimately Fight! Iczer One is about a self-fulfilling prophecy coming true. An all-female alien race known as the Cotowulf search the stars in a sleeper ship made from the wreckage of their home world. Their matriarch, Violet sits at the command couch looking out at space. In that moment she thinks "...my children shall die out here in space, and never find a true home". Unbeknowst to her, her ship has passed into the influence of a massive machine built to grant the wishes of its users. Suddenly a strange creature appears, Big Gold, a golden child in a crystal orb with glowing red eyes. It tells Violet that her wish is granted, and she hopes this means her people will be given a new home.

The entity joins itself to the Cotowulf ship, bonding its essence with everything in it. Violet becomes Sir Violet, now draped in ominous black robes, with the glowing red eyes and masculine voice of Big Gold, while the child manifestation of the machine gains a feminine aspect, growing long golden hair and a more girlish appearance. Likewise the vediim, creatures that have long lived alongside the Cotowulf, have become horrible parasitic creatures, made wretched by the influence of Big Gold. Now bioweapons, the vidiim implant hosts with eggs laid by large green tipped ovipositor tentacles, from which the alien takes over the host body until the time is right and it rips its way horribly through the host's flesh.

Big Gold indeed takes the Cotowulf to a new home world, Earth. The vidiim descend to decimate the populace, but in fulfillment of Violet's wish, her children are destined to die before they can inherit it. In the style of a Shakespearian tragedy the Cotowulf reduce Earth to ashes, but then are stopped by another manifestation of the Machine, a Yin to the Yang of Big Gold--a golden haired warrior woman named Iczer-1. Unstoppable, she singlehandedly carries out the wish as Big Gold's opposite. As Big Gold joined with Violet as a synchronization partner, she seeks out a human girl named Nagisa Kanao--but the girl does not want to fight, and will not synchronize with Iczer-1.

Amidst giant mecha battles and huge scale lightsaber melees on the streets of post-apocalyptic Tokyo, the fate set in motion by Violet's wish counts down like a timer until Iczer-1 is brought into the presence of Big Gold and the truth of their co-joined purpose is finally revealed. A wonderful story.

The downsides? Well the music, for one is awful poppy electronic stuff. The "Iczer-2 theme" has a nice jazzy riff to it, but other than that it's just bad. Likewise the battle pacing is a bit cheesy. The monsters seem paralyzed in "menace the heroine" mode forever without actually -doing- anything, as if waiting for Iczer-1 to show up and kill them. Likewise the power scale is so ludicrous and Iczer-1 seems so unkillable for most of the show, that the Dragonball-esquire fighting makes it hard to really feel any tension. The English dubbing is likewise terrible, killing a lot of the emotion that drips from the voices in the Japanese and making some of the best scenes play a bit cheesy.

On the other hand, the mood of the story is unrelenting and awesomely bleak. The story is wonderful, though it takes watching the show a several times before everything makes sense. The characters are deep and their losses are heart-wrenching. On the whole a really great story.

First of all this was the first true anime OVA I ever watched. I love this OVA series. It was the first all Japanese/no subtitles video my friend and I had imported. I remember reading ANIMAG for the translation while we watched. New fans may not appreciate Iczer-1 due to its 20 year old age, but at the time of conception, it was a take on Japanese live action done anime style. There are some "in jokes" like Camille Bidan and Fa Yuiry from Z Gundam and Tetsuo from Akira watching the landing of Delos Theta in the city. The horror side is gives you tough gory moments. Yes the girls are cute! And, yes Nagisa is annoying at times. But that is what makes it good. The sound track from Michiaki Watanabe fits in perfectly. Yes its 80's sounding, but it WAS the 80's ;)
If you have seen Iczer-3 and hated it, give Iczer-1 a chance. As Toshihiro Hirano said it in an interview : "...As far as I'm concerned, the story ends at the end of the video ...Even if we drew the designs and art seriously, there's no way there could be a legitimate sequel in the world of Iczer.

FIGHT !! Iczer-1 had it's humble beginnings as a soft core chapter in the manga Lemon People. The saga of a lone android that defends Earth against her own people , the Cthulu, a all female race desperate to find a new homeworld , and trying to protect her selected partner, Nagisa Kano, a bewildered earth gal who is a little freaked out by the death of her parents at the hands of some nasty monsters sent to kill her.
If you like Vampire Princess Miyu or Dangaio the original 3 OVAs, then this is where director character designer Toshiro Hirano began on his own, it is a must for any fan of his work or the work of mechanical designer, Masami Ohbari. If you have the DVD of Iczer Reborn also from Media Blasters, and want to know the back story of Iczer-3 , then this is that story. the transfer is very nice and they even include the lighthearted making of Iczer documentary "Daydreamer" which shows the studio process and interviews the director and the main crew. The english dub dialogue is a very good translation, however some of the acting might have been carried off better, and can be forgiven for the purpose of getting the translation right.I really recommend the subtitle version over the english dub on this one, the actresses were very good in Japanese, Iczer-1 has a great vocal quality in her voice I find alluring. All in all a great addition to my DVD collection, one of my favorite all time animes finally on DVD in one neat package.

After more than twenty years, Tatakae!!(Fight!!) Iczer-1, the master work from Toshiro Hirano IMO and the one that started the entire OVA phenomenon that has exploded here in the US in the last couple of decades, remains as not only my personal favorite Anime title bar none, but also one of my favorite stories period.

The fantastic concept, an alien "bio-genetic construct", in the form and being of Iczer-1 and her "other self", Iczer Robo, are fighting for not only the survival of the entire human race, but also the salvation of the alien race that created them. By locating and joining with the only human being, an initially very reluctant Nagisa Kano, that is capable of "synchronizing" with her, they become an unstoppable force against the evil they face. In the process, Iczer-1 learns of the power of human emotion and unconditional love (let's face it, it's the platonic love between Iczer-1 and Nagisa that gives the story its power which is especially obvious when compared to the later "Adventure Iczer-3" which really missed the mark entirely).

One of the reasons Iczer-1 is exceptional to me is that it is not the typical good vs evil, good conquers evil through the use of giant mecha and super science story, even though it contains many of the cliches of previous live action Japanese sci-fi features that many in the US consider to be campy and cheesy (these cliches actually work in Iczer-1 thanks to the fact it is animated and due to the superb voice acting talents of the original Japanese actors, not to mention the right music to accent the action and drama), it manages to operate on more than one level which to me is a sign of truly inspired creativity.

Another aspect of this story that makes it so unique IMO, is that not a lot of time is spent explaining the how's and why's and what makes Iczer-1 and Iczer Robo tick (sometimes, less is more), such elaboration would simply detract from the story (as is the case with "Adventure Iczer-3"), so you can really focus on the relationships between the characters which is how the story really clicks. And yes, the story in the original Nihon'go with English subtitles offers the best experience (the subtitles also tend to be a bit closer to the original Japanese dialog in general while with the English version the dialog seems to be "dumbed down" a bit although in some scenes the English is right on).

So there you have it. Enjoy! And...

"Have courage Nagisa! Fight!! Iczer-1!!"

Great characters and kinetic action sequences make up for a ludicrous story in the classic OVA series Fight! Iczer-One. A race of alien lesbians has come to conquer Earth, and all that stand in their way are the elfin warrior Iczer-One and her schoolgirl partner, Nagisa. Iczer-One's evil sister, Iczer-Two, steals all of the scenes she's in.

Classic anime that's still enterataining to watch.If, your into old japanese cartoons this one is still a must.