Customer Reviews

Photon - The Idiot Adventures

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I first saw the cover, I was very skeptical. The name was silly and the picture was ridiculous! How in the world can this anime actually be good? Maybe it was one of those animes which a company just releases to fill up it's library with? I rented the first volume (episodes 1&2), and was incredibly surprised. It was a fantastic anime! After that, I went on amazaon.com and bought the DVD, ready to see the rest of the series. Here is how I found it out to be...

You should buy this anime because:

1. Photon is an amazingly unique character in the anime world. His sincerity, kindness, innocence, and humble nature is something which I have never seen before. And I have seen quite a large amount of anime too. For me, just to see how this unique character interacts with others and his environment, was almost worth the price for this DVD.
2. The first two episodes are jewels in terms of entertainment value. The animation is smooth, the music rocks, and many interesting things occur in terms of story.
3. The voice actors for the English dub is nicely done. Everyone does a very credible job, even to the point where it surprises me to wonder how well they can manipulate and channel their voices.
4. At the price amazon.com is selling it for, it's a steal! Try to get all six episodes at such a reasonable price.

As great as Photon may be, there are indeed flaws I should mention...

Why you shouldn't buy this DVD:

1. After episodes 1 & 2, things go downhill a bit in terms of story. Mainly because there is no main purpose to this anime. Everyone has small petty quests, but they don't really amount to anything in terms of a major plot.
2. The main villain (Papachareeno), while enormously funny in the first two episodes, becomes quite annoying as the story progresses. Basically, his loud mouth and egocentric personality becomes overly repetitive and tiresome.
3. The animation quality weakens as the episodes progress. It seems as though the animators were losing steam.
4. The techno-babble used in the anime is hard to follow the first time around. The references to this type of energy, and how it would fare against some other type of energy is very confusing, and it may be a source of annoyance to some.
5. Episode 6 is overly serious and twisted. While the overall theme of the show is light-hearted and funny, episode 6 does a complete 180-degree turn, and becomes unbearably hard to handle after all that slapstick and comical banter found in the previous episodes.
6. There seems to be an error in the middle of episode 4. For some reason, the DVD stopped playing and it forced a systems crash on my computer. Bear in mind that there is nothing wrong with my DVD-player, and I have a fairly extensive collection of other DVD animes. My DVD-ROM drive is a Creative Labs 8X with a Dxr3 mpeg decoder, for those of you with some computer knowledge.
7. There doesn't seem to be a conclusion to the ending. For a person like me, who likes closure, the ending may prove to be disappointing. Basically, the ending is okay, but it left many questions for me which I will never find answers to.

One final note:

Though it says 13 and up on the back, this anime is only intended for mature audiences. There are some crude sexual innuendos throughout the entire anime, and the violence level as the episodes progress grow exponentially. Think hard and decide well if this anime is worth it for you. Overall, it is a good anime. =)

I saw the entirety of Photon almost a year ago fansubbed, and I died laughing. Every once in a while, an animation house needs time to let off steam after the more serious series, and Photon represents enough steam to melt the polar ice caps. From AIC, the group behind Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, and Dual, this series is so much more than a laugh a minute. It is a bit short (only 6 episodes total), but considering you can now have it on one DVD, how could you pass that up? Also, while extremely crack-addled for the most part, the ending has a moment of seriousness and is one of the best endings in anime, period. If you love anime and bellylaughs, you owe it to yourself to buy this DVD yesterday!

Wow This show is awesome. don't even hesitate to buy it. If I could I would give it ten stars, not five. It's a story about how a young boy, and a rouge space pilot are mixed up with the conqueror, sir papacha nanadan. This anime is so great in fact that not only do you wish there were more episodes , but you also wish that they would make a whole OAV devoted to the bad guy, since he is such a great and lovable character, and a whole twenty six episode tv series for Photon and his adventures.

P.s.-I was watching anime for a year before I knew what an OAV(original animated video) was. It refers to the anime series which are released straight to video in japan, then,after they have made their money, some of the more succesful OAV's will be shown on japanese TV. Anime tv series are the opposite, going from Tv to video. OAV's are also much shorter, and usually don't last more than 12 episodes, while a TV series can go on forever

This is a very funny series. The scenes in the spa where you just hear the woman talking is great. It's a little over 3 hours long (6 episodes). Although there is one major plot, there are several small ones throughout the series including stories about a "holy object" (very funny once you realize what it is), rock star, food, and even marriage.

The DVD-Rom features are also nice. Not only do they have the full cast and credits, but several images from the series. They even include the dialog for the series if you want to redub it.

There are a couple minor downsides, though. First off, some of the technology is never fully explained. The animation itself tapers very slightly as it progresses. The big difference was the "doodle" (You'll learn a new word in japanese) that was on one characters forhead changed to just a couple of dots towards the end. The ending is a little rushed and very confusing; I had to watch the last two episodes a couple times to understand it.

One important note I feel I should mention. On the box it is labeled for 13 and up. I really think this is too low. There's nudity throughout the entire series and there are constant jokes about nudity and anatomy that really shouldn't be viewed by young children. It is also very graphic (think nosebleed only 10 times worse) Use your discretion.

This is one of those animes that you should get. No collection should be without this.

This anime is a very good one. The characters look like characters from Tenchi Muyo and that adds to the story. Its a bit more adult than tenchi muyo as there is nudity in the beginning. The innocence of the Photon makes the story interesting. At times you can tell that he has no idea what is really going on and then there are times, like when photon is fighting, that he seems to be so in control of things. The action that i have seen isnt corney and the comedy is very good. I have seen and own the english version and the dubbing is very good.

This series is supposedly set in the same universe as the original Tenchi Muyo OAV, so expect similar art style, similar technology, and similar attitude -- but with the slapstick humor and fanservice nudity raised significantly. The main character has the innocence of the brain-dead, and yet is somehow in control of the odd directions the plot skitters to. The result is truly strange and truly hilarious. The animation and art quality are consistently high, but I have not seen the US release of this series and can't comment on the production quality of the English version.

Just saw Photon for the second time last night and couldn't believe no one has recognized or publicized this 6 episode OVA series more. The DVD contains all six episodes which are very well animated by AIC. Overall it is a silly little space adventure on a sandy planet in the sticks named....'Sandy Planet' where some exceptionally powered people (Photon being one of them) reside and where the key to ruling the universe through the ultimate power resides as the buried secret within a renegade woman named Keyne. Photon, a pint sized goof, is sent to recover a holy object(a magic marker) taken by his young friend when she left the town to go be with her pop idol. Along the way Photon ends up finding Keyne naked in a stasis chamber and ends up accidentally marrying her. Many ridiculous situations ensue up to the end which turns table on the light hearted ways of the series. Perhaps the most amazing animation is Keyne who is drawn and endowed beautifully and is seemingly naked for a mojority of the show. All the characters have specific postures and animations giving them distinct personality bringing a lot of dimension to the kooky writing style. There are tons of cool mecha designs which the animation staff didn't linger on leaving me wanting to see more of their cool robots and space suits. Very entertaining, well drawn, well animated and very quirky. Quite a good buy!

A master piece, great characters,amazing backgrounds,an outstanding villan. The strangness captures you. Every night I pray to the anime gods that there will be more made. This is definatly one to own!

i saw this series in fansub format about 2 years ago... and loved it. as soon as i found out that Central Park Media was going to release it, on DVD at that, i had to get it! i have watched it about 5 times now and i still laugh at it. but when i brought my girlfriend over to watch movies she picked this particular one out of all the rest. she was a little... shocked at first (nudity i do believe) but then she was paying attention to what they was doing and saying to each other and she was laughing just as hard as i was. this is a really great comedy anime, with the usual touch on risque subjects.
oh yea, the villan of the series, Poppachan, is so inept... he is just laughable.

This one of the best anime I have ever seen.
Not only will it make you laugh but the sweetness
will touch a special place in your heart. The last
two episodes were the most touching but I found all
the episodes uplifting with their sense of japanesee
style humor. I would recommand this to anyone with a
sense of humor.