Burn Up Excess (Animé set)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C-     Episodes: C-

 

 

Though we will not go as far as to refer to it as a mini-series, Burn Up Excess (1997) wants to cross Charlie’s Angels with the lingerie-wearing women of music artist Prince in his 1980s days.  The show ran for 13 episodes, but it is unclear as to whether the show continued beyond that.  The box notes that the show is for ages 15 and up, and it sexual innuendo amongst all the kid-oriented, girl-oriented action does a serious tightrope walk between what is and is not appropriate.

 

The four action gals are Rio (always in credit card debit, et al), Lilica, Maya, and Nanvel, who use their sexuality almost as much as they use their weaponry, with gay stereotypes and sexual perversion abounding.  Even as a joke where the stereotypes are accepted, the shows are more about single-entendre humor than any kind of action.  When the action does happen, it is undermined by the former.  The gay club owner stereotype in the second show and all the homophobia presented is compounded by castration anxiety.  The gay-as-evil is outrageous and has problematic issues too long and obvious to go into here.

 

Other shows offer ethnic stereotypes and a sense of infantilism I would not recommend to adults, let along young adults.  This is certainly not for children.  There is also the looks-ism factor, where anyone deemed “beautiful” is exempt from criticism, so you have a somewhat colorful and somewhat well animated show that ranks very low on the common sense counter for constantly sending the wrong messages.

 

The full screen, color image is in the middle between the older pencil-obvious style and cleaner current style of Animé.  It just has too many of the purposely soft version of the genre’s style.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is offered in English, Japanese and even Spanish, with the English offering the silliest dialogue and Japanese being the most natural sounding.  All offer Pro Logic surrounds, but the Spanish is more limited than the other two.  Extras include the opening and closing of the show without other credits, trailers for other and better ADV DVD titles, a fold-out poster and a trademarked item called the “Jiggle Counter” which shows a count of how often each female lead character’s breasts jiggle.  That pretty much summarizes how lame this is, especially over four DVDs.  Even the title sounds like an exercise program made to make female viewers fell bad.  Male viewers with even half a brain will likely have a similar reaction.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo