El Hazard - The Magnificent World

The Magnificent Bastard
ROSSMAN

Ifurita is the Demon-Goddess of my dreams. There, I said it. I feel I've dreamt of nothing but her for ten thousand years. And even after all that, she still doesn't remember me.

But that's kinda off topic. El Hazard (pronounced "Ell Huh-zard") - The Magnificent World is one of the uber-classics of anime. It is truly a gem amoung rubies and magic lamps and My Carpet's pornography collection.

It all starts out with the discovery of 10,000 year old ruins in the basement of a Japanese high school. We meet our main Earthly characters (Mokoto, his "rival" Jinnai, Jinnai's sister Nanami, and their sensei extrordinaire, Fujisawa) and then follow them as they are hastily thrown into another dimension by a mysterious girl in tattered clothes who emerged from the ruins when Mokoto somehow activated them. The world that they land on in this new dimension is called, get ready for this, El Hazard. And it's apparently filled with nothing but cute girls and evil giant bugs.... Who are actually both led by attractive women. Then we get some plot. It seems the bugs keep attacking the united humans of this realm, and the people all want the rulers to unlock the ultimate weapon that hovers in the sky like an Imperial Death Star of doom. But unfortunately both Princesses of Roshtaria (the good side of the fight) need to be present in order to actually use the ancient weapon (that almost destroyed the world so many years ago), and Princess Fatora has magnificently and mysteriously been kidnapped by unknown lesbian-kidnappers (not that the 'nappers themselves are lesbians, just that the princess is). Ironically enough, Mokoto from Japan looks just like the missing royal, despite the fact that he's a guy. Crossdressing wackiness then ensues. Soon we meet more enemies and allies, and then the greatest Demon-God from the golden age of El Hazard is woken up by Jinnai and the Bugrom (the monster bugs) and ordered to destroy all that is well and good in the world. That's basically when the shit hits the fan and the show just grabs you by the tongue and YANKS to make you understand its funness. Plus, as I've stated before, Ifurita, the Demon-God in question, is the hottest female Terminator I've ever drooled over.

El Hazard is so good and googly on so many levels that it's hard to talk about it without ruining anything for the EH-virgins out there. It's easy to see why all the pieces work and gell when everything is broken down too. First, it was created by the team of creators that made the original Tenchi Muyo OAVs (fyi, the Tenchi OAVs are the only Tenchi story that ever truly happened. The following TV series and movies are not real. Their sucktitude pulls their existence into a blackhole of non-reality). Instead of simply making another sequel to their goldmine, they came up with another tale that eclipses even Tenchi in originality and imagination. And cute female characters. Second, the plot (while it may have some small holes in it) is hyper-tight and well written. I can't give the ending away (it's just way too good), but it ties up everything and really makes you think... Kind of. Well, it makes you think in that "Back to the Future II sort of way". About time and space anomalies and who did what on first. Thirdly, just about all of the cast (and there are a lot of them) are extremely likeable. Even when they're bad, you love to loathe them and wish that their animation cells were dipped in turpentine.

Before I continue, I must take this time to talk about two of the greatest characters in filmdom ever made. Live action or animation. Period. Masamichi Fujisawa-sensei and Ifurita. Fujisawa is the coolest teacher I've ever seen. Even cooler than Onizuka. Sure, he's a lush, but when he gets transported to El Hazard he gains super powers and super wit. His biggest problem though is that he's only a superman when he's sober. And it's a constant battle to keep the bottle away from his lips. Fujisawa is the main reason why I would recommend that you only watch the English dubbed version of this series. El Hazard is one of only 2 shows ever brought over to the States in which the dub is better than the original Japanese language version.

I'll quote some Fujisawa-isms for you from the dub to prove my point. For the record, yes, these are totally out of context and you don't even know what he sounds like, but just imagine the most rugged guy in the universe delivering them and you should get an idea of my main point.

• "You saw it too? I thought I had the DTs!"
• (there's a woman's scream in the distance) "Oh shit! Someone else is out of alcohol!"
• "Dare you taste Fujisawa's fist of justice again?!"
• (Fujisawa's girlfriend before a fight with the Bugrom) "Wanna kiss me?"
  (Fuji's response) "No."

You can't see me, but I'm literally laughing my ass off after just writing those quotes above. My ass has fallen off and I am now assless. But it was worth it if you now have an understanding of Fuji's non-heinousness.

As for Ifurita, well she's just a hottie and a half. She's an android of sorts from El Hazard's golden age who wears a really sweet light blue and purple skin-tight costume with lots of flowing black robes to acsentuate her demony bod. She has the mad skillz to copy any attack thrown at her and all she needs is a couple of winds from her power-staff-key in order to keep on grooving well into the next few millenia. She's probably the ficticious babe-like robot that I'd most like to bone if she didn't kill me first. Which she most likely would, but what a way to go, huh?

Now to explain to you about the El Hazard mythos. There is only one El Hazard, just like there is only one Tenchi. The first El Hazard TV series, that followed the original OAV, started from scratch and tried to tell a different and better story with the same characters. It failed. Failed in every respect and every possible way in which something could fail. It sucked so bad that I wanted to start blowing up animation studios just like an enraged Eye of God on the souless Bugrom Empire! Fans thought that their voices of discontent were heard when it was announced that the next El Hazard release after the TV abomination would be a continuation of the OAV tale (which despite it having a near spotless ending, most people would still love to revisit their old friends for whatever reason). El Hazard 2 came and completely destroyed all the good storytelling that was done so precisely and perfectly in the original. Demon-Gods are apparently easier to find in the El Hazard wastelands than shit in a toilet, and "ultimate weapons" pop out of the ground whenever a bugrom farts. EH2 took everything that was special about the first story and shoved it up Jar-Jar Bink's retarded ass. After EH2 came another sequel, El Hazard - The Alternative World. This one had potential, but it was so sluggish in its pacing that after 12 aching episodes I wanted to kill again. The plot went nowhere. NOWHERE. It was so incredibly pointless that it honestly should not have been made at all. If I ever get to steal Bob From the Future's time machine again I swear that the 1,563rd thing I will do is to kill the animators in the past before they even think of fucking up the lovely narrative of the tale that spans eons and parsecs farther away than the human mind can imagine... well, unless you're Steven Hawking.

What did I think of El Hazard? It's one of the most fun stories ever told. It's about good being good and bad being "I wanna start kicking in groin" bad. Hot girlies abound and cool teachers reign supreme. In the end, I find that I must give El Hazard a 872 out of 899.4 Endless Points of Demon-Goddosity. If I went any higher, the path might have been closeth to me.

El DOCTOR DAVIDISIMO

This Hazard show that the Rossman made me watch completely inspired me. I figured, "Hell, if that cute robot woman can transport a couple of students and a teacher to a far away and long ago war-torn dimension without any repercussions in this world, then so can I!" And I tried. And tried. And tried some more. It wasn't until after my 16th failure that I noticed that instead of a "hyper quantum dimension trifibulator", I was shoving those teenage pukes into my "human-sized people shredder". Boy was my face red. So was the floor. I was right though, nobody missed them and no damn police showed up at my door after those annoying high schoolers disappeared. Though, I guess it does help that I move my residence and clinic every 24 hours to a new safe spot. Honestly, getting rid of all that human pulp was a bit of a problem, but my dog, Pooper, and I ate like kings for a week. Good times. Good times.

Afflation is a cruel mistress. Yes, it does get me moving and trying to figure out new scientific methods in order to disembowel certain things, but the letdown when I realize that I still, after numerous trial and errors, cannot crack the space-time continuum pisses me off to no end. Though, I don't hold it against this anime. In fact, I give it a Thumbs Up. In case you were wondering, my next project is the construction of an attractive albino 18 year-old automaton with a nice rack.

El CHI-CHI
y sus muy bonitas senoritas

Whoa. That was a pretty trippin' show there. I think I kinda got the whole gist of it all, but there were a few things that I didn't fully understand. Like, those big fucking bugs. What the hell was up with them? And why did they speak French? Speaking of languages, does every alternative dimension have kingdoms filled with people that speak Japanese? Was that a coincidence? On that train of thought, if I were to jump to another dimension would it be full of drunks? Or would it be a convent world? Would my super power be the ability to kill with my farts or something? (Rossman's note: Chi-Chi already can kill with his farts)

Also, why did those giant Smurf guys steal Princess Fatora in the first place? Yeah, yeah, they said that they tried to unlock the "spirit gene" in her to use the Eye of God themselves, but they still needed the 3 elemental bitches to unlock the shit. They didn't plan on that Japanese kid to go around pretending to be Fatora and visit the mountain girls, so what gives? Also, what the fucking sweet Jeezus was up with that cat?! That thing was freakier than the Wolfman's shower after he shaves his back!