Argento Soma (aka Argentosoma)

The ROSSOMA-MAN

What do you get when you mix giant, kooky-looking invading aliens, a child who controls a tamed behemoth and treats the dangerous thing like a toy, and a world-wide secret organization determined to stop the conquering forces from beyond with every ounce of blood, sweat and tears in their honorable bodies? Well, you get Shin Seiki Evangelion.... AND Argento Soma.

I'm not saying that A.S. is clichéd or anything of the like. It just rips off popular shows of the past and pretends that these ideas are its own. That's just called "stealing". Although stealing is now cliché, so I guess I stand corrected.

Anyway, the whole premise is this: It's 2059 and for the past 5 years strange, monstrous aliens have been attacking the Earth as they all head towards a common "Pilgrimage Point" in the Canadian wilderness. Nobody knows what the fuck they are or why they seem drawn to this point, but since mankind tends to shit its pants and fear the worst of every possible scenario, everyone believes that these visitors are harbingers of the apocalypse. Therefore the Alien Attack Force FUNERAL is set up and given some stylin' transformable aircraft/robots to fight the beasts with. Even though this mecha that they use (aka SARGs...meaning "coffin" in German, and later called TODs... meaning "death" in Hitler's evil language) are made up of already killed invader bodies. Yes, pretty much that's EVA to a "T". But then we get some Giant Robo references thrown in for good measure.

See, there's this little girl named Hattie (who wears a top hat for some reason) who meets a runaway and recently resurrected alien named Fairie-kun/Frank. FUNERAL wants this giant metal monster to study and use as a weapon, but little Hattie has made friends with it and now it only responds to her (and possibly her dog).

But after all this is said and done A.S. does a stellar job of making the story its own. It's basically like somebody said, "You know what? I like how EVA started and all, but I think it should have gone in this direction instead. Hey! Right now I have a budget to make an animated show! Why don't I make EVA my way?!" And he did. The whole story of A.S. revolves around some college student (who after a terrible accident looks like Two-Face from Batman) who wants revenge on the giant Frankenstein's monster that FUNERAL and Hattie seem to have a jonesing for. See, this guy watched his girlfriend die right before his eyes just as Frank woke up from being re-animated (no pun intended). Soon this angry young man gets some mysterious help from the coolest character in the show, the ever munching Mr. X, and the youth takes on the identity of a recently killed pilot in order to infiltrate FUNERAL and do his dirty deeds. As I've said before in many a review, revenge is always a great plot.

Then Ryu Soma (the boy's new identity) meets the multi-ethnic and close-knit group of pilots that he has to work with inside the agency, and the 14 year-old Hattie and her pooch Walton. This is when everything gets going. Ryu is torn between saving the world from more and more aliens, and destroying Frank, who is helping to save the world from more and more aliens and who is the father-figure to the mentally screwed up Hattie... Who in turn reminds Ryu of his past love who died at what he thinks is Frank's big hands. There's also lots of quotes from Shakespeare going on and nifty character developing episodes that round the whole thing out.

There are two things that I absolutely LOVE about this show. So much so that I want to marry them. The first is the first 3 episodes. They are a complete mind fuck. You find yourself totally thrown into this strange new world without even a tour guide. You don't know which way is up or left and only at around the 4th ep do you get a real bearing of the nature of this zany universe. I love shows that don't force feed you the entire plot in the first 20 minutes. The ones that make you pay attention and wonder if you're going insane make me smile in a straight-jacket-wearing sort of way. The other thing that I love about A.S. is that little things that are mentioned once early in the show come back to haunt the story in a big way later on down the road. Nothing is forgotten. These are things that aren't even plot points. They may just be background info on certain characters. That just makes it that much sweeter.

The final thing that I love is Guinevere Green. Goddamn is she a hottie! Three, three things that I LOVE..... Yesssssss.

What did I think of Argento Soma? I like it a lot. Sure, it stole from a lot of other great series and movies, but it turned all those borrowed parts into a Soma Stew of its own. The last two episodes were phenominal! Though, I'm a sucker for half hour epilogues. There's just something completely fulfilling about them. In the end, I have to give A.S. a 254 out of 289 point callibration. It may have stolen some of the good parts of EVA and G.R., but it didn't quite match them when all is said and done. Good effort though.
One last thing that's been bothering me before I go. Why the fuck is the MIG Fighter Plane the backbone of the Earth Defense force more than 50 years from now? I mean, they have fucking transformable mecha at their disposal! Gimme a break!

The Argento JAIME

Wow! There were som pretty boys in this show. I didn't see the whole thing (mostly because all those giant robots and stuff was kinda weird), but from what I did experience I liked it. That main guy, with the blue/red eyes and the Flock of Seagulls hairstyle, was cute despite the fact he was more scarred up than Sigfried's psyche after he found Roy in bed with the tiger. And I loved that blonde honey-muffin of a man, Dan... But that's mostly cause he reminds me of my spiffy Kiffy.

Even the girls in this weird show were all cute. Hattie and Sue were adorable, and that redhead pilot was a firecracker too! What I found curious though was that my brother seemed to have an unnatural attraction to that Spock-woman with the white hair who ran everthing. Honestly, I must have missed that part when they explained her. Was she a Vulcan? She was always so serious and she even had those funky eyebrows. I bet you she could mindmeld with the best of them.

My favorite character in the show was that crackpot guy with the red beard and the red and blue shirt. Was he just a crazy hallucination or was he real? I didn't get that part. He reminds me of that one jackass that my old sorority sister, Jessy, used to date. I mean, you'd just want to grab that cheesy goatee and YANK it as hard as you could for no reason at all. But at least the man in the cartoon had some redeeming qualities. Like, for instance, he would GO AWAY right after he popped up. If Jessy's guy simply left right after he appeared I'd probably like him as much as the mystery man in this Argentina Zima anime.

Despite the fact that it was slightly confusing and that I only saw about 6 of the 25 episodes I still have to give this cartoon a thumbs up. Any show with a cute main character named Danny deserves that much :)

The Getting Ready for his
F*U*N*E*R*A*L, ROBOT PEDRO

Many things in this evil human world of the past disturb me. This anime show, Argento Soma, is one of the worst offenders. There are so many vile and disgusting acts done onto my robot brethren that I will weep a rusting and corrosive tear in their honor.

Yes, filthy hu-man, I fully understand that the robots in this sordid series are aliens once born of human flesh, but so was my best friend from my time. Robot Piotr was as good a Flesh-Terminator as one could ever hope to be. He could gut most centenarians with the precision of a GutSlasher6500, but without the messy clean up. He could also shoot babies in the head from a distance of 5,000 yards with his altered Photon-Window-Washing Laser Vision.

Do you see now what I am talking about? Robot Piotr was such a revolutionary robot. He actually reprogrammed his own circuit board to be able to change his prime directives. Not every robot is able to do that. Not to mention the fact that Robot Piotr was once a human too. Yes, it is true. Within his titanium plated chest lies the heart of a man who was once known as Joe Stalin... or something like that. Honestly though, we're not even sure if that heart is still beating or decomposing into a mess of worm infested goo. Nobody wants to look.