Infinite RyvIus

The Anti-Rebel ROSSMAN

Ryvius! Anarchy in space! Sweeeeet. This anime series reminded me of Lord of the Flies... Which in turn reminded me of my youthful summer at camp, abandoned on an island in the middle of a huge lake... Which caused me to get pissed off again. But then I remembered that because the events in this show didn't actually happen to me this time, I could enjoy them for all the pain and suffering that they caused. And caused a lot did they do.

Shit hits the fan in the solar system in the next century when the sun basically takes a giant solar-flared sized dump on the planets that revolve around it. A huge space-cloud, called the Geruld, is born and spans almost the entire orbit around Anna Nicole Smith. This space-cloud is pretty weird. It looks like fluffy, fun Earth clouds, but acts like an evil, dense ocean. It has immense gravity and crushing, death-like abilities the deeper that crap falls into it. Just like David Caruso's career.

Flash forward a hundred or so years past the birth of this super happy space cloud. Humanity has adapted to this new super space environment and expanded its filthy clutches to the outer super space moons and planets. There is apparently no more humor left in this galaxy as everybody is more serious than Vice President Cheney taking a huge dump after a bad piece of peach cobbler. Except not as much grunting. There's a super space training school for high schoolers that orbits the Earth and sits right on top of the angry Geruld. All of the kids aboard are either angst-filled, pissed off at the world, in love with somebody who will never love them back, or complete pussies. Luckily, the adults in charge of the school keep them all in line. Unluckily all the adults are systemically wiped out during a terrorist attack on the orbiting satellite in an attempt to sink it into the Geruld in order to get at the super space master ship, the Ryvius, which is stupidly hidden in the frame of the training facility. Of course, the smarty kids save their own asses and board the mysterious Ryvius (pronounced "riv-EYE-us") and the fun/chaos begins. Other than not having an actual pig's head speared in the center of the ship, these kids do their best to imitate that annoying book I was forced to read in the tenth grade, Lord of the Flies. There's even a fat kid who's given a nickname by those who dislike him, but use him, on board. Though his name's "Charlie" and not "Piggy", but you get the idea.

After a loooooong journey of self discovery and sadism in which the youths fight against the terrorists and the politically minded federation of inner planets, many things are learned. Things like: don't let assholes with their own agenda run the ship; stick with the girl who won't stab you in the back the first time you disagree with her gay-ass liberal thinking; and don't give your best friend the only gun aboard the ship when he's going crazy from thinking about his dead sister that he loved (non-platonically) and right after you insist that he's not in his right mind. He will shoot you.

Ryvius has a HUGE super space cast of characters. There are well over 20 kids that we get to know intimately. But this is all good seeing as the creators masterfully work each character into the plot and let us see just how each and every one of them thinks and feels. Ryvius' story is told very well too. It's one long 13 hour tale that isn't episodic in the least. The end of one episode leads us right into the beginning of the next without any repetition in the telling. You truly feel like the months-long trip that these boys and girls take is as long as it ends up being. Not that that's a bad thing. Far from it. What that means is that so much stuff happens in each episode and so many twists and turns turn your head around and around that you feel like the passage of time that the kids experience is real. Good stuff.

What did I think of Infinite Ryvius? A very interesting concept played out very well. Once I started watching it I couldn't stop until it ended. I finished this 26 episode show up in 3 days... I wouldn't try that yourself, I'm a professional and it helps that I'm lifeless. Anyway, I find that I have to give Ryvius a 1,945 out of 2,231 Points of Super Space Anarchy. It would have gotten more if that horribly depressing scene at the end of episode 18 and the beginning of episode 19 hadn't made me almost slit my wrists in depression (honestly, it's so damn depressing that your grandkids will be born depressed after you watch it).

The Infinite CHI-CHI

Whoa.... This show was fucked up. Lots of kids running around in space while they all beat the shit out of each other or blow up adult-run space ships that they don't like. Plus there was that weird chick in the Japanese idol clothes who kept popping up and dancing around the place like a disco maniac. Kinda reminded me of high school as East Bumblefuck High. We kids ran the place and liked to blow up teachers' cars for kicks too. Though at least, unlike the godless world in this cartoon, we had alcohol. Waitaminute! I almost forgot about that one time we got all feral and shit from a bad batch of cursed beer and as we went around eating the principal or starting fires in the hallways after fighting giant, mayor-demons I got locked in my locker upside down and almost suffocated in my own vomit! That really sucked!

Horrible, horrible memories... All came flooding back because of this show. Must burn old high school down... Must not let other non-jocks suffer pantsings or flushies when all they want is a bong and a beer... But first, a thumbs down for Ryvius. Anarchy is cool, sure, but whiny dipshit turds have no redeeming value.

The Ryvie WOLFMAN

Cool. This show reminded me of that time back at East Bumblefuck High that my buddies and I got Chichi trashed and then made him watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer until he thought he was Buffy himself. Then we let him cannibalize Principal Bullock, pee all over the cars in the faculty lot, and kill our school's mascot, a giant Peruvian boa constrictor named George. That was just sick, man. Our Satan Worshippers Club was going to sacrifice George to the great horned one once he ate the baby mice and gerbils that we christened in month old virgin urine. After that we rode over Chi-Chi in an old, orange Gremlin a few times and threw him into his locker. Satan never came to us at our next meeting, so I never forgave Chi-Chi for his transgressions. May he die and go to Heaven, and NEVER hear the pleasures of non-stop hell-metal that rings through Hades like sweet sweet audio ear-sex, that bastard.