Tentacle-Free Anime: "World War Blue" (2012)

- by Kazekun, 29 April 2013

As an anime fan, it is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of finding series that look great on paper and in concept, but fail to deliver on almost every level when presented. It is the curse of being a fan of many things, in fact. And a cross that, being a fan of entertainment, one must bear. My point for these reviews was to always show off anime that do have flaws, but are still worth checking out, as every series does have flaws. But once in a while I come across a series that is so spectacularly bad that I’ve just got to tell people: stay away. This is that story.

Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de (Translated: World War Blue)

In the battle for supremacy in Consume (Console) continent between parodical Segua (Sega) Kingdom and Ninteldo (Nintendo) Empire, the light-footed Gear (Sonic) appeared to defend his kingdom from the threat of Ninteldo's powerful emperor, Marcus (Mario). [AnimeNewsNetwork.com]

First off - Generally I don’t use the original Japanese name for the title of these anime in these reviews, but since this series has not got an official English release the translated title of World War Blue could change if it ever came over shores, whatever those shores may be. So I am using both titles up at the top.

World War Blue promotional image

Now then, video games have been a staple in entertainment and geek culture for many many years (since the 40s believe it or not). And it hasn’t been until recent years that video games have begun to seep into the mainstream where it isn’t “nerdy” to play them. But one thing that has never changed has been the ever evolving console wars. For every Sony there is a Microsoft to compete with it and for years the biggest war was between Sega and Nintendo. Though as time has aged them, Nintendo has pretty much dominated the war with Sega fading far into the background.

That’s more or less the premise of this series, it has taken the console war between these two companies and made it into a fully-fledged story, and those with a sharp eye for references can enjoy and fanboy over anything and everything they catch.

All the characters are “parodies” or “homages” to characters from both game systems, ranging from well-known characters and games like Sonic to the more obscure Space Harrier on Sega’s side (Space Harrier being Sega’s very first 16-bit game, if I am correct).

And on Nintendo’s side you have guys ranging from Mario to Kirby and even Pikachu. Also represented are games themselves - games that have been given personification. The most interesting being Tetris, who is presented in the show as a powerful but incredibly pervy magician with a knack for being constantly horny and loving to make dirty jokes.

The main cast - Ramses, Opal, Gear, Nel, Tejirof.

In fact, this 3-episode series is very perverted and is caked with anime cliché after anime cliché. The women are treated as 2-dimensional sex symbols, and though they're powerful, they're basically only about being pretty and wanting sex. The main character, Gear (Sonic) is an airhead who has decided to fight in the war, after hiding from it his whole life, after his best friend is killed in an enemy attack. Everyone gets more powerful as the story goes, in true shounen story fashion, akin to Dragon Ball Z or Bleach. There is no real conclusion to the story and the very small budget for this show is painfully obvious. World War Blue is based off an ongoing manga of the same title. Whether that series is any better I haven’t a clue, but I’m not sure I want to give it a shot if it’s anything like this.

Link from "Legend of Zelda", fighting off the enemy.

World War Blue seems to have been made for the incredibly hardcore gamers that are well-versed in the lore of Sega and Nintendo games, and (to an extent) the history of Atari. It is full of references to the games. Some of them are obvious, some not so much, and some are just plain funny, such as Gear’s drive to only move forward is a funny take on the fact that Sonic can't run back in the original games. I got a definite chuckle out of that.

The characters' powers also derive from their respective genres: Gear gets his powers from action the same way Tejirof (Tetris) gets his powers from the force called puzzle, or the puzzle genre of video games. The biggest flaw in this series, to me, is that it was too short to accommodate so many characters, and that it chose to pander to fanservice instead of telling an engaging story that allowed us to really get to know the characters.

Gear promises to only move forward.

As a fan of video games – Sonic, Mario, Zelda, all of them really – I did very much enjoy finding all the references and laughing at the absurdity of what I was watching, especially everything involving Tejirof. If you so choose to call this series a parody, then it is definitely a parody (and I do quite enjoy parodies, if I find them to be smart and satisfactory). Another thing I really enjoyed were the shots from the manga at the end of each episode, which were used to tell us about what was about to happen next episode. That was so unique and, because I had never seen it before, it was always a treat at the end of the episodes.

The cast of "World War Blue" along with names of the characters & games they stand in for.

Sadly though, World War Blue simply didn’t offer everything I was hoping it would. It ended too abruptly and offered an array of characters that were too vapid and weren’t given the opportunity to breathe or offer more than caricature clichés.

If you're into some ecchi, something stupid but sort of funny, and don’t mind just not thinking for an hour and half (plus if you're a gamer and want to see some of your favorite video game characters personified) then I say go for it. If not, and you want to see something engaging but still faithful to everything you love about video games, then I would say look elsewhere. In fact, Sonic and Kirby have their own respective anime and those are actually pretty decent. Sonic X and Kirby: Right Back At Ya! - I suggest going to check those out instead.

Final Score: 1.5 Seguin Soldiers out of 5


Have you seen "World War Blue"? Enjoyed the review? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: Tentacle-Free Anime.

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