Gespenst Jager and the Unpronouncables
March 2, 2008
Take Amelia, the self-proclaimed champion of justice from Slayers, throw her together with a German version of Vash the Stampede from Trigun and put both of them in a post World War II reconstruction setting. Your result is Pumpkin Scissors, a very familiar-feeling anime that's sort of like a warm comforter on a cold night. Unlike the strangeness of FLCL or the hip-hop influenced Samurai Champloo, there are no risks taken in Pumpkin Scissors. If you've never watched any TV in your entire life you might be surprised by some of the goings-on, but anyone able to use a computer without parental supervision will yawn at the plot. What luck, then, that solid characters come to the rescue of the simplistic moral lessons.
Instead of a Japanese high school or a futuristic Japanese city or a normal Japanese city, Pumpkin Scissors takes place in some vaguely American/European country three years after some vaguely WWI/II-ish conflict. Now you see why most stuff takes place in Japan: far easier to pitch to the executives. Our heroes and heroines are the mobile quartet from Section Three ("Pumpkin Scissors"), the government's war relief division. In the lead is Alice Malvin (that she isn't Alice Marvin is a source of great annoyance to yours truly), a spunky rich girl who always wants to do the right thing and looks remarkably similar to the title character from Jeanne D'Arc. She's aided by the glasses nerd, the lothario, and Bruce Banner.
(Before I say "wait, that's not right," I want to call attention to the name of Alice's desk-bound supervisor. The guy who gives her these missions is Captain Hunks. Awesome.)
Wait, that's not right. Our Vash the Stampede replacement is Randel Oland, a huge German fellow from the secret 901-ATT unit. Randel is an "anti-tank trooper", a genetically engineered super soldier who fights tanks in single combat. His weapon is a giant pistol called the "Door Knocker" that he fires directly against the hull of a tank. To get this close he usually ends up taking a shell or two right to the chest (and living, if you can believe it). Unclothed, Randel's torso is a quilt of scars.
During most of the episode he's a pussycat, a soft-spoken giant seemingly incapable of harming a fly. But when there's trouble he opens his blue lantern, goes a bit zombified and into kill mode. It's a little hard to swallow, but Pumpkin Scissors has great action scenes once you accept the "man vs. tank" conceit.
I'm sure Randel's useful in more situations than as a tank killer, but the first disc of this series feels like Knightboat. "Every week there's a canal. Or an inlet. Or a fjord." If soldiers-turned-bandits are causing trouble, they do so in a tank. If a corrupt noble hunts his citizens for sport, he does so in a tank. If Section Three captures a sophisticated rebel tank, the rebels will try and destroy the tank using (all together now) a tank. Any episode where Randel doesn't fight a tank is one with no physical conflict at all.
This would be a four-star anime if it wasn't pitched as a kid's show. Despite half an episode dedicated to the nerd and lothario sneaking around, there's no big mystery to Randel's origin. They show him being augmented in a test tube during the opening credits, for goodness sake. It'd also be nice to get even the slightest bit of moral ambiguity in each episode. Not the "nuh-uh" death scene rebuttals in Assassin's Creed, but something more complex than "don't hunt people for sport" or "don't commit suicide". There's a great section where Alice tries to play down her noble origins and live like a commoner, but most ending speeches wouldn't be out of place in a pop-up book.
The best parts are where Alice cuts through the anime version of red tape and bureaucracy. In most shows with a corrupt nobleman you'd have to gather intelligence, secretly work your way into his mansion, then incapacitate his guards and confront him with actual evidence. Hot-headed Alice just marches right in to his dining room, slams her saber on the table and tells him what a bastard he is right to his face. And the guy doesn't even deny it! Talk about class.
In gaming news, EVE Online still has me by the balls. I've finally bought my Drake, so I'm doing the difficult level three missions and raking in tons of cash. Despite what I thought years ago, the game does get more fun as you go up in firepower. It's mainly thanks to the expanded options you have when fitting ships: do you boost your armor or shields, and do you do so passively or actively? Install an expanded cargo hold or an engine booster? Which of the four kinds of damage do you specialize in, and which of the four weapon types do you use to deal it out? Just selling things on the market is a game unto itself - one I fail at miserably because I don't feel like hauling stuff a dozen jumps to make a marginally greater profit.
The only thing that's slowly curbing my addiction is the fact that the skills I want to train take days to complete. A battleship is calling my name, but I won't be able to answer for at least another two weeks. Thank goodness.
