The Anime Review

Hyper Speed Grandoll

In some Bandai animation boardroom, somewhere in the heart of Japan, a salaryman had to have looked at Hyper Speed Grandoll and kept his mouth shut. His heart told him that he was helping make yet another anime exactly like countless others cranked out over the years. He took a look at the script and realized that its characters were vapid and uninteresting, that nobody needed another story about Hikaru, a young girl from outer space sent to Earth in a tiny spaceship because her people were dying out. (Didn't Jor-El already do that in Superman?) Nobody needed another script with a bath scene out of nowhere with two girls hugging in a tub naked, except maybe the pervs. Nobody needed another girl with a voice somewhere out in the stratosphere chattering nervously about her first love, her next class, and the fate of the universe all at the same time. Nobody needed another villainous woman who just needed the power of a good girl-friend to change her mind. Nobody needed one more untrained mecha operator destroying villains with infinitely more power and experience. But he needed his job and kept his mouth shut.

Somewhere in the bowels of the studio, an animator drew another cell for Hyper Speed Grandoll and kept her mouth shut. She realized that the show was going to be too wimpy for guys and have too much fan service for girls. She realized that the budget wasn't going to support this show looking very good. She noticed that the last fifteen minutes of the show was nothing but people screaming at each other and things blowing up. She'd animated a dozen other shows that were exactly the same, so why did it bother her? She didn't know. Enough was enough. But she needed to feed her family, and she kept her mouth shut.

Somewhere in Japan, an anime fan rented the three episodes of Hyper Speed Grandoll and kept his mouth shut. The ending was so predictable. Hikaru's adoptive parents were funny, but how much screen time did they get? Five minutes? If they were lucky. He liked the scenes in the third episode in the bath, but those weren't really well done. And for a show promising lots of action and excitement, it was just kinda...well, dull. But was the rental store going to give him his money back? Not on your life. And what good would it be to write to the company that made it? What did they care? So he returned the videos the next day and kept his mouth shut.

Somebody at Central Park Media must have realized what they were getting when they licensed Hyper Speed Grandoll. Or maybe not. Maybe they hadn't really watched the whole thing and realized, "Hey, there's better anime we can sell to our customers." Maybe it sold well enough on VHS that it made sense to put it out on DVD regardless of the reviews. Somebody would buy it...somebody would rent it. Perhaps somebody knew that they'd picked up a lemon, but whoever it was kept their mouth shut.

Thankfully, as a reviewer, I don't have to keep my mouth shut. And I don't have a lot really left to say about Hyper Speed Grandoll other than to save your wallet some grief and leave the show well enough alone.