| Genre: | Sci-Fi, Action, Romantic Comedy
| Creator: | Akahori Satoru
| Manga/Anime/Both | Anime
| Seasons: |
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| Spirit of Discord's Rating |  | out of 5 Trigun Kitties |
| Summary:
In the distant future, Earth has become uninhabitable to human beings.
With few options left, they send out the remains of their population to colonize new worlds.
The Mesopotamia, humanity's last hope (what is with us and only building 1 ship? Seriously…)
crashes mysteriously on a distant planet, leaving on 6 survivors….6 male
survivors.
Lacking options, the 6 survivors populate their newfound home with clones of themselves
(apparently they have a REALLY well equipped lifeboat) and female robots called Marionettes,
because for some reason, they can alter the clones t make new people but not women. Yeah, I
know it doesn't make sense from a scientific perspective. Don't worry about it.
Anyway skip ahead 300 years and we find our hero, Otaru Mamiya of Japoness, who stumbles
across a three special marionettes, ones with the ability to feel and grow. With Lime,
Cherry, and Bloodberry at his side, Otaru takes on everything from evil empires, to his own
poverty.
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| Explanation for Rating:
Whoever:
There's really nothing you haven't seen before. Goodie-goodie main character stumbles
across cute girls with hidden pasts and super powers. Love story begins, girls fight over
guy, evil empire comes in, and the cute girls fight evil empire. Saber Marionette
distinguishes itself with a Samurai theme, which isn't very consistent, and some of the more
adorable characters out there.
The Samurai theme was a like an on and off motif. Some battles were fought with katanas and
shurikens, which others fell to typical energy blasts and high-powered punches. Super-weapons
got occasional screen time, like a flying winged ball and a heavily armed building, but most
of the action takes place between Otaru's Marionettes (Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry), and the
Saber Dolls of Gartlant (Tiger, Panther, and Luchs) , along with their typical evil emperor,
Faust. A few of the fights were entertaining, but I got really tired of seeing the Saber
Marionettes vs. the Saber Dolls after a while.
One thing that surprised me, quite pleasantly I might add, about Saber Marionette J was the
remarkable amount of character development. It's not nearly as much as the
Love Hina manga, but more than you'll find in that same show,
or Mahoromatic. Lime reminded me very much of Chi
(Chobits), except more hyperactive, and with the ability to
twirl elephants on an umbrella. She also develops in a very similar fashion, starting the
show very naïve (which leads to some early humor) and gradually learning about right and
wrong. Cherry and Bloodberry, on the other hand, seem to stay mostly the same throughout the
series, being that both of them had some built in knowledge to start with. The Saber Dolls
fell into something of the same trap, with Tiger being far more developed than her partners.
Side characters like the rich "girlie-man" Hanagata and sword-master Hikosagoemon tend to have
a bit more to them one would expect, they're not on the level of
Naruto's side characters, but better than what most shows give the
"unimportant" (non-main) guys.
The plot stayed fairly episodic, with the vast majority of the show being spend on
random misadventures. Typical plot likes like the beauty contest and hot springs show up,
as do some semi-unique plots like a story involving a flying machine. Towards the end it
picks up a little, explaining the past of Faust and the Shogun, the importance of the Maiden
Circuit, and the reason for Mesopotamia's crash. For some reason, despite the normalcy of
the plot, I continually got really into this show. I don't know if it was because the
show was particularly well directed, or if I'm really that much of a sucker for cute
characters, but every time somebody was depressed about something, every time the relationships
got a little strained or somebody seemed to die, I got all emotional. Yes, I know: I'm a huge
dork. I admit it freely. Whatever the reason, I got into this show more than I probably should
have.
In conclusion: it's about the same kinda stuff you'd find in…pretty much all of my reviews.
Above average, but not fantastic. I give it a bonus half-point for being highly adorable
(comparable to Chobits). It's cuter than
Love Hina and has more action than
Chobits.
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