Time Bokan 24, Bloodivores Thoughts
Sometimes you watch the chaff...
Time Bokan 24 is a series about Tokio--a junior high kid from the year 2016, and his friend Calen, a veteran of the 24th century's Space-Time Administration Bureau. Together, they travel throughout time on Time Adventures to find the "True History" of the world, one that's funnier than what's been written in our textbooks. Yes, that's almost exactly the way that they phrased it. Their antagonists are the mischievous Akudama, employees at a company called History Paradise which has created false textbooks covering the history we believe to be true.
The first episode sees Calen and her crew, a robot named Pikobo and a talking parrot named Peralino, traveling throughout time trying to escape from the Akudama--until they finally travel back to their home base and lose their pursuers, but not before picking up a boy from the 21st century who's shockingly just as capable of traveling through time as they are. As a result, they invite him to join their group to find the True History--starting with ancient Egypt, where we learn Queen Cleopatra was actually a duo of comedians known as Cleo and Patra. The group helps Cleo and Patra win a talent contest before getting into battle with the Akudama, which results in a rather amusing mecha fight before they learn the True History's been "restored".
Watching this, I could never decide whether this was aimed at like, pre-school kids or not. It has that kind of classic, overly simplistic Level 5 animation that makes me feel like this airs on Sunday before Super Sentai. Of course, that's probably because this is a remake of an older series from Tatsunoko and they kept most of the look of the original series in tact. Still, some of its bits were amusing--there's a point where after the villains lose they're stuck in a room having to personally glue over the pages of the "fake" history now that the real one's been restored that was laugh out loud funny. Still, I suspect somewhere along the line before the first month of new stuff finishes this is either going to turn me off or I'm going to bail on it out of time issues.
....Do I have to talk about this one? Twenty minutes into this show and the only thing that made me think I needed to see more was the minor mystery happening near the end. The series is about a world where vampires got created after a case of insomnia kept a bunch of people awake for an entire week, who all went mad and the attempt to cure them turned all of them into vampires (somehow). None of this backstory happens to be in the actual show, we just pick up with some punk kid named "Mi Liu" who's been nicknamed the "Child of Peace" as the son of a human and a vampire. Despite this, by the time the episode starts he has a huge rap sheet and is already in the act of robbing a bank with a crew full of fellow vampires.
After the heist went wrong--because despite being well-planned, of course it does--and the group gets caught, Mi Liu blows off the potential punishment as just another thing he'll inevitably be freed from because he's under 18. But in the middle of his flippant ignorance of the crime he's committed, the officer questioning him suddenly points out that what was definitely a completely victim-free bank robbery was turned into an utter slaughter after they ran off, with over 15 people killed. Suddenly, the story becomes "serious" and Mi Liu and his friends are sentenced to death, and the episode starts to end as they're being carried in a van to await their sentence....only to suddenly have a group of masked people stop their van and riddle it with bullets from automatic rifles.
This show wasn't that hard to get through, but it didn't give me a reason to care about any of this. They just skipped from one plot point to the next without introductions, character development, proper world-building--they just threw us into things and expected we'd get it. Presumably, this episode was to set the ground work for the story the series actually wants to tell, which looks vaguely Deadman Wonderland in its idea from the preview of the second episode. But it was executed sloppy and overall I'm fairly certain I can skip this in favor of more interesting series for the fall.
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| Why wouldn't you just print new textbooks? |
The first episode sees Calen and her crew, a robot named Pikobo and a talking parrot named Peralino, traveling throughout time trying to escape from the Akudama--until they finally travel back to their home base and lose their pursuers, but not before picking up a boy from the 21st century who's shockingly just as capable of traveling through time as they are. As a result, they invite him to join their group to find the True History--starting with ancient Egypt, where we learn Queen Cleopatra was actually a duo of comedians known as Cleo and Patra. The group helps Cleo and Patra win a talent contest before getting into battle with the Akudama, which results in a rather amusing mecha fight before they learn the True History's been "restored".
Watching this, I could never decide whether this was aimed at like, pre-school kids or not. It has that kind of classic, overly simplistic Level 5 animation that makes me feel like this airs on Sunday before Super Sentai. Of course, that's probably because this is a remake of an older series from Tatsunoko and they kept most of the look of the original series in tact. Still, some of its bits were amusing--there's a point where after the villains lose they're stuck in a room having to personally glue over the pages of the "fake" history now that the real one's been restored that was laugh out loud funny. Still, I suspect somewhere along the line before the first month of new stuff finishes this is either going to turn me off or I'm going to bail on it out of time issues.
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| I won't lie. Best part of the show is when this dude catches a gun butt to the face. |
After the heist went wrong--because despite being well-planned, of course it does--and the group gets caught, Mi Liu blows off the potential punishment as just another thing he'll inevitably be freed from because he's under 18. But in the middle of his flippant ignorance of the crime he's committed, the officer questioning him suddenly points out that what was definitely a completely victim-free bank robbery was turned into an utter slaughter after they ran off, with over 15 people killed. Suddenly, the story becomes "serious" and Mi Liu and his friends are sentenced to death, and the episode starts to end as they're being carried in a van to await their sentence....only to suddenly have a group of masked people stop their van and riddle it with bullets from automatic rifles.
This show wasn't that hard to get through, but it didn't give me a reason to care about any of this. They just skipped from one plot point to the next without introductions, character development, proper world-building--they just threw us into things and expected we'd get it. Presumably, this episode was to set the ground work for the story the series actually wants to tell, which looks vaguely Deadman Wonderland in its idea from the preview of the second episode. But it was executed sloppy and overall I'm fairly certain I can skip this in favor of more interesting series for the fall.
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