A Guilty Pleasure
06/02/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I love this stuff...you probably do too if you're reading this. A big thanks to Funimation and 4Kids for bringing this to the U.S. on not only the FoxBox (sadly, for only a few months during 2002-2003) but now on DVD without the dubbing. In case you caught the FoxBox show, you might be glad to know that the DVD's of the show feature more video/story/action, because on FoxBox they cut it down somewhat to make room for their special promos. I don't agree with some people who say the FoxBox dubbing was atrocious...maybe Captain Iruma's American voice was miscast, and she came across as kind of an idiot with the new dubs, but most of the rest of the voice casting was pretty good, and I have to admit they came up with some pretty funny stuff. Also, their theme song was way better than the J-pop theme. But I'm perfectly happy with the DVD release with all of the original audio and subtitles. Horii is still funny. It would sound ridiculous to dub in English the Japanese dialog verbatim, but with the subtitling it works. If you're a Mio Takagi fan (Captain Iruma) you'll particularly like episodes 3 and 25 (of the ones I've seen) but most of the episodes are pretty enjoyable with a great cast. Don't expect consistent "Independence Day"-quality special effects, but many of the SFX are quite good."