I must make an apology to you. It’s been a couple months since I last review an anime on the blog, and I’m sorry. A mix of other blog posts, weather, and life made it weirdly difficult to do something anime related.....but this post stops that (I hope, at least)! Finally, I’m back to getting as much anime on here as I can, and I thought of the perfect thing to signal this return. So sit back, relax, maybe put on a straight jack, and enjoy my review for the 2nd movie in the Project A-Ko series, Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group. Let’s begin!
Story/Setup
Taken from the DVD case:
“Three weeks have gone by since the alien spaceship crash landed on the Graviton City spire, and since then the aliens have been hard at work converting their ship to a pleasure district, hoping to make friends with the humans! ...Not. Perpetually late and continually over-eating A-ko, spacy and cheerful C-ko, and brilliant and bold B-ko are about to enter summer break from school, and it just so happens the aliens' ship is open for business. When a free meal turns into a sob story about how the aliens just want to go home, will it be A-ko or B-ko who can get the ship into orbit again? More importantly, which one of the two will win C-ko's affections? Giant mecha, superheroes, and battle bikinis abound in this second installment of the parody-tastic Project A-ko!”
If you’re reading this and thinking “Man, that look ridiculous!”......well, you’re not wrong. Just like the original Project A-Ko film, Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group takes parody & humor, turns it past 10, and just breaks the knob off so no-one tries to fiddle with it. I found myself laughing constantly, and even when I wasn’t, I was at least giggling & snickering. This series of movies gets comedy, and just rolls with it all the way to the bank. If you’re not laughing in anyway, then this clearly isn’t for you.
Animation
When looking at Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group, you can see that not much has really changed in the animation department when compared to the original Project A-Ko feature. Now, I watched what I believe was the original U.S. Manga Corps Video release on youtube, and I don’t know if it was me, but I could have sworn that the coloring seemed a little faded. Not enough to make it look like it was a lazy move, but enough so that you might think that you’re having tricks being played on you.
Voice Acting
Perhaps one of the biggest changes with Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group, and indeed the rest of the Project A-Ko movies, would be the complete change of voice actors. Nobody from the original film makes a return, as we now have a completely new cast. On the one hand, it’s a little jarring to hear new people behind the wheel of the characters. You’re so used to hearing that original cast, that anybody else induced a case of whiplash upon listening to new people! On the other hand, the new cast of voice actors does an incredible job of sounding like the originals. There are some slight differences when compared to the voices from the original movie, but they’re so slightly off it’s almost silly to complain about.
Characters
Apart from the goofy story, the one thing that hasn’t really changed are the characters. Though the change in voice actors does make them fell a little different upon first hearing them speak, their core personalities are still the same as in the first movie. Even the sliver of new characters that do appear in Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group, feel like people we’ve met in the movie before, and that’s okay in my book.
Availability & Pricing
For the longest time, the rest of the Project A-Ko films were almost impossible to find anywhere for purchase. U.S. Manga Corps Video has been closed for a while, and copies were considered worth their weight in gold. As recently as September of last year, Diskotek Media began re-releasing the movie (Along with the others) for a pretty good price. New copies start at about 20 dollars in price on Amazon, while a used copy typically starts at a little over 13 dollars. Pretty good deal either way.
Other
One thing you’ll notice about Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group is the running time. The original Project A-Ko movie went on for just about 2 hours. By comparison, this movie plays for just over 44 minutes. This really makes the feature feel smaller when compared to the original movie, but again the shorter run time has everything fit in nicely.
Overall Impression & Rating
Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group is just a fun little movie. It might not be as long as the original Project A-Ko, but the shorter length just concentrates the good points of the beginning movie to a factor of 10. If you’re in the mood for some action & laughs, then get a couple of friends together, and enjoy A-Ko’s second outing. You won’t be disappointed!
Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group gets a 9 out of 10.
So that was my look at the 2nd movie in the Project A-Ko series, Plot of the Daitokuji Financial Group. Again, sorry for the long wait for another anime review, but circumstances & other content for whatever reason took great precedent. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen often here in 2018. Regardless, I’ll see you all next week for the first Obscurus Metalus review of the year, when we’ll look at a forgotten classic of a Hair Metal legend. See you then!
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