A user on Reddit had this to say about this show:
"The worst anime I've seen besides Pupa is The Choujo. Its only redeeming quality is that it's not Pupa."
Those are some pretty strong words. And, because I hate myself, they were words which intrigued me. What could be so bad that its only saving grace is that it is not one of the worst things I've ever watched?
Well, back in 1986, Studio Pierrot released this little gem, based on a manga series by the same name. I'll spare you the details which you can Google yourself, but given this is the mid 80's, I feel we've already established that the quality of this piece will be laughable at best.
Friends, it is time to sink our teeth into this hot mess. Welcome to The Choujo.
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| Well now I see where Free! got this shit from. |
The slide fades, and we are shot into SPAAAAAACE. The final frontier. GEE I WONDER IF THIS IS A TRUE STORY. There's lots of space stations or giant space turds or something, I dunno. Big metal things that could be ships or space stations or something, and then there's planetary bodies and stars and boring stuff, all to this actually kind of awesome 80's-esque New Age-ish space trance soundtrack. It's actually pretty awesome, even if the art is total shit.
But then there's a droplet of water in space that turns into a planet and we finally get to see who this thing is about.
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| Oh god I think I'm gonna hurl. |
Suddenly, SPACE AGAIN. And there's some ships flying around or something. Just. Flying around. And then chase music so I guess that first ship is being followed by... the Vic Viper?
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| Man VV, you really get around don't you. |
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| Follow-up slide to put any doubts to rest. This is clearly the Vic Viper design. |
So they're flying around at like a billion miles per hour, dodging planetary bodies for some reason. Yes, entire planetary bodies. That's how fast they're moving, where planets are things you just casually f***ing slalom around. That's some epic speed there. And we get to see our main character. Or her crotch. I guess she's in one of these ships. Also, two of these planetary bodies are so close together that they generate visible bolts of electricity between one another.
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| Neil Degrasse Tyson would throw a FIT if he saw this. |
Already, any expectations I have for this thing have just vanished completely. There's more crappy flying around and they enter a space station, and then some lasers finally go off while they do things which are just simply impossible. Physics does not exist here folks, as they run through what looks like a literal rip-off of like four different Gradius stages. FOUR. It's pretty ridiculous, and terribly animated.
So our hero gets cut off or something, and is forced to impossibly bank away and blow a door open with a missile. Seems like some people are pretty pissed off by that.
By people, I actually mean Greedo's family.
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| Now you know WHY Greedo shot first. Family killed by a trigger-happy human. Friggin' pricks. |
The ship comes in throught he hole and this girl, presumably named Maris steps out of her ship and... uh. I'm really not sure what's going on here.
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| Seriously, if anyone can tell me what the point of that was, you are clearly more intelligent than I am. |
Okay. So our heroine is already stripping down to barely anything, and... oh good god this is some of the WORST animation I have EVER SEEN. Just. THE WORST.Absolutely TERRIBLE. They're note even trying, that's how bad this shit is. Just... oh good god.
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| Just look at this. LOOK AT THIS. THIS WAS MADE BY PROFESSIONALS FOLKS. PROFESSIONALS. |
I appreciate that they are attempting to showcase how easy it can be to tear shit up in space. Unfortunately, her tearing up the station just by literally stepping around loses some of its punch when you realize that someone has set the gravity setting to 'selective' in this station, because sometimes she punches through things easily, and other times it just holds up just fine. Then with the jumping around and stuff, it's not very consistent. Are they in a low gravity setting? High gravity? Normal gravity? MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY.
Anyways so she tears through a bunch of goons yadda yadda okay fine we get it this is a strong character. Now all that's left is giant rape-horse in a bondage suit.
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| I am really unsure of how else to describe this. |
Don't worry though, he's too busy urinating all over himself to actually put up a fight, so... yeah. He just kind of sits there laughing while girl makes a statement about how all of them are under arrest for smuggling drugs. Then she rips through part of the station (again selective gravity folks), and kicks him through the ceiling. At which point a nine-tailed fox comes out of her ship and... wait what in the hell is even going on now?
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| A talking nine-tail fox named Murphy. Even the VA's are like 'this is barely worth the money I am being paid'. |
Afterwards she makes the most awkward victory pose and oh god there's really forty minutes left in this pile of crap? Oh god help me.
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| How is it possible that a lower frame rate makes it look BETTER?! |
Then the Vic Viper is off again and fox guy is poking buttons while Maris just... sits around and laughs. She's due up for vacation or something. But oh no, she isn't wearing her restraints. Oh so that's what those crappy things were? Restraints? So it's not that the gravity in this universe is incredibly hazy, she's just so stupidly powerful that if she falls onto the floor she breaks the entire ship?
... yeah I'm really not buying this at all because that is just dumb. Yet, that is the exact thing that happens. Then some weird-looking guy shows up on the screen and talks about how this is her third ship. She counters by saying "I'm six times stronger than an Earthling" but are you even an Earthling? If you're not then who the hell cares? Oh I see, it's because this is an Earth ship.
... still calling bullshit. Blah blah she's responsible for damages incurred blah blah.
Now we're on Planet OWEEN. Whatever the hell that is. It appears to be populated with a just bizarre assortment of creatures, and consumer street-Mecha.
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| This is some Felix the Cat level shit here. |
Moments later we see Maris slowly and awkwardly arrive from the other side of the street to steal the attention of an incredibly short and ugly-looking tourist caricature with giant teeth. She walks into an alleyway and says "this way~".
Sorry I'm just trying not to vomit in my mouth. Even her trying to sound sexy is just incredibly sickening to hear. Oh god.
Then she picks him up and accuses him of looking for a "human taxi". What is that supposed to mean exactly?
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| What does that mean?! |
Oh I see, she coerces him into letting her be his taxi service.
... so who wants to go to the beach? This movie, that's who! Because we are now at the beach. Or a beach. Just... let's keep going. The soundtrack is so 80's it hurts. It's not even the good kind of 80's. It's just the straight up bad. Which... makes it kind of good? I'm not sure. There's surfing penguin seal things, and helicopters on the water and oh my god this is everything in the 80's just all slammed together into one short movie. That's it. I have figured out the secret.
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| I don't even know what is going on and yet it is beautiful. |
Also, there are sharks swimming beneath aliens in innertubes. And humans. Just beachgoers in general. What am I watching?
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| And why is Jaws in an anime?! |
There is just. So. Much. Beach stuff. Scuba diving, ghost battleships, and OH WHAT IN THE FLYING HELL IS THIS?
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| WHAT IS EVEN. WHAT. IS EVEN. |
A dude gets eaten by a sea creature, some stuff explodes, more surfing... oh god I just don't even understand. Finally we get back to what is loosely referred to as the 'plot', where Maris is carrying around a tourist complaining about working on her vacation. Then they finally get to the hotel where they continue to shake down the guy for his hard earned tourist dollars by reminding him: She's from Thanatos.
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| You are the kind of cop everybody hates. |
Ten minutes in, and I'm already beginning to understand what that commentor was talking about. This is just utterly atrocious. It's so bad, it defies belief.
Eventually night falls, and I'm still left wondering what the hell this crap is about. Oh but don't worry because HERE'S A GRATUITOUS SHOWER SCENE. With cockroaches on the walls. Cockroaches that are slapped, somehow not killed by her supposed monstrous strength, and then thrown into a roach box where they complain about being stuck. All while being poorly animated.
What. The. F**k. Am I watching.
Then there's a 'long distance phone call' from another planet, and she gets called out of the shower. Turns out, it's her mom, calling to ask for money. Because, y'know, her family is broke or something, and they went all the way to the supermarket without any money.
WHAT. THE. F**K. AM I WATCHING.
WHO GOES TO THE STORE TO GET THINGS LIKE FOOD, KNOWING THEY HAVE NO MONEY, AND THEN UPON GETTING THERE, CALLS THEIR DAUGHTER UP FOR MONEY TO GO SHOPPING? WHO DOES THIS.
CRAZY PEOPLE, THAT'S WHO.
CRAZY PEOPLE.
Oh, but then it all comes into perspective you see, because it turns out the reason they're calling is because her dad got drunk, broke his restraints, and destroyed a shelf. And the owner wants compensation or he's calling the cops.
Okay. While this makes slightly more sense I suppose, it still confuses the hell out of me. Why are they showing us this stuff?
The answer comes immediately after, because the point is EXPOSITION TRAIN BABY. Because now they're going to tell you alllll about Thanatos. Which you didn't even know you wanted to know but now you will know because they want you to know because they spent all night crafting this incredibly riveting drama about a planet full of people who are just too stronk need nerf kplzthx.
Cue the piano and let's take a flight through the cosmos, where ships are leaving a planet. Add some sad strings to the repetitive piano chords, an Admiral saulting the planet, and people with lots of stuff just watching the planet they leave behind. It looks perfectly fine, until it glows a little. Then some rabbi is all "remember this shit" and the planet explodes.
SUPER. DRAMATICAL. And then the ships leave it behind and we're back to now, where she promises her mom to send money but not to cheap out on the restraints next time.
Then the whole apartment fills with water because Maris broke the shower handle and oh hey look more ships is space. One of them is Maris' new one, since the Vic Viper broke down.
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| Seriously why is it necessary to show your face like, twelve times over? |
So blah blah she has the worst ship in the universe now but boy isn't her boss nice, giving her an advance to pay for the hotel she wrecked and oh god now they're going to tell us how he helped her out of her last job oh god WHY MORE EXPOSITION WE JUST GOT DONE WITH AN EXPOSITORY FLASHBACK WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER ONE ALR-
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| I think my brain just broke. |
Thank god they avoid the flashback entirely and wrap it up by saying 'used to be a wrestler, still owe them money for that shit'.
Yeah. A wrestler owing their federation money.
Yeah.
So how bout a new job? Some important dude's son got kidnapped and its her job to save him. Boy that only took fifteen minutes to get to, why couldn't they have just started with that? They show some pictures that the kidnappers took, and the dude is... well, definitely pretty okay with his situation it would seem.
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| One might even suggest that he is doing pretty fabulous. |
Oh and he's the kid of some billionaire so she could come out pretty well. Why, he might even ask her to marry him.
Don't mind me just gonna go vomit in a bag now as the notions of romance are quickly replaced with a literal tower made out of gold bars.
Congratulations folks, I think we have our plot for the rest of this movie. It took them close to 20 minutes to find it, but they found it.
And uh, then this happens.
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| Uh, what. |
Out of nowhere, she is surrounded by this dude telling her it's not gonna happen. Oh wait nevermind it's just her fox making fun of her oh look there's the planet they're supposed to rescue this dude from. We get our first glimpse at the villains at work here.
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| Oh look it is Char and Mary Sue. |
Their whole plan is to ransom the kid so that they can afford to buy a brand new fortress all of their own.
... excuse me for a moment. I am going to sit in a corner, and re-evaluate some of my life choices here.
Speaking of people discussing their questionable decisions in life... these guys have been fighting for years, supposedly, in the hopes that some day, their life of crime would pay off.
Right. So clearly, this isn't trying to take itself very seriously.
Anyways Sue flies out in a tiny space fighter to meet with Maris and they have a fairly boring encounter where they realize they are, in fact, old enemies.
Remember when I said they were skipping the whole wrestling flashback?
I lied. Because they're doing it now. Since it seems the two of them were both in the ring at one point, and presumably destroyed everything. They even have cute little nicknames for one another: Vampire Maris and Zombie Sue.
... how does... y'know what, I don't even care. I just don't even care. Just let them talk about how they're both horrible people so they can go back to horribly animated fighting. Queue up some cheesy 80's upbeat rock during a spaceship fight montage, and you're good. They barely had to animate any of this shit.
So of course Maris winds up breaking something and crashes into a moon, or a planet, I'm really not sure, and of course will find some way of surviving despite the stupid insane G-forces or the ship being torn to shreds during re-entry.
Or slamming into the ground and crashing into a canyon wall.
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| You almost sound proud of that. |
Oh no, it looks like her restraints also broke. What a disaster. Good thing she's stuck on a desert planet where we get to listen to the pleasant 'this is a bad thing' Japanese song playing in the background while it looks like the main character is pretending to swim like a fish as she slowly does the Robot through the desert.
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| I really don't know how else to describe this. |
Hell, at one point they start treating the sand like snow, with her trying to claw her way up a hill thigh-deep in the stuff. I'm not sure the people who animated this have any idea how sand actually works. Or gravity. Or physics in general.
Eventually she falls to the ground exhausted, and passes out. Or not. Or does. Or actually not because now there are water faucets dripping all over the place. Which is probably just a mirage since she can't actually drink from any of them. Oh wait, nevermind that's just her friend being an asshole. She wisely boots him into the sun as she passes out once more.
Now there are flying helicopter drones, and someone comes to rescue her useless ass. Only to crash because they suck or something. Really not sure why he crashed. It's... really pretty random. He just casually flies into a hillside after stating they will begin the rescue operation.
... makes about as much sense as the rest of this movie so far. I guess.
Suddenly it is near nighttime, and our heroes are waandering into a wild west down with technology stuff and aliens. Some of whom are quite familiar.
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| What? |
To say that this movie is proving bizarre is being far too kind. But she spies a wrestling poster and decides that she can find work here, and they can buy food! So they head to the dilapidated ringside, to find that it is pretty much abandoned. Guess there's no work to be found after all.
Oh but then her boss shows up to tell her to go back home and wait for orders.
Presumably, she does just that, as they're suddenly now back at their HQ. Which makes no sense at all.
Also, her boss seems to have an incredible shrinking problem, as he is now about eight inches tall, when before he was clearly towering over her.
... y'know what? I'm not even sure what the hell is going on at this point. He sends her off on another ship to rescue the hostage, but then her parents somehow manage to call her on the brand new ship she just boarded asking for more money.
What. The hell. Is going on. In this movie.
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| Why would you need to buy them an entire planet? Surely there are better ways to improve their lives. |
So now they're off again, to do the thing that the plot decided they were supposed to do like, fifteen minutes ago. They arrive on-site, but nobody is around. Despite being in front of the base. Also, she is making out with a photo of a guy she's never actually met for some reason.
Let's not forget though that Sue is still out there and sets up to destroy the ship, which is pretty easy all things considered. More weirdness from the fox, and then Char is all "ohey hi welcome to my evil lair, you should just give up now kay?" So she comes wandering out to give up. Or something, not entirely sure what's going on here. Sue puts a thing to remotely lock Maris' restraints, which... is probably still a pretty dumb idea?
Then again, considering what we're watching...
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| I might be mistaken, but that gun looks straight out of Transformers. |
After a brief discussion about executing people, NotChar kicks the unconscious 'prisoner' which turns out is just a doll and begins laughing maniacally for some reason, and I'm just more confused. Did he kidnap himself or something? If that's the case, why would he taunt his fake body with food scraps calling it a last meal? WHY WOULD YOU DO ANY OF THESE THINGS?!
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| What the hell is Strength 3 supposed to mean? Are we suddenly playing a PnP RPG??? |
Sue takes off her 'restraints' and now they're suddenly in a giant wrestling ring, and I guess they're going to wrestle her opponent to death.
... my god, I think Wanna Be the Strongest actually had better animation than this. It's... it's unreal. Simply unreal. Words cannot describe what I am watching. They just cannot.
Classic Macross had better animation than this and that came nearly a DECADE before.
It's so bad... I can't help but be entranced. It is the kind of bad that just has to be experienced.
This is classic anime. And it is, without a doubt, really f***ing terrible.
Eventually, the ring gets destroyed and they fall through the floor into a basement of some kind, and foxboy makes clones of Maris, prompting Sue to pull out the control to electrocute her opponent, and discover which is real. Epic fox dive as he knocks the device away, but winds up putting it in a place he can't reach. So it's time for even more wrestling stuff I guess.
Expect a truly riveting scene as the device continues slipping out of his grasp, until it finally falls down a pit and, you guessed it folks, the fox turns into a swarm of octopi to grab the device midair.
What do you mean you didn't guess that IT WAS TOTALLY OBVIOUS THAT IS THE THING WITH WHICH THEY WOULD GO.
Though that's not enough to grab it so he turns into a bunch of chameleons that stretch out their tongues to create an even longer chain with which to grab the device, and finally free her friend, who straight up begins to wreck shop.
All while making cat-like noises I guess for some reason.
Literally, she starts destroying the place, and Sue begins to beg her to please stop because she can't afford another base right now.
But then the evil villain truly shows up and he reveals that he can't hand over the hostage because he's going to blow up the base along with everyone in it. But when Sue decides she's done because the base is wrecked, the villain reveals that, shock and amazement, he was the kidnapped guy after all.
See, Sue actually did kidnap him. But, y'know how it is.
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| Uh, what. |
But he's still pleased with her rescue operation, and uh, I guess she starts trying to lay the charm onto him? And then they kiss. For... some reason. And she flashes back to her planet exploding because yeah this is the time to do that. Because it totally makes sense! That we would need a flashback of your entire life twenty minutes after seeing it for the first time.
Flashback over, she starts crying and falls unconscious. Now we get ot hear Sue's sob story about how she put everything into the base, and I guess Maris didn't actually pass out? I'm even more confused than before. But Maris is all "let's go back to your dad now" and he forces her hand off and walks over to Sue, who is bawling over her beautiful wreck of a base, and how she even tried so hard to keep it nice. Why, she even wore restraints and everything.
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| ... I can't even be mad at this. |
Then when he asks Sue if they can get married, you can't help but just smile at the imagined sound of Maris' soul screaming in unending agony.
And then the entire base fell to pieces. Now it's time for wedding music! And the villains holding one another in an everlasting kiss as Maris rushes back into space screaming at the top of her lungs the whole way.
... I can't imagine why this never got picked up as being a series.
That was a lie. I know exactly why it was never picked up. So it's time for the credits where they basically just cherry pick scenes from earlier in the movie and spoof them with blooper scenes. Which... actually is pretty clever, I'll give them that much. It takes a lot to realize you've made something horrible like this, and at least have the balls to poke fun at yourself during the end credits.
Of course the timing is still off for a lot of stuff, but it's still kind of amusing to see people suddenly die or fall into pits randomly and stuff. It's really just not taking itself seriously, which is kind of refreshing.
For something that was so terrible, at least it admitted that it was terrible, and that's kind of nice.
Maris the Choujo. It's super bad. Without a doubt, just absolutely horrible.
But it's the good kind of bad, and you should watch it at least once. If only so you can witness how to intentionally do everything completely wrong.
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