overall concept of the story was interesting, the characters hilarious, the animation was very poor and there were many holes in the story.| Current Issue | The Archives | Our Top 5 Articles | Ebay Auctions | The Shoppe |
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Maze: The Mega-Burst Space is a strange mix of the Wizard of Oz, comedy, and old-fashioned anime story telling-comedy, mecha, and attempted sexual contact. And while the overall concept of the story was interesting, the characters hilarious, the animation was very poor and there were many holes in the story.
Maze: The Mega-Burst Space is about a young woman named Maze who wakes up in one hell of a predicament to have amnesia. The top part of her house has landed in the forest of Pananan, killing a henchman of the national religious group of Bartonian, Jaina. This henchman was after the Princess of Bartonian, Mil Barna, the only survivor of a coup by her uncle. Mil is an over zealous, touchy-feely young princess who adopts Maze as her Big Sister. Together with Mil's Demi-Armor (a mecha suit that combines with the soul's of its pilots) Dalgar they fight against Jaina, or at least attempt to fight, because Maze is apprehensive about fighting. That is until nightfall when she turns into a lecherous male who loves mayhem. It turns out that Maze, both male and female, posses the power to manipulate Phantom Light Power, making her-er them Master Luminators and now a main target for the Jaina and government of Bartonian.
The animation however was poor and stiff (it was truly a budget tight series) the only thing I can compare it too is how flat and lifeless Merry Melody cartoons became in the 60s, prior to Warner Brothers ceasing their production.
Then their were the holes where characters knew things that they should not have known, for instance the male Maze knew how to talk Mil's language to summon Dolgar, and Randy, a fairy who came out of no where, knows everything about Maze without even meeting her.
But despite these flaws the characters were all so good that you cannot help but like Maze. For instance characters like the wisecracking Aster and the horny lesbian Solude, a pair of demi-hunters (people who can defeat those in demi-armor with their bare hands), meet up with Maze and Mil, making for some great obscene sexual comedy. In addition to these characters, the wonderfully beautiful and conceited Jaina bishounen (pretty boy) henchman Gorgeous had me dying with lines like Soldiers, be faithful and be beautiful all for my sake and I and my beauty will see you off to your ugly end, lend to just great entertainment.
Perhaps the story holes lie in bad translation and dubbing. Some of the characters voices were annoying. Perhaps if I saw the subtitled version my opinion on how the story flowed might be different, but I doubt it. However, die-hard anime fans may be willing to overlook such nuances for the sake of comedy and entertainment.
I just want to warn potential viewers that this series starts off slow and ridiculous making you wonder why you even bothered to get it, then by the last episode it actually starts to develop into something and you get pulled in hook, line, and sinker-like those damn shows on the WB and UPN. I personally am interested in finding out more about Maze's background. So I guess I will be trying to find at least used copies of the series to watch.
Currently Maze: The Super Mega-Burst is available on VHS and DVD, the complete series, all 25 episodes, is available on DVD for $129.99.
Send your comments and or questions about this article to JenniferJ@ybfree.com.