Anime Review: Hyper Speed Grandoll

This post was written by Calyrica. She is not Dark_Sage.

This weekend, Dark_Sage and I were charged with an extremely important task. We had to find the worst OVA ever made and sit through the dub of it. After spending quite a long time going through his collection of DVDs, we decided upon an old JC Staff masterpiece: Hyper Speed GranDoll.

This three episode OVA had all of the required anime cliches. Hikaru was the big-eyed, pink-haired, clumsy moe protagonist, who had no clue about anything going on. She spent the entire anime squeeing, “Fab, fab, fab!” about pretty much everything, including her beloved “Senior Narukami!~” (Because yes, apparently people run around crying, “Senior! I love you, Senior!”)

Then we had the hot, emo blue-haired chick, and Dark_Sage and I both decided we’d definitely not say no to hitting that. She infiltrated Hikaru’s school in order to get the Holy Armor or some shit, but then became friends with Hikaru, in typical cheesy anime style. They shared a bath, so we got to see her nice, full boobs, and after they cuddled in the bath, they both retired to Hikaru’s bed to pine after the guys they liked. Also in stereotypical cheesy anime style, right?

The best part of this anime, though, was by far the epileptic fits it must have caused. All of the action scenes were accompanied by massive amounts of flashing lights and giant explosions that flashed and attacks that involved strobe lights and… Well, you get the idea. We actually examined the back of the DVD case to check, and there was not, in fact, an epilepsy warning printed on it. I can guarantee that this OVA must have caused some seizures.

Another great moment was the dramatic reveal that Hikaru was actually a princess from an alien planet adopted by Earthlings. (Yes. This was a major plot development.) Her parents give this very emotionally delivered few lines on this subject, to which Hikaru replies, “I know, guys.” Because of course, right? Of fucking course.

The ending song includes the precursor to typesetting and karaoke. I suppose that in 1997, Aegisub was fairly primitive. The title “Hyper Speed GranDoll” appears on the screen and shakes and jitters and changes colours. It looks quite professional. I shall devote the next 30 seconds of my time figuring out how to do this:

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Do I really need to continue? The translation and dub are pretty laughable, too. I’m pretty sure half of the random schoolgirls were voiced by men talking in falsetto. Hikaru’s “Fab, fab, fab!” is actually the best editing done on the entire script, too. There are also gems like, “We just need to retrieve that, you know, that thingie,” and, “Manga shmanga!” Anyway, I really really don’t want to go on any more about this.

Verdict: Perfect date OVA, because it’s a great excuse for saying, “Screw this. Let’s make out.” (May or may not have actually happened.)

~ Caly