 The ROSSOMA-MANWhat do you
get when you mix giant, kooky-looking invading aliens, a child
who controls a tamed behemoth and treats the dangerous thing
like a toy, and a world-wide secret organization determined
to stop the conquering forces from beyond with every ounce
of
blood, sweat and tears in their honorable bodies? Well, you
get Shin Seiki Evangelion.... AND Argento Soma.
I'm not saying
that A.S. is clichéd or anything of the like.
It just rips off popular shows of the past and pretends that
these ideas are its own. That's just called "stealing".
Although stealing is now cliché, so I guess I stand
corrected.
Anyway, the
whole premise is this: It's 2059 and for the past 5 years strange,
monstrous aliens have been attacking the Earth as they all
head
towards a common "Pilgrimage Point" in the Canadian
wilderness. Nobody knows what the fuck they are or why they
seem drawn to this point, but since mankind tends to shit its
pants and fear the worst of every possible scenario, everyone
believes that these visitors are harbingers of the apocalypse.
Therefore the Alien Attack Force FUNERAL is set up and
given some stylin' transformable aircraft/robots to fight the
beasts with. Even though this mecha that they use (aka SARGs...meaning "coffin" in German, and later called TODs... meaning
"death" in Hitler's evil language) are made up of
already killed invader bodies. Yes, pretty much that's EVA to
a "T". But then we get some Giant Robo references
thrown in for good measure.
See, there's
this little girl named Hattie (who wears a top hat for some
reason) who meets a runaway and recently resurrected alien named
Fairie-kun/Frank. FUNERAL wants this giant metal monster to
study and use as a weapon, but little Hattie has made friends
with it and now it only responds to her (and possibly her dog).
But after
all this is said and done A.S. does a stellar job of
making the story its own. It's basically like somebody said, "You
know what? I like how EVA started and all,
but I think it should have gone in this direction instead.
Hey! Right now I have a budget to make an animated show!
Why don't I make EVA my way?!" And he did.
The whole story of A.S. revolves around some college
student (who after a terrible accident looks like Two-Face from
Batman) who wants revenge on the giant Frankenstein's
monster that FUNERAL and Hattie seem to have a jonesing for.
See, this guy watched his girlfriend die right before his eyes
just as Frank woke up from being re-animated (no pun intended).
Soon this angry young man gets some mysterious help from the
coolest character in the show, the ever munching Mr. X, and
the youth takes on the identity of a recently killed pilot
in
order to infiltrate FUNERAL and do his dirty deeds. As
I've said before in many a review, revenge is always a great
plot.
Then Ryu
Soma (the boy's new identity) meets the multi-ethnic and close-knit
group of pilots that he has to work with inside the agency,
and the 14 year-old Hattie and her pooch Walton. This is when
everything gets going. Ryu is torn between saving the world
from more and more aliens, and destroying Frank, who is helping
to save the world from more and more aliens and who is the father-figure
to the mentally screwed up Hattie... Who in turn reminds Ryu
of his past love who died at what he thinks is Frank's big hands.
There's also lots of quotes from Shakespeare going on and nifty
character developing episodes that round the whole thing out.
There are
two things that I absolutely LOVE about this show. So much so
that I want to marry them. The first is the first 3 episodes.
They are a complete mind fuck. You find yourself totally thrown
into this strange new world without even a tour guide. You don't
know which way is up or left and only at around the 4th ep do
you get a real bearing of the nature of this zany universe.
I love shows that don't force feed you the entire plot in the
first 20 minutes. The ones that make you pay attention and wonder
if you're going insane make me smile in a straight-jacket-wearing
sort of way. The other thing that I love about A.S. is
that little things that are mentioned once early in the show
come back to haunt the story in a big way later on down the
road. Nothing is forgotten. These are things that aren't even
plot points. They may just be background info on certain characters.
That just makes it that much sweeter.
The final
thing that I love is Guinevere Green. Goddamn is she a hottie!
Three, three things that I LOVE..... Yesssssss.
What did
I think of Argento Soma? I like it a lot. Sure, it stole
from a lot of other great series and movies, but it turned all
those borrowed parts into a Soma Stew of its own. The
last two episodes were phenominal! Though, I'm a sucker for
half hour epilogues. There's just something completely fulfilling
about them. In the end, I have to give A.S. a
254 out of 289 point callibration. It may have stolen some of
the good parts of EVA and G.R., but it didn't
quite match them when all is said and done. Good effort though.
One last thing that's been bothering me before I go. Why the
fuck is the MIG Fighter Plane the backbone of the Earth Defense
force more than 50 years from now? I mean, they have fucking
transformable mecha at their disposal! Gimme a break! | 
