Japanese Title: Tentai Senshi Sunred
Similar: One-Punch Man
Gintama
Watched in: Japanese
Genre: Comedy
Length: 52 episodes (half-length each)
Positives:
- The peculiar sense of humour.
Negatives:
- Narrow appeal.
- The art is on a negative budget.
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Take the Red Ranger from Power Rangers, make him an arse leeching off his girlfriend and surround him with a muscled chicken, two Team Rocket grunts, a werewolf, the creature from the black lagoon, mecha rabbit, and Galactus. With all this combined, you have Astro Fighter Sunred. It’s the humour of One-Punch Man mixed with the Justice Friends from Dexter’s Laboratory, and structured as poorly (or as brilliantly) as Pop Team Epic.
What an odd anime.
Astro Fighter Sunred is a retired superhero story in the vein of One-Punch Man and The Incredibles, only more vulgar and animated far more poorly. Sunred is a bum, while the evil villain is really a grandmother whose greatest worries are about cleaning up after his minions.
Each episode consists of several shorts of varying lengths. As alluded to by the Pop Team Epic comparison, anything goes. Sometimes it’s a cooking show with the lamest recipes, at other times it’s a slapstick cartoon.
I don’t have much to say on this one. It’s one of those anime where you need to see it to understand what I mean. (You can find it on YouTube, I believe.)
This is a peculiar kind of humour for a much older generation. It’s parodying anime most of us have barely heard of. If you are part of the target audience, this may be the most hilarious thing you have ever seen. For everyone else though, I think it takes too much “effort” to figure out the references for a show meant to be dumb simple fun.
Art – Low
Technically, the art sucks. However, it does save itself from the pits by working with the style of humour, similar to how King of the Hill is a fit to its sensibilities. It’s clear many characters weak masks to avoid mouth animations.
Sound – Medium
The acting is quite good – nothing great, but serviceable to the script, which itself is snappy as it rolls from one joke into the next.
Story – Medium
A superhero bickers with his arch nemesis, a motherly fellow surrounded by his sensitive minions, as they stave off everyday life. The overall story lacks direction, but the episodic scenarios are a humorous little exploits.
Overall Quality – Medium
Recommendation: Try it. One episode. One episode – less even – is all you need to know if Astro Fighter Sunred’s peculiar humour is to your taste. It probably won’t be, yet you won’t know until you try.
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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)
Positive: None
Negative: None
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