Imagine Hikaru Utada fighting crime and you're not too far off with this spoof
First off, let me say I love spoofs. They never take themselves too seriously and you always get a good laugh out of them, and Assemble Insert is no different. It's just an hour of gags, jibes and shots at the mech genre in anime and the mightily scary Japanese machine that is the idol industry.
But I get ahead of myself. Allow me to introduce Dr. Kyozaburo Demon, a typical mad scientist. And how do we know he's a typical mad scientist? Well, he admits as much. In fact, he's SO typical he's even got the typical scary-looking house at the end of the street (Which even the neighborhood kids can point out) with the nameplaque hanging outside that says "Demon". He's also got the stereotypical hooded lackeys with the run-of-the-mill bad guy music. So much for originality...
Anywhoo, Dr. Demon and his band of evils named the Demon Seed (No, this is NOT hentai) use power suits to rob banks and jewelry stores all over Tokyo (What, you were expecting Rio De Jeneiro? C'mon, this is a spoof!) and gather money for the ever-so-ominous purpose of...Wanna guess? Building a mondo-big gun? Trying to crash the world economy? Developing a biological weapon? Nope! What the Demon Seed want to do is...
*Drum roll*
Spend it all!
...Well, at least it's a realistic goal. *Shrugs*
Of course the Tokyo Police are out to prevent this sort of thing from happening, and so the Anti Demon Seed department is formed under the command of the chain-smoking, sunglass-wearing Chief Hattori. However, due to the Demon Seed using power armor (And the cops having none) the Man has failed to arrest even 1 perp but still manages to inflict huge amounts of collateral damage in the process. So, in a drunken stupor of inspiration, Hattori comes up with a super-secret plan to stop the Demon Seed...
We'll hold us a contest to find an idol and let him/her do all the fighting for us!
*Raised eyebrow*
Matte. Hattori's plan makes sense, in a twisted anime way of course. Y'see, since no matter what the cops do to stop the Demon Seed property damage is going to be a problem. So, rather than having John Q. Suzuki get mad at a bunch of ugly male cops, John Q. Suzuki CAN'T get mad at a bishonen or bishoujo can he? It's a marketing coup! Hence, the police department holds auditions to find that one idol that will turn the tide of public opinion. Of course, nevermind that 27 of the 28 people at the audition were just pulled off the street. Also disregard the fact that the competitors display such awe-inspiring powers as eating rice, doing sit-ups, swallowing intestinal probes and my personal fave, impaling yourself on your own weapons. Man, I laughed at that one!
Fear not, faithful readers, for all is not lost. The last contestant (And the only one whose application was actually sent in) is Maron Namikaze, a cute high school senior who's not very skilled at anything. Except for being super strong and bending metal like there's no tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
So, now that she's the police's secret weapon, Maron starts to undergo the rigorous training regimen that a idol/secret weapon should undergo: That is to say, singing lessons, dancing lessons, photo shoots and recording sessions *Snickers*. What really did it for me is that during this sequence they show Maron in training accompanied by this absolutely hilarious sugary-sweet idol song playing in the background. Genius I say!
Okay okay, stop laughing. There is a serious side to all this *Rolls eyes and winks*. Chief Hattori DID hire Dr. Ryohei Shimokobe, an engineering genius (Presumably) to design Maron's battle suit after all. I mean, she IS a secret weapon and needs to the hardware to prove it. And to truly inspire awe in her enemies (As well as look photogenic), Dr. Shimokobe's design features a 2-piece spandex design with a bare midriff and a scarf... Hey, an idol HAS to look good at all times *Shrugs again*.
Let's go over the checklist now shall we? Idol, check. Battle suit, check. Press waiting for the debut of Hattori's secret weapon, double check. All we need know is for the Demon Seed to show up, and we aren't long in waiting. Courtesy of the ramen shop that delivered Dr. Demon's message (He called the wrong number), the police find out that the Demon Seed will be robbing a treasure exhibit displaying artifacts from the ancient Mu Empire. And, for the record, these artifacts consist of ancient gold statues made to look like a queen, a giant robot and a sea dragon fighting Jules Vernes' submarine. Hey, who knew the Mu people were that advanced...
And come high noon, the Demon Seed show up right on time. Maron and the rest of the police department are waiting for them though, but between Maron's bathroom breaks, forgetting her opening lines and fear at fighting all the bad guys herself things aren't looking too good. However, right before the Demon Seed are about to finish looting the place Chief Hattori gives her one of those great inspirational anime speeches that perks Maron right up and places that burning desire in her heart to do justice *Clenches fist and looks off into the sunset while standing on a rock by the oceanside with the waves crashing around him*.
So, sufficiently inspired, Maron runs off to battle and trounces the Demon Seed easily (Again to the accompaniment of a sugary-sweet idol song), the press is wowed with Maron's debut and the police celebrate their first victory. All is good, yes? No, as in this case the cure was almost as bad as the disease. For while in the process of protecting the Mu treasures Maron wrecks a goodly number of them herself, causing about 3 billion-yen in damages.
D'oh. Thus ends the first episode. I'd go on to describe the second, but as there's only 2 episodes I'll leave something for you to watch. Aren't I generous?
Sounds good up to this point, doesn't it? Well, there are some downsides here, and believe me they're enough to make you pay attention. First off, like I mentioned the DVD's only 1 hour in length, and series length is a typical problem with spoofs: Go too long and the laughs die. Go too short and you could've extended the joke longer. It's a balancing act that's hard to do, but for what the series is the writing is well done. The characters themselves tend to refer to what they feel is lousy script writing, while the mech genre and idol industry certainly don't escape unscathed either. It's quite a hoot to watch as the police shift from being a law enforcement agency to becoming an idol management group, and the writing makes the transition seem natural. Scarily so. They still could have given Assemble Insert a few more episodes for the characters to develop and the pacing to slow down though. Oh, before I forget, if y'all don't laugh at their live-action commercial and how they integrate it into the series...Man, you ain't got no sense of humor!
Secondly, the art may not appeal to some people. Assemble Insert was first produced when most of you reading this were still young tykes, 1990. Hai hai, that's 12 years ago. For your Uncle Mike, I grew up watching anime from even earlier before this and so the art is something I'm used to and don't mind all that much. But for most of you I realize this will probably look crude and possibly downright ghastly. Yes, anime has come a long way since those days...I'll be honest, I have no idea where Right Stuf International pulled this title from, and maybe I don't want to know.
Thirdly, Right Stuf has what I refer to as bargain basement production values, especially in terms of subtitling. Only 1of the songs played on the soundtrack (Of which there are many, including 4 idol songs sung by the Maron character) has subtitles, and the Japanese credits themselves are left untranslated. It's like Right Stuf didn't want to take the time or spend the money (Or both) to do the job correctly. I also noticed this problem when I reviewed another Right Stuf release, Uchuu Senkan Yamamoto Yohko. Now, what is odd is that these 2 titles I mentioned stand in stark contrast to Irresponsible Captain Tylor, which was also produced by Right Stuf and I KNOW just from watching Tylor that its production values were much higher. It seems to me that Right Stuf will only do the job correctly when they feel it's in their best interest to do so (i.e., make more money and sell more DVD's). I feel what they fail to realize is that a truly top-notch company will ALWAYS put its best foot forward REGARDLESS of the length of a title and its potential commercial viability. Can you see Bandai or Pioneer trying to cut corners? Didn't think so. I'd say it's this sort of half-hearted effort that shows that Right Stuf has the Wrong Stuf when it comes to trying to produce anime themselves, and that they'd be much better off just serving as a retailer.
But while we're on the subject of the songs, let's find some positives out of all the negatives and give all due credit to Maron's seiyuu Hiroko Kasahara (Fuu Houji from Magic Knights Rayearth and Ishtar from Macross II) who sang all of Maron's songs herself. The other notable name in this title is Maria Kawamura (Naga from The Slayers), who plays the rival idol Kagiri Sonoba whom also has a song of her own for the series. Unfortunately though we only hear a snippet of it in 1 scene.
So, while good, Assemble Insert suffers from its own brevity, aging art and blase production value to not really impact one as well as it could have. All in all, worthy of a Silver, but it could have been so much more.
