Monster Farm: Legend e no Michi

(covers both seasons) Monster Rancher……Yes, I know the Japanese version of that is Monster Farm but today we are doing the English version that aired on the now-defunct (and fortunately) Fox Kids. Now it is based on a series of life simulation RPG videogames created by Tecmo (the company that brought you Ninja Gaiden & Dead or Alive) having over 14 games across different videogame platforms. In the anime adaptation, it revolves around Genki, a 12-year-old middle school boy who really loves to play videogames and one day, he discover the Monster Rancher game and as he plays it, he is zapped into their universewhere he meets the rest of the team: Holly, a 14-year-old girl on the quest along with their monster team, Mochi, Suezo, Golem, Tiger and Hare (No, I’m not calling them Tiger and Bunny) to find the ancient Monster Phoenix, and it is the only powerful monster that’s able to stop the dastardly……..MOO! Yes, his name is Moo. What happened to Mistress BAA? Overlord BARK? Princess SQUEE? Hell, where is Grand Master MEOW? Now, you’re wondering that this anime reminds you of something. You know, that type of anime that involves battle monsters and traveling in unknown strange lands especially when the travelers are very young and it’s also based on card game/videogame franchise. I know what this anime reminds of……..it’s like…..DEATH NOTE!!! OK, I’m just kidding. But the difference between Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon & Death Note is Death Note doesn’t have those noticeable COPYCATS and generic ones at that (unless somebody can correct me)!! WHY anyone would needed another one of this type of anime? I get that it’s something for kids to watch and even though this came out when I was a kid, I never knew about its existence but I guess that were trying to cash in on the Pokémon/Digimon/Yu-Gi-Oh craze and I don’t think it worked that well considering Monster Rancher only lasts about 72 episodes and the other ones just go on forever even if we had enough. Well, the story is generic, there’s no doubt about it. Now the characters: Genki is fucking annoying……there, I said it. Basically he is the stereotype of this type of anime where he’s very determined, optimistic, and hopeful and likes to yell something at the top of his lungs. Man, do I want to strangle this kid and tell him to SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU DAMN MORON!! Most of the dialogue is so annoying in this show and for example, the antagonists in the show? They are referred as “baddies”. Yes, They say that on this show and you know what, whether I think of that word, I’m thinking of somebody playing a drinking game to this show and you got to take a shot whenever someone say “baddies”. I guess that no one survived. Most of the monsters with the exception of Tiger are very forgettable, mainly because he bothered me the least and Holly…..yeah, she was important, too…….kinda. The name MOO as a villain is still stupid and I mean really fucking stupid. I’m ashamed to say who did the animation of this, considering they made one of my favorite movies (not just anime movies, but overall movie of all time). The studio is TMS (Tōkyō Movie Shinsha) and what they made before this was Akira of course, Little Nemo (yeah, that movie was animated by a Japanese animation studio. Go figure. I didn’t know that at first.) Anyway, the animation level here is about average for a now-vintage kid show but speed lines do occur sometimes and it makes it seem like they are slipping in that department and character designs are a bit average. The music……me screaming at the top of my lungs would sound better than this played-out Wal-Mart style Pokémon rap they played and also that damn side song that goes “Get a disk, take a risk, spin it fast, through the past”. I could’ve ended it with, “I rather get shot in the ass.” Now, on to the English dub and surprisingly to me, this wasn’t made by 4Kids. No, really, 4Kids are not responsible for this dub, for once. It was made by a dubbing company in Canada called The Ocean Group and yet the anime & western animation they dub or just voiced before and after this were better made. Here are a few examples: Black Lagoon, The Girl Who Leap through Time, Escaflowne, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Death Note and Inuyasha….freaking Inuyasha!! Yes, Inyuasha isn’t that great IMO but I rather watch that than this. Most of the voice work in here do sound so very kiddy-like, it hurts and it gets very irritating by the minute hearing those voices, especially since I recognize some voices that came from Ed, Edd, N Eddy. FINAL VERDICT: I could easily say that this show makes me want to curse kid-aimed anime, such as this, Beyblade and Scan 2Go, but even as a kid, I wouldn’t be as interested in shows like that and in the present day, I still won’t have an interest in it. But as much as I want to trash the show, I can’t but one of the reasons why is that the show can get genuinely decent for most of the time, especially in the emotional moments in the show gives it a plus in my book but still that gets shadowed by the idiocy of the writing, the marketing and the shallowness that basically carried this show. Now even though for you have any kids or younger relatives that might be interested in this and it reminds them of those other shows I mentioned before, just tell them those shows are better than this. As for the second season............I just gonna say what was the point of that? Because there really wasn't unless they wanted more exposure but that failed.

Perhaps contrary to the popular opinion, I enjoyed this more than the first series. Journey to the Legend Cup is a little more like a sports/tournament anime than Mystery of the Disk Stone, and as such it able to draw a lot more from its source material games where training and raising your monster to fight in tournaments to be the best there ever was is one of the main goals. The premise revolves around saving the soul of Holly's father, the key to doing that being a piece of the Legend Cup's Trophy. To participate in the Legend Cup you need to have won severalother regional tourneys. Genki gets to flex his Monster Rancher skills to turn Mocchi into a lean, mean, Mocchi-ho machine. It's like the games mixed with some character drama from the first series! Excellent. The show had a great and pretty emotional start which gives Holly, Mocchi and Genki a little more room to think than anything in the first series. After that the show largely sets into its rhythm of training, participating in a tournament, journeying to the next location where a few things happening along the way. Rinse repeat. It's pretty neat and well done; they wrapped it up right as they were starting to overdue the formula. There is an antagonistic force in the form of remnant Warumon who weren't purified from the end of the last series. I'd say they weren't really needed in a story like this - they could have gotten by with just the challenge posed by the championship monsters, but the implementation is pretty good. It's basically an avanue to introduce monster of the week stuff (which is actually a welcomed element in a creature-feature show like this). The comedic elements in Legend Cup were also more sophisticated than previous series, and the antagonists actually bring a fair amount of that to the table. My main letdowns were that I had hoped to see more of Venus/Pixie (she only shows up for one episode, probably due to cost...), and I think the final battle at the end could have had a few familiar faces show up to help (like Venus...) ... But these aren't massively big deals in the grand scheme of what I feel the show accomplished. So personally overall, I found a lot to love. Several story points from the first show are resolved, older characters return for another go to show how they've changed since Mu's defeat, and its got a really satisfying ending which put a smile on my face and fond memories of the whole experience in my heart.

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