Kindan no Mokushiroku: Crystal Triangle

I'm on a quest to watch the shittiest anime known to man -- that's how I stumbled across this peculiar little OVA. Low ratings? Action anime? I was preparing myself for a hyper-violent cheesefest akin to M.D. Geist, but it seems I got something different instead. This is not a great anime. But what separates this from the bad? This anime has effort and passion behind it. Story & Characters: The story and characters are this anime's weakest link. Imagine the over-the-top and convoluted sci-fi/political thriller of Metal Gear Solid crossed with the stock characters of an Indiana Jones film minus the originality. That's basically all this animeis. The characters are extremely underwritten and are only there to serve the plot. The plot, on the other hand, is an extremely convoluted and ridiculous plot involving the Soviet Union, the US military, a shadowy cabal that controls the Japanese government, and a conspiracy by an ancient alien race disguised as Buddhist monks. So what's good and bad about the plot? Well, everything is bad about the plot. But the best thing is how much the show believes in its own plot and takes itself seriously. Art & sound: Maybe it's because I've been looking at too much shit anime, but Crystal Triangle is a feast for my eyes. The animation has plenty of effort put into it -- the bouncy animation of the jeep in the opening, the detailed interior of the BMW that the secret agent drives, and the stunning colors of the life-support chamber that looks ripped right out of Evangelion (Anno worked on animation in this show) -- there are details to be found in plenty of places here. Sound is alright. Serviceable. Of special note is that they actually got Russian and English VAs in the Japanese original -- accented, but still, the effort is admirable. Enjoyment: Anime is an audiovisual storytelling medium. The story of Crystal Triangle creaks under its own weight, but man, is there passion in the visuals and even the story itself. The story is the best kind of bad story -- the kind that takes itself seriously, and the visuals do their best to make that bad story seem as cool as possible. The visual details, the effort put into the voice acting and the grandiose story add up to a very enjoyable effort (at least in my opinion). In conclusion: Some bad anime are charming because of how bad they feel. Crystal Triangle is charming because it does its level best to make itself good -- and it almost succeeds.

At first, as the smarmy, hunky archeology professor and his blonde ingenue sidekick start smashing massive, ancient ruins in the desert, fighting the bad guys and escaping in a plane, I was like, cool, this is going to be a bit of a rip-off of Indiana Jones. I'm down with that. (Or maybe a closer analogy might be the Brendan Fraser The Mummy, in terms of over-the-top style action. Also good.) But that only lasts for the first act. Pretty soon it starts delving pretty deeply into some really weird mysticism and ancient-alien-level weirdness, extra-sensory powers...and it neverlooks back. And the plot is none the wiser as well, as any semblance of rationality is thrown out the window. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but there's so much nonsense it's hard to follow, and eventually I stopped trying to figure out who was what, and where this whole mess was going. This movie is definitely one of those eighties shows that has the philosophy of "throw everything into the pot, stir it up and see what works". The problem is, an "everything" show usually ends up just a jumbled mess. Some have pointed to Crystal Triangle as one of those "so bad it's good" shows, where you sort of bask in the terribleness of it all. But really, there's so much of it that you're exhausted trying to do that halfway through. Like drinking from the firehose of awfulness.

If you're looking for a long, detailed in-depth review this one isn't for you because there isn't much to say about this OVA besides the fact it's just a bad anime, and a VERY bad one. The plot is extremely confusing: a lot of things happen but many of them are unexplained or barely developed, and most of them don't make any sense. The first 15-20 minutes are somewhat acceptable because it may look as an interesting adventure/mystery story with mystical elements, but then the remaining 70 minutes of nonsense come in like a train. Visuals are nothing special, with mediocre sketches and character design andbelow average animation. Oh, and God is depicted as a weird caterpillar who floats in the air inside a giant spaceship, talks like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and dies miserably just like a bug when he gets slammed against the walls of the ship during a battle fought between Soviet and American jet fighters in the skies above it. I strongly suggest you avoiding this anime unless you want to watch it to laugh at it with friends, just as I did. In that case it provides a good amount of fun.

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