The cartoon that almost was...

Good writing and animation by Madhouse in a steampunk world. Like Avatar, this could of been one of the shows that'd make Nickelodeon worth watching again. Alas, it was another victim of post-9/11 pussiness.

See, now, when I have my $x000000000, I'm going to buy the rights to stuff like that, and make it *real*.

*grumble*

1) That was a sweet, sweet concept.
2) Holy God that writing was awful. I mean, not just bad, but awful. It was cliched, the dialogue was overwritten, the action scenes were unimaginative even though the kung fu was sweet, it was just bad, bad, bad writing.
3) The guy was an excellent voice actor, put good humor into the role. The girl was a squeaky tart who managed to put a balloon-animal edge onto flat monologue.

4) They could have removed the twin-tower scene with no worries. It was a superfluous bit of tension-hightening drivel that detracted from Doc Payne's much more interesting fight scene. Furthermore, it didn't actually heighten tension; the bit where the jackers landed was far more threatening.

5) Oh, and the girl's reaction to having her windshield punched in? Was to sit there and watch. I've had 14-year-old sisters. They would either have grabbed a weapon or ducked and scrambled, not gone "oh look at the interesting man punching his way into the car! I wonder what will happen next?"

6) Did I mention the writing was godawful bullshit drivel? Why did MADHOUSE, of all studios, waste their time on that crap? Oi vey. I showed this to Aron, who said "Keep playing it; my desire to do work in order to ignore it will make me really productive."

Okay, so it ain't Shakespeare. But I looked at it as: This is the first episode, so they need to introduce the characters, their relationships, and the situation. It was casual and corny jokes were kept to a bare minimum.

Could ten monkeys chained to typewriters come up with something better? Eventually. Could it have been worse? Definitely.

Fixed.

Kudos for the attempt, but yeah, it was like the writers for Kim Possible got drunk and this is the horrible one night stand they had.

Still, the WORLD and the Concept were OK...so long as they didn't fall into too much of a Sky Captain / James Bond gutter all the time.

And the fact that OH EM GEE she wants to drive the car because that would be SO awesome because she's like thirteen you know even though she's got pretty massive tits for a thirteen year old and a friggin' short skirt and isn't it awesome how she's dressed like a cheerleader? Oh, and OH EM GEE she wants to drive the car and that's what really struck her about the fact that she punched a guy off the car.



No they weren't. The 13-year-old's ENTIRE CHARACTER was a string of corny jokes and infantile obsessions guaranteed to turn off anyone who would want to watch it for the neat kung fu moves. Oh, and the kung fu moves were guaranteed to turn off anyone who wanted to watch it for idiotic Mary Sue reasons.

TOZE! CHILL! THAT'S AN ORDER FROM A PENGUIN WITH MUCH COOLER HEAD GEAR THAN YOURSELF!

(Don't believe The Bird has better head gear? See for yourself )

Yeahno. You don't have rights for chill-orders.

And besides, that was really, really godawful writing.

The blimp-car was cool, though. BLIMMMMPCAAAAAR!

Seconded. Kung fu and airships? I was sold right there.