English Dub Series Review: A.I.C.O. Incarnation

If the concept of “Halo on Roller Blades” didn’t excite you…

Overview (With Spoilers, To Spare You My Fate)

In the year 2035, all of earth’s nations are awash with a useful technology: Artificial Organisms. These specially created creatures come in all shapes and sizes, and can interface with natural organisms in many useful ways. Controls, bioregulation in hazardous areas, armor… even cloning. Unfortunately, an experiment gone wrong in Japan’s Kurobe Gorge unleashed a wave of uncontrolled biomatter, which rushed down the gorge and absorbed any normal matter. Using a series of hastily-retrofitted dams as gates, the government staved off the biomatter in a zone called “the Burst”. Occasionally, specialized mercenaries called Divers enter the Burst Zone to retrieve resources and technology. It’s a dangerous job, and it takes nerves of steel.

At the end of the gorge is a city, and in that city is a school, and in that school is a wheelchair, and in that wheelchair is a girl. Her name is Aiko Tachibana. She loves paper airplanes, and she’s been in a wheelchair ever since she and her father got in a car accident. On her birthday, no less! So, this new guy shows up at her school. He’s aloof and mature, and his name is Yuya Kanzaki. Oh, and he kidnaps her. Takes her off to meet some of his friends, who give her a huge amount of information to process. Apparently, the Burst is her fault. The accident left her barely alive so her father, a researcher in artificial organisms, used his technology to put her into a clone body. Something went wrong with the procedure, and her original body exploded out into the Burst. Wow. That is one sucky birthday. Ever since then, her clone body has lived her life, using the physical therapy to develop her atrophied muscles. However, when under attack, Aiko’s skin turns carbon-based armor to protect her.

Courtesy: Netflix

Now that we’ve slogged through that information overload (all of which is done in the first two episodes), it’s time to get to the action. Yuya and his Diver associates are going to take Aiko to the origin point of the burst, where they are going to reverse the process used to create the clone Aiko, which should end the burst. There are many complications along the way. For one, the government wants to get a hold of Aiko, and aren’t too happy that Yuya took her into the Burst zone. Second, the company responsible for all this research is embroiled in a conflict within itself to either keep the Burst and study it, or simply nuke it to prevent what could eventually become a world catastrophe. Lastly, the biomatter of the Burst is rapidly mutating, shifting into humanoid shapes that are faster, more dangerous, and immune to the Divers’ weaponry. This is because another researcher tied his comatose daughter into the burst somehow, and has been trying to bring her back to life with it. He’s willing to screw everyone and everything in the world up to get some semblance of her back, and he’s gone plum loco in the process. Everything comes to a head as the Burst is about to go off again, the evil doctor is attacking in the body of a giant monster made up of clones of his daughter, and the good guys are doing brain surgery. Sound like fun to watch?

Our Take

It isn’t.

The concept is an interesting one. It makes for a great setting for a video game. In fact, had this been a video game, it would probably be… Oh, wait. People in armor suits using ill-explained, high-tech weaponry to fight off a bunch of out-of-control biomatter that is hell-bent on infecting all living things everywhere? That’s Halo. They slapped roller-blades on these fighters and redesigned the vehicles. From there, they attempted to wrap a convoluted plotline around the whole thing. A plotline that consists primarily of “I know I told you this, but the truth is really…”. It gets really old, really fast. It also leads to the other big issue of this show. The dialogue on this show is HORRIBLE. Half of everything said is someone repeating what they…

…were told. And just like that. They say half of it, wait for over two seconds, and say the other half. It isn’t just a part of the Dub script. This is how the original Japanese was written. You think I’m being overdramatic? Yuya, who is secretly the cloned mind and body of the doctor who came up with the science behind this whole thing, pulls this Word-Gap-Word stuff over paper airplanes. He’s sitting there confused about PAPER AIRPLANES. That’s episode one. The rest of the series, every character pulls it whenever a new term or plot twist (I’m being generous here) is brought up. Or, they’ll do it once or twice when a character is explaining their feelings, backstory, or motivations. These backstories and motivations are so thin, they might as well not exist. We have two of the divers comparing their sob stories to fight for Aiko’s… Man, I don’t even understand. This is the extent of their character development and is about a mile more than many of the other characters. Those characters that do have development only give that through a series of double-fakes and half-stories. These backstories aren’t even all that interesting. It’s a bunch of stock characters that feel like they should all die by the end of the story, but they don’t. They just keep running around like half-baked people.

So, you’re thinking that with all this horrible writing, it couldn’t get any worse. Friend-o, you have no idea. Take a quick look at all the voice actors involved in this. I saw a pattern. None of them have voice acting credits in anything but Spanish and Portuguese translations. And not many of those shows either. These are Netflix’s B-String actors, and it shows. The male characters have less personality in their voice than their writing. Every youthful female uses a piercingly high-pitched voice. That voice isn’t natural to them at all, and they have to force it out. So, when you have an entire series of terribly written girls with a screeching, fake voices, it doesn’t take long for it to grate on your every nerve. In fact, I was rather annoyed partway through the first episode. I found myself screaming in frustration in the second. By the tenth, I was feeling numb, restless, and edgy. All from how terrible everything BUT the animation was in this show.

Courtesy: Netflix

Oh, yeah. That art and animation make this almost worth watching this show. Other than the vehicles, I couldn’t tell where the traditional animation ended and where the CG began. Character designs were polished. Hanaharu Naruko did great work, and those armor suits they are wearing make great logical sense. Each character is wearing different color accents to make it easy to tell them apart. My only issue is that the suit is supposed to protect them from the atmosphere of the Burst, but it doesn’t cover their mouths in the slightest. Slight logical thing. The show has a couple other designers working here, and I enjoyed their work as well. Takaeshi Takakura designed the vehicles and machines, which have a great vibe. Most of the mecha have notes of that load lifter from Aliens, only militarized and made from modern-looking tech. Everything is designed for maximum mobility over rough terrain. It’s a good look. On the other side of the equation is Kazuhiro Miwa. Every creepy crawly and monster in this show was dredged from his head. It looks like the Flood from Halo got its nasty on with the Zerg from Starcraft and somehow a bunch of amoebas got involved. It’s grody, disturbing, and looks like it’s an inch away from a tentacle hentai. Never once does it cross that line though. I never really felt like this show was actually attempting fanservice or flashing titillating graphics at us to make us think this show was good. The design, animation, cinematography were all solid. Not jaw-dropping, but good enough to be worth watching… if only everything else in the show wasn’t an unbearable mess.

Best Way to Watch

I would recommend spacing the episodes out over several days, if not weeks. The grating writing and spirit-rending voices will destroy you otherwise.. After a moment of testing by jumping through various episodes, I can confirm that you should NOT watch the English Dub. The original Japanese voice acting is just fine. It doesn’t solve the writing, but it’s better than watching a show on mute. Have some M&Ms or other candy on hand. It isn’t worth popcorn or alcohol, but some candy will at least keep the bad taste out of your mouth.

Score

Summary

When a Netflix translation is so bad that it takes a poorly written show and makes it unwatchable, it makes me wonder why it was brought over at all. Still, the art and animation gave me something to enjoy, and barely saves the series from being entirely worthless. I give it three points out of ten, and they should be happy they get that.

3.0/10