K.O. Beast

Original Title: KO世紀 - ビースト三獣士
Romanized: KO Seiki Biisuto Sanjuushi
Literal: KO Century Three Beasketeers

Plot Synopsis

At some point, humans of the Northern and Southern hemispheres engage in a massive war. Eventually the humans of the North split the planet in two and banish the Southern hemisphere and its inhabitants to another dimension. 10,000 years later, the inhabitants of the harsh climates of the North have evolved into beast-creatures who worship ancient robotic weapons as Totems. Unfortunately for these people, the humans of the South have opened a rift back, and are determined to wipe out the beast people and reclaim the land. That's the backstory, but as for what's actually going on...

So far as the story on screen goes, two smooth looking baddies, V-Darn and V-Sion, plus their tiny demonic sidekick Akumako, have been charged by the evil Human leaders with finding the ancient power of Gaia. Only four beast people and one human stand in their way: Wan of the cats, Bud of the birds, Mei-Mer of the mer-people, Tuttle (of the... turtles?), and the mysterious human girl Yuni. Fortunately for the good guys, Wan, Bud, and Mei-Mer each have a powerful Totem fighting on their side.

Quick Review

Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-11-10

K.O. Beast is exactly what it looks like: stupid, manic, juvenile comedy. Do not expect any original plot whatsoever, anything that looks like backstory, or anything remotely resembling character development. Even the jokes, which aim low and hit even lower, are about as stale as they come (with a few rare exceptions). Thankfully, at least it's reasonably good stupid, manic, juvenile comedy. The banter is non-stop and likably acted with plenty of spunk in both Japanese and English, the animation is colorful and fast enough to keep up, and there are even a couple of jokes stupid enough to be really funny. Sadly, the first couple of episodes and the final one are much lighter on the humor and heavier on the drama, and therefore also mostly bad.

K.O. Beast is not for people looking for anything even close to originality, or for people who do not have an extreme tolerance for lame, overused jokes and endless pratfalls. If you're so inclined, though, it should at least make for an amusing diversion once you get past the first couple of episodes.

US DVD Review

The DVDs from RightStuf are put together reasonably well. The weak point is the video, which is both a bit rough due to age and shows some noticeable compression artifacts in the more chaotic scenes (of which there are a lot), though it's not terrible and the audio is passible. There are plenty of extra goodies, though: character bios (this is actually useful info, since the backstory is totally unexplained within the anime itself), lots of semi-amusing outtakes from the dub, some interesting notes by the translator, some text snippets from interviews with the Japanese staff and voice actors that went with the Japanese DVD release, and one unedited (and subtitled) original opening on each disc. My only complaint is that they didn't use the original opening on the first disc, instead using the same opening theme for the entire series, although the original one is included as a bonus on disc 1 and definitely worth checking out.

Content Guide

Rated 13-up on account of some off-color humor and a bit of rough language, it's generally pretty mild.

Violence: 2 - There's a lot of fighting, but it's not very graphic.

Nudity: 1 - Nothing noteworthy.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Nothing past some off-color humor.

Language: 2 - A bit of rough language.

Notes and Trivia

The original title, KO Seiki Biisuto Sanjuushi is something of a pun; "sanjuushi" is the Japanese title of The Three Musketeers, usually written with characters meaning "three", "gun", and "warrior." In this case, the middle character, "juu" is written with the character for "beast", turning it into a pun something along the lines of "The Three Beasketeers." The first part, "KO Seiki Biisuto" is more straightforward, meaning "KO Century Beast."

The series is actually made up of two OAV series, the first with three episodes and the sequel with four.

Availability

Available in the US from RightStuf on three hybrid DVDs; three episodes on the first, two each on the other two.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store