Photon

Original Title: フォトン
Romanized: Photon
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

On the backwater desert world creatively known as Sandy Planet, Aun has stolen her village's holy item and run off to marry a rock star. This isn't the first time, so, as usual, the elders send her adoptive brother Photon out after her--a kind hearted, young-looking fellow with superhuman strength and not too much going on between the ears. But, not as usual, this time Photon runs into Keyne, an intergalactic rebel who crash-landed on her way to find a powerful project of her grandfather's. And accidentally engages himself to her. Then a megalomaniac named Papacha shows up to capture Keyne and take over the galaxy. Oh, and the galactic princess Lashara, Papacha's love, is wondering where he's off to as well.

Anyway, it's not long before Keyne and Aun are competing for Photon's interest, Papacha's started a one-sided rivalry with Photon, and the fate of the galaxy lies in the hands of a bunch of idiots.

Review

Rating: 4 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-06-15

Photon is superficially a standard harem show--a collection of lively women, a villain or two, and a clueless male at the center of it all. Within this genre it stands out as crude, cartoony, and having an odd emotional infant as the male lead. Most importantly, though, Photon is funny. Very, very funny.

Up front, it has two problems: It is outrageously stupid (if that's even a negative) and it gets way too serious toward the end.

The last couple of episodes are comparatively straight, but that's almost expected in any comedy with even a passing amount of plot, and the transition isn't jarring. The problem is the first half of the last episode, which comes out of nowhere and seems to have been spliced in from an entirely different series.

That dark, borderline disturbing fifteen minutes or so introduces a totally new villain, hauls out a bunch of confusing and entirely meaningless plot, and nearly inverts the mood. In whatever (serious) series it belongs in it would have been an effective climax, but it has no business being in this one. Fortunately, it doesn't last long; the remainder of the episode goes on to have exactly the sort of wacky, mildly dramatic, generally humorous climax that you'd expect.

As for actual plot in Photon, there really isn't any. People are doing stuff, there's a lot of incoherent babbling about some sort of Aho/Anti-Aho mumbo-jumbo, and in the last episode it all turns out to relate to a plan for galactic domination and some other incomprehensible sidestep. None of it makes the slightest bit of sense, but frankly I was laughing too hard to care.

And that's the good: Photon is hilarious. It's also pure stupid and requires a slightly warped sense of humor, but something funny enough to bring me to tears more than once is rare, so I have to give Photon its due. Bawdy, chaotic, multi-layered, and full of tasteless humor and outright cartoon slapstick, it is a Pioneer/AIC comedy taken to the limit.

It is, however, the villain who makes this series. Papacha is the perfect, lecherous combination of posturing vanity, self-centered megalomania, and outlandish habits. He is simultaneously so vile and so pathetic that you can't help but love him. He's followed everywhere by the Pochini, a band of tubby gofer/cheerleader/yes-things who do their darndest to set up his dramatic entrances. Oh, and he spends the bulk of the series wearing nothing but a pair of striped boxer shorts (in most of the rest his hirsute form is completely naked, thankfully followed around by a black spot or two).

The other unique character is our hero, Photon. Part sweet innocent, part powerful superhero-type, and part simpleton, it's never quite clear whether he's an underdeveloped child or just looks and acts like one. His doe-eyed innocence and loyal personality make him hard not to like, his emotional and intellectual underdevelopment and extremely needy nature make him somewhat interesting as a character, and his strength makes him meaningful to the plot and a tad mysterious. On the annoying side, it's uncomfortably unclear whether his "suitors" want to be his girlfriend or his mom, and it doesn't make any sense that they're falling over themselves for him either way. Still, he's an interesting center for the plot to revolve around.

The rest of the cast are a stock lot from Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, et al: Feisty Keyne (an appealing mix of normal, mean, and an edge of honestly sweet), "cute" Aun (even meaner and viciously annoying), and the innocent, naive princess Lashara. There's also a cute squirrel/computer Ryohki rip-off. Later in the series, one of the yes-things, Pochini #1, takes on a bigger role, and is ironically the most sympathetic character in the series.

Keyne and Aun's brutal oneupsmanship is the other main source of humor in the series. The field of battle ranges from cookoffs to an unrelenting stream of insults and breast jokes (lots of breast jokes).

It's a bit hard to get past the humor, but the bonus character is the setting. The world of Photon is just the sort of creatively constructed place that makes other AIC/Pioneer series so memorable. Imaginative locales, customs, and abilities--Aun can freeze time in a bubble around herself--abound. About the only generic thing is the obligatory hot springs. The series is also loaded with technology either so advanced that it looks like magic, or actually is--fanciful devices for starting fires, whimsical hoverskiffs, and write-on spells. Importantly, the characters treat all this in the nonchalant way they should--nobody explains how a bunch of magic marker (good pun) lines levitate a ship--making it all that much easier to suspend disbelief. I love that sort of thing, so this series scores big.

Visually, Photon is surprisingly good. There's consistently fluid character animation, properly exaggerated gag animation, and even snazzy action. As cartoony as it is early on, I was surprised how little it bothered me, and how little it affects the solidity of the world. The character designs are attractive if not imaginative (excepting the almost too-cute Photon and the downright weird-looking Papacha), and are drawn in the bright, crisp style you'd expect from a Movic/AIC production. The backgrounds are fanciful and detailed, and although most of the series takes place in a desert (it's called Sandy Planet for a reason), there are still a number of interesting locations. The mechanical design is equally fun, contributing hugely to the atmosphere.

The Japanese acting is good stuff. The unquestionable star is Kouichi Yamadera's Papacha: A perfect blend of studly, silly, and "I'm Bad!", with oodles of flourish and extra touches (clearing his throat before laughing maniacally, for example). Photon's likable, childish tone matches his look and weird personality quite well. The performance also manages to make his ultra-innocence believable without being annoying, and that's impressive. Aun, on the other hand, is annoying, but she's written to be. The female leads do their part to carry the humor--their rapid-fire back-and forth banter, pot shots, and outright insults are smooth and funny.

Speaking of which, the comic timing in Photon is dead on, both among the cast and in the purely visual scenes (a particular situation involving a doll popping a seam and the half-asleep villain reacting in proxy comes to mind as a perfect example).

The dub is far less remarkable--generally a little lower-key than the Japanese, and the timing isn't nearly as sharp. Keyne is underacted for the part and although Aun is more true to the original, she's even more annoying. Photon is a lot different--his deadpan, adult-sounding voice clearly establishes the character as an underdeveloped adult. This interpretation is weirder and somewhat less likable, though it still works. About the only cast member who lives up to the Japanese version is Pochini (Pochinis, actually)--high pitched and funny.

The series opens with an interesting, exotic instrumental piece (after the first two episodes--apparently they skipped the opening to fit in more jokes before that), and there's a lively, fun end theme (rather less silly than I would have expected). The background music is sparse but appealing and relatively creative--some exotic tunes similar to the opening and a couple of in-story gag songs and intro themes that had me laughing.

In summary, Photon is an old-school AIC/Pioneer harem show that forsakes most of the romance, almost all of the drama, ratchets the humor up four or five notches, and fills the rest out with heaps of totally tasteless situation comedy. It even manages to serve up an imaginative world. How much you enjoy the series as a whole will depend a lot on how much the random serious turn near the end bothers you, whether it's too silly and base to appeal to your sense of humor, and how willing you are to ignore (or enjoy) the mass stupidity and complete and total lack of plot. Personally, I think Photon is more fun than it has any right to be.

Related Recommendations

Shares a similar theme, characters, and style with all manner of harem shows. To single out a few of the most similar Pioneer series from around the same time, it shares creative worlds and characters with the variety of Tenchi Muyo and El Hazard series. Among those it is probably the most similar to either the wilder parts of GXP, or the final episode of the El Hazard: Alternative World series.

US DVD Review

The DVD (since re-released at a budget price) is a solid but more or less standard USM production of the era--it features English and Japanese soundtracks (stereo in Japanese, Dolby 5.1 in English, which sounds better) and reasonably sharp video. Being that it's based on the same masters as the dubbed tapes, the even episodes roll the dub cast, while the odd ones leave the Japanese credits intact, although the basic Japanese cast is translated on the reverse of the box cover (it's visible through the clear case, as with most of USM's DVDs). Extras include a meet-the-cast special feature (thankfully available in both languages) and a whole bunch of stuff viewable through a cheesy little (Windows only) application on a computer: The basic cast of both languages (same as the box), the complete production staff, complete scripts of all six episodes (wow), and a fairly large gallery of stills (which look oddly dark and grainy) and a few cels (these are also all available in a folder on the disc, if you're so inclined).

Content Guide

Photon looks silly, but is not for children. A lot of mature themes, generally crude jokes, raunchy situations, and a whole lot of nudity (particularly early on--Keyne spends the entire first episode naked, although the villain thankfully benefits from a dot or two). Plus, there is more serious violence and disturbing situations at the end than the silly situations would belie. I would say it easily qualifies as 16-up on balance. Even USM couldn't seem to make up its mind--the back of the box laughably claims "brief nudity" (brief if you're a nudist, maybe), but the video itself has their standard "adult" warnings on it).

Violence: 3 - Mostly very silly (and bloody), but some serious stuff toward the end

Nudity: 4 - A whole lot of female nudity and some exposed men as well.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - Raunch abounds.

Language: 3 - Not too much outright swearing, but fairly crude.

Notes and Trivia

There are two ongoing puns in the series, both of which were probably intentional, but only one of which most non-Japanese people would notice. The fact that the "holy item" used to draw magical spells happens to be a "magic marker" is not a coincidence--they're called "majikku inki" in Japanese.

The other one is the Aho power the story revolves around. "Aho" is a common insult that comes from the Kansai dialect, meaning "idiot" (actually, most Japanese insults mean either that or just an insulting form of "you"). Even the bastardized version of Papacha's name (translated as "Papachump") is, in Japanese, a mangled version of "Aho" (with a similar meaning). It also gives the English subtitle of the DVD, Idiot Adventures, a lot more meaning (I doubt that was intentional, though).

Although there is no comic version, in early 1996 (almost two years before the release of the first OAV) KBS (the Kyoto Broadcasting System) aired a Photon radio drama on the show "Orikasa Ai's Moonlight Cafe." The plot differed, as did the cast--Orikasa Ai voiced Keyne, for example (this probably explains her small part as Aun's sister in the OAV version). There were also two radio drama CDs released at about the same time as the first volumes of the OAVs (LaserDisc only, as was often the case in Japan during the '90s), but these are not related to the original KBS broadcast. Somewhat ironically, there was no Japanese DVD available until late 2003.

Finally, a note on USM's rather confused DVD age notes: Although the box itself lists no age restrictions (except for the drastically understated "contains violence and brief nudity"--what do they consider not brief?), the disc has USM's standard "Adult" warning on it. It also has their boilerplate notice that all characters shown naked or involved in hanky panky are 18 or over. This may be a response to the vast amounts of nudity, and it fits with the voicing of the dub's take on Photon, but I get the feeling it was mainly because Photon is shown naked in relative detail and they didn't want to get any pedophilia complaints, even though everything that happens to him could just as easily be interpreted as mothering.

Ironically, although his age is ambiguous, the fact that Photon is drawn naked and with detail implies that he's young enough that it couldn't be considered sexual, due to the way Japanese laws worked at the time it was made. Specifically, Japanese law allowed you to show little naked kids running around in anime, and female breasts are acceptable (even on TV in small amounts) but detailed full frontal nudity of either sex as an adult is largely a no-no. Thus, Papacha gets a censor spot (thankfully), while Photon is exposed.

Availability

Available in the US on one Hybrid DVD from US Manga Corps, since re-released in a budget version. Was originally available on three subtitled or dubbed VHS volumes, long out of print.

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