Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Burn Up Excess

June 30, 2005 on 11:24 pm | In Burn Up Excess | 1 Comment

Burn Up Excess: best in a franchise. A franchise that took me two years to realise that X follows W in the alphabet.

The case of the virtual drug of Burn-Up W is most likely past the statute of limitations or something, so Burn Up Excess is an entirely new series of cases, with one overall case tying up the 13 episode series. Regardless, it starts in almost exactly the same way as W: the opening of a major tourist attraction is foiled by a terrorist group that are actually a smokescreen for a greater scheme (led by Ruby, a mysterious woman in sunglasses …).

All sorts of smokescreens show up for the rest of the series, except for a few “side story” episodes that are generally comedy extravaganzas. The main story is told fairly well, with Ruby showing up at the right moments; the tie-ins of the first three episodes with the last three are actually quite impressive. The final episode is surprisingly violent, or perhaps not, given that this is part of the Burn Up franchise.

When it is not concentrating on the Ruby story, Burn Up Excess has one goal alone: fan service. Bras, panties and bouncing boobs are its raison d’etre, and if there were awards for such a thing, this series would have won the 1997 fan service awards. This was before fan service became the tawdry festival of whatever it is in titles such as Ikkitousen.

In the quest for fan service, the show uses one particularly good scene not once, but seven times, with only two variations in animation. This is stretching the friendship just a tiny bit, but is possibly made up for by the show’s epilogue, which is essentially a three minute shower scene … it happens to cloud the definitive ending of the series with a bit of an ambiguity, but whatever.

The director of animation is Ikeda Yuji, notable for his work on Master Keaton; notable in that he has brought the attention that he gave Europe, China and Japan to the design of underwear. Give him a medal, I say.

Imai Yuka makes a triumphant return as the delightful Rio, always in search of money; in fact, the entire cast of Burn-Up W returns. The exception is Kingetsu Mami stepping into the role of Maki, overtaking Shibata Yumiko. Along with the revised “young Maki” design, all connection to the disastrous Burn Up! is lost. I think it’s a fair trade.

The OP, Showtime, is a good clue to the fan service antics that are found within; better still is Future Dream: “Shine your power! Believin’ on dream! Open your world!” It’s that kind of good, and set to delightful semi-SD animation.

Burn Up Excess doesn’t rock quite so much as it did when I was a relative fan service novice, but I find it to be one of the most tasteful examples of the “genre”. Burn Up Excess isn’t rocket science; it’s breast physics.