Summary: >

Somewhere from the depths of space comes a race of beings known as Cthuwulf. Their plan is to take over the Earth as their new home. Initially it was supposed to be a subtle takeover, but the warrior known as Iczer 1 forces their hand. While appearing like a normal human on the outside, she's actually an extremely capable combat android. She is also the pilot for the powerful giant robot Iczer Robo. However Iczer Robo requires a power source. And as strange as this sounds, Iczer 1 needs to find a person to act as that power source, so she figures some run of the mill schoolgirl from Japan would be ideal. I guess. Anyway, Nagisa isn't very happy about any of this, but as the hand of the Cthuwulf is forced, the battle for humanity is forced out to the open and parts of the world laid to waste.

Various Cthuwulf forces are sent to deal with Iczer 1, usually also in giant robots. At first it was Cobalt, then Sepia. But the story isn't exactly so cut and dried either. As it happens, the Cthuwulf aren't evil at all, they have only been corrupted by the evil being known as Big Gold. Iczer 1 was created by none other than the Cthuwulf themselves, and now fights against them and the crimes Big Gold forces them to partake in.

This all does not sit well with Nagisa who was just a school girl until not to long ago and gets more and more traumatized with each passing hour. With all the fighting her energy begins to wane. And it starts to come at the worst time possible, because the next weapon brought to bear on Iczer 1... is her newly created evil sister Iczer 2!

Thoughts: >

I hope my description doesn't make this title seem more interesting then it really is. The plot is actually quite linear. It starts out as the Earth is seemingly normal, but Iczer 1 starts harassing the persistently annoying Nagisa. Monsters keep attacking, and eventually it breaks out into an all out war. Once that happens, it's basically giant robot vs giant robot.

The violence is quite graphic in some respects, but didn't age well. The mecha are actually pretty cool, but the character designs are poor. The aliens kinda strike me as the typical evil tentacle type monsters that were common back in the day with anime. It's supposed to be scary in a way, but it just lacks that certain something to really pushes your adrenaline up.

Actually the only reason your adrenaline goes up, is because Nagisa is so utterly annoying. It doesn't matter that she's naked so often, you still want her to go away. I can't believe I just said that. In any event you start to doubt yourself when you realize that the grizzly demise of all humanity might be worth it if they manage to take out Nagisa as well. The fact that most of this anime is centered around her tends to make much of the title rather painful. Iczer 1 is the all out fight against the evil type of hero that is oddly uninteresting. Aside from the lesbian alien girls most of the villains aren't that engaging either. Except of course my undying fanboism towards Iczer 2.

Well you add all this together and it's all sort of "meh". The story, characters and action just aren't all that immerse. It was probably trying to strike a chord with a visual horror type experience, but it falls flat. Titles like this usually only work with an element of fun. You can't really bring enough depth in a title this short with a plot so thin and mainly fighting. Well I don't think I have to elaborate much more than this. You'll want to stay away from this title.

Historical note, I rented this in college and got food poisoning that weekend. I then got so dehydrated that I started hallucinating and actually thought aliens were attacking me. Some people have cool stories about doing drugs for that to happen, but no I just have food poisoning and anime...