Psychic Wars

Summary: >

Ukyo is a doctor who removes a mysterious tumor from an old woman. As it happens this tumor is in fact a demon, and the old woman bestows upon him the power to face an evil which has been brewing for 5000 years. Ukyo is in search of the source of the demons when he happens upon some ancient ruins. He ends up traveling through time to 5000 years in the past where he saves the meager Japanese people from the far more technologically advanced demons who dwell nearby. Ukyo decides to sneak into their ONE city to stop them. There he finds all their explosives in ONE PLACE and blows them all up, but not before a few of them escape into the future. Ukyo has to save humanity, but there is the looming threat of the demon goddess who he has yet to face.

Thoughts: >

Psychic Wars is a title with all the warning signs of being bad, but far exceeded my expectations how bad it gets. My ratings aren't low because I hate this title, they're that low because things are really THAT bad. Even the title "Psychic Wars" has nothing to do with the show. If you're going to pick a title that has nothing to do with the story, then why choose something as dumb as "Psychic Wars"? By the end this wasn't even a question in my mind, because pretty much everything about this anime was dumb and there for no reason, so why stop with the title?

My only explanation for the animation is that there must have been two animation teams working separately. The non action stuff looks like decent lower budget designs in typical classic anime. It's in the action sequences where this one goes down the toilet and looks like a completely different show. The designs are horrendous. The demons could have been grafted out of a 60s cartoon. Ukyo normally looks like a "buff" doctor, but in action sequences becomes a disproportioned blob. The worst thing about this title is how choppy it is. With a totally warped sense of perspective along with really disjointed animation, it can be hard to tell what is even happening on the screen. Like trying to make sense of crumpled up paper.

The story and characters are something else. Ukyo is a serious doctor who is dedicated to.. something in a way that is hilariously cliche. He and his ever devoted nurse fall in love (or were already in love - the relationship is too badly developed to tell). There is no development in the characters, their relationship, or the story. If you took a bunch of action based comic strips, and cut them up and then assembled a (really bad) story out if it, that's much what Psychic Wars feels like. It doesn't fill in any blanks at all, and goes from one incoherent scene to the next. The lack of context in how these flow together makes it even more disjointed. Most of the story wasn't even necessary. It's hard to believe that it took an entire hour for this uncoordinated heap of junk to pan out.

The weirdest thing about this anime is the squadron of Buddhist nuns. Think of a photo of a choir of nuns standing with their palms pressed together in prayer. Now if you took that photo and moved it through the air, you have a pretty good approximation of how these flying nuns show up in this anime. This nun squadron shows up at the weirdest times, often explaining to Ukyo what he's supposed to be doing, or assisting him with demons when his cheesy yellow glow (which I guess is a super power) doesn't appear to be working properly.

The music is terrible too. Some of these older titles have a super cheesy synthesizer every now and then, but that's the only form of music this even had! Dubbing or subtitles? Seriously, it doesn't matter. It's not like you're going to enjoy this LESS. The vast majority of dialog in Psychic Wars is simply grunting. Whether you hear "GRRR", "ughhh" or "Huuuuurrrrr" in English or Japanese makes little difference.

Scary as it sounds, this still isn't the worst anime I've seen. In the end I still hate Sword for Truth more, but this one is certainly a member of the unholy trinity of worst anime. Complete crap from start to finish.

Screen Caps: >