Demo Disc Vol. 16: Nagaoka's Necrotic Northot

As much as we, as fans, like to give credit to singular people when it comes to celebrating titles we like, anime production is generally NOT a one-man show; sure, there is the occasional OVA or short, but those are rare & generally proof-of-concepts. However, original anime works are sometimes the creation of a single person, who then works with an entire staff to make into reality. That's what led to people like Yoshiyuki Tomino, Tadao Nagahama, & Shoji Kawamori being known as the singular names behind series like Gundam, Voltes V, & Macross. What makes this work, though, is for said singular "creator" to share their ideas with the rest of the staff, so that they are all united... Just in case something was to go horribly wrong.

A perfect example of when things go horribly wrong is seen with 2007's Engage Planet Kiss Dum.

Sorry, but Kiss Dum's eyecatch is one of those "It's better in motion" examples.

Before debuting on TV Tokyo on April 3, 2007, the sixth original animated series by Satelight was hyped up fairly well, though by debut had already gone through a number of changes. Originally, the plan was to adapt a Japanese science-fiction novel using the same staff as Macross Zero, but when Satelight couldn't get permission from the author, it was decided to switch over to being an original work. By this point, it was already decided that the director would be Yasuchika Nagaoka, a long-time animator who in the past couple decades had started making a name for himself as director by handling New Cutie Honey, both Crest & Banner of the Stars, & (most recently) Shinkon Gattai Godannar!!, the last of which was actually an original creation of his. So in March 2006, at the Tokyo International Anime Fair, Satelight announced its new upcoming anime, "Mugen Kikou/Infinite Armor Necrodiver", with Nagaoka credited as "original creator" alongside Satelight!

Obviously, the anime wouldn't actually debut for another year, & would go through a major name change in the process. However, things got very curious shortly before the first episode actually aired. Alongside the name change to Engage Planet Kiss Dum (the two halves are seemingly interchangeable), Nagaoka's "original creator" credit had also been removed, with him being replaced by "World Business Enterprise", which is so generic that I can't find any real info about it; I highly doubt it's the first result a Google search gives. Not only that, but Hidekazu Sato, who at this point had never directed a series on his own, was now the "Director", with Nagaoka being moved to the more general & less hands-on position of "Chief Director"; Hiroyuki Kanbe was also brought in as "Assistant Director". It's obvious that Nagaoka was being, more or less, removed from the entire production, but there's just one problem: He was the man who created the entire thing in the first place, the man in charge of "Series Composition", after the original novel adaptation plans were axed!

This is seemingly the only photo of Nagaoka on the web.
Ironically enough, it's of him promoting Kiss Dum.

To this day, there has been no official word as to what happened in regards to Yasuchika Nagaoka & Kiss Dum. I even tried asking Shoji Kawamori himself at Otakon last year about the show, as he did the mech designs, & his only answer, after visibly looking troubled & thinking of something to say, was simply, "It's complicated". Personally, I do remember a rumor once circulating years ago that Nagaoka may have had some sort of mental breakdown (or at least some sort of medical problem) early on, which resulted in him having to leave the show after only getting the first episode more or less finished; this is also the only episode Nagaoka personally wrote & storyboarded. It's also rumored that Nagaoka may not have written down, or even simply told anyone, what his plans were for the rest of the show, leaving the entire staff to effectively make another 25 episodes from scratch while they were making the show, working off of just the basic ideas & concepts that they had. It's been officially stated that Nagaoka was consulted during production, but it was also admitted to not be a "traditional" directorial ladder, lending more credence to the idea of him dealing with some sort of personal issue, as he obviously wouldn't be regularly available to consult with in this situation. This rumor is also made slightly more plausible when you look at Nagaoka's resume following Kiss Dum, which shows that he's only worked on six anime in the 12 years following this series (& it'd be four years before returning, in general), either doing key animation, storyboarding, or animation direction, but none of which saw him leading as "Director".

Since airing in 2007, this original version of Engage Planet Kiss Dum has never seen any sort of physical release or even re-airing, though a DVD release was planned & Bandai Visual USA even licensed it for North American release! The anime would instead be retooled into a new form a year later, which I'll get to later as its own review. However, the first 18 episodes of this original version did get fansubbed back in the day, so I guess it's time to finally see what came about, to some extent...

Hope you like really awkward looking faces...

In the year 2031, a giant fissure opened up in the Pacific Ocean, utterly destroying a cruise ship that was above on the ocean surface, killing all on board & unleashing monstrous creatures that were thought impossible to exist via evolution; humanity would called them Hadeans. In the 20 years since then, the force that opened up the fissure has made its way around the Japan Current & is currently at the Ogasawara Islands, with the Neo International Defense Force formed to take on the Hadeans sending a crew led by Yuno Rurika there to find the "Book of the Dead", a mythical item apparently related to the creatures; all Yuno finds, however, is a giant dagger. Meanwhile, Hadeans mount a surprise attack in Tokyo, resulting in NIDF pilot Shu Aiba being taken out of solitary confinement to help in the fight... While also being told to kill Yuno, his girlfriend, if she refuses to hand over the Book of the Dead. During the battle, Shu finds Yuno being attacked by a giant Hadean, and fights to protect her, resulting in his death. Unable to accept this, Yuno stabs Shu's body with the Book of the Dead, reviving him as a "Necrodiver", the chosen messenger of the human race in its ultimate battle against a force older than humanity itself, and things aren't made any easier when the NIDF's own commander betrays humanity to seemingly side with the Hadeans.

Considering the infamy the series has gotten over the 12 years since it debuted, I think it's best to first look at the positives regarding Kiss Dum. For example, the concept itself is honestly pretty damn cool. Humanity having to deal with Eldritch creatures beyond their own understanding, complete with an item named the "Book of the Dead" (even if it isn't actually a book), is something that honestly isn't done with what's, at first glace, a giant robot series, giving it a unique style. Not just that, but there's a feeling of dread & fighting an unwinnable battle throughout the show, making no one safe; it's not uncommon to see men, women, children, the elderly, & entire communities slaughtered in various episodes. To continue the unique style, Shu being an undead warrior that can absorb items into him & even utilize them in battle later on, like absorbing a bullet shot at him & then firing it back at an enemy later on, reminds me a little of Eat-Man, which is always a positive. The series even references various Cthulhu Mythos deities later created by Clark Ashton Smith, like Abhoth, which helps feed into the generally dour & untrusting mood of the show. Meanwhile, on Shu's side are his "servants", Varda, Valar, & Vairë, who are named after the "Powers of the World" from J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. Also befitting a series that utilizes Lovecraftian concepts, there's a heavy feeling of futility, as there are numerous times Shu & the people he fights alongside, whether it's his NIDF compatriots or the various resistance members, find themselves in unwinnable situations that they have to run from, lest they perish, or their attempts to protect something like a village fails, because the Hadeans found a new form that takes them by surprise.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for Kiss Dum to start to fall apart, as while the first two episodes are more than fine enough, Episode 3 is where the cracks start to show. While 95% of the episode is overall good, it's that last 5% that really suffers. Early on there's an extremely sudden transition from Shu & his squad having to make it out of a Hadean-infested area, only for Shu to freak out for a moment & then instantly things shift over to everyone all safe & sound at a NIDF base, with Shu & Yuno both being bound & thrown in separate cells, without the viewer ever seeing any of this happen; Shu being in his cell is simply stated by the man himself, as well as it being consensual. Not just that, but the episode uses the same two or three still shots or slow pans throughout, even using one of a giant Hadean in the background to establish specific moments, like a bunch of bugs blotting out the Sun or the Hadeans being stunned by Shu taking the advantage... Only for none of this to actually be seen by the viewer, since all we get is a still image; the staff didn't even bother to make the shot darker when the Sun was blotted! Finally, we hear characters sometimes say or react to something, complete with accompanying sound effects, only for the visual to, once again, just be a still frame, or even a roughly animated one. At the very least, the episode ends with the surprise betrayal of Commander Kyoka Iburi, who is later shown to be the sole survivor of the cruise ship incident in 2031, which is probably best described as "If Dancouga's Shapiro Keats started the Eclipse from Berserk", with pretty much all of the supporting cast looking to have been killed; in other words, it's honestly a really effective scene.

That is then followed by Episode 4... Which is nothing more than a recap episode which has Shu do some new narration over footage from the first three episodes; at least this time the still showing the giant Hadean was fixed to show the Sun being blotted. Yep, Kiss Dum became so much of an immediate mess of a production that the staff needed extra time to figure out how to even start to salvage the production after less than a month on the air; this might also be the record for shortest gap between first episode & a recap. After that, Episode 5 starts with a roughly half-year time skip, with the Hadeans having taken over 70% of the planet, where Shu is in Luxor to find something to help him, the Bone of Abhoth, after a final message from Yuno, during which he meets Noa Rurika, Yuno's little sister, & Iera Hamon, who are both part of the resistance fighting against the Hadeans. In all honesty, it kind of feels the staff managed to find a story that could be told with the pieces they were given, but had to do soft-restart in order to start telling it, hence "Dancouga meets Berserk" end to Episode 3. That's not to say that the original supporting cast are all gone for long, though, as they slowly start coming back with Episode 7 as resurrected semi-Necrodivers, due to their proximity when Shu was revived with the Book of the Dead. They all wind up being new foes for Shu to face, but have their own stories, like Io Aguri (who harbors a constant jealousy over Shu constantly outdoing him in the past), or Roki Demon (who finds himself unable to protect innocents from death, like how he couldn't prevent his family from dying in a tragedy, pre-war). Before anyone wonders, I'm going with "Roki" here, as his name is officially written in kanji & hiragana, so I'm avoiding going with the "foreign" name, in this case; should things change in the later full review, it'll reflect there.

Eventually, half-way through the 18 episodes I was able to watch of this original TV version, I realized that Kiss Dum pretty much stopped being anything close to a mech anime, as the Kawamori-designed unit, made up of the NES-1 Viper jet & the NES-2 Dolphin transforming robot, is more or less treated as an afterthought; also, yes, it's spelled like Nintendo's first console, & uses the "Ness" pronunciation. Instead, the anime becomes something more like The Guyver, what with Shu & his old squad-mates becoming tragic, transforming warriors that can fight the Hadeans, or each other, without any need for their jets or giant robots. Considering that the OP footage shows the NES off like crazy, I'm going to make a wild guess that Nagaoka did not intend for this change in focus, but rather wanted it to be more about Shu fighting as the Necrodiver, while his friends back him up with the NES units, giving it more of a mix of Guyver & mecha. As for the story that does get told, the various stories involving Shu's old allies are good in their own regard, if nothing mind-blowing (one wants to be a hero but can't protect anyone, another tries to protect a girl who's been turned by the Hadeans, etc.), but by the half-way point of the entire show you do realize that there's little overall story being told, as the connecting thread between these smaller stories is simply Shu, Noa, Iera, & Varda wandering from one place to the next, all in their search for Commander Iburi's location. While it's nowhere near the downright glacial pace of something like AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave- TV, Episodes 5 to 14 really feel like a car that's stuck in neutral on a very slight decline; it's not stalled, so there is still notable movement, but it never quite hits a proper gear.

Episode 15, however, hits what is easily the best episode of what's being covered in this volume of Demo Disc, mixing together a long flashback sequence with an effective use of  "It was all a dream" for some nice character strengthening between Shu, Noa, & Iera, showing that the writing staff might have finally found the proper groove, & second gear, that the show really needed by this point. Coincidentally enough, this episode also debuts new footage for the OP sequence, which puts focus more on the characters instead of the mechs, and it's seriously for the better. By this point, the OP had become the only way to even see the NES since Episode 8, which itself was a flashback; interestingly enough, the Kawamori-designed jet/mech is quickly shown as useless against the Hadeans. Following that, the last three episodes of this Demo Disc coverage continue this feeling of entering second gear, as an actual cast recurring supporting cast gets introduced, the last of the NIDF crew return & enter their own character-driven subplot, a weapon for humanity to actually fight back against the Hadeans gets introduced, and even villainous side gets some extra wrinkles to think about. Similar to humanity in the show itself, Kiss Dum looks to be entering better & more hopeful times after Episode 18, after such a long recovery from collapse.

If one can't guess already, Kiss Dum has its problems, to put it lightly, and it all comes from the production side of things. Sadly, this also applies to the visuals, because this original TV version is not a looker, by any means. In particular, faces aren't really a strong point for most of the episodes I was able to see, with all manner of awkward drawings depicting facial reactions, usually resulting more in laughter over how silly they look, rather than the intended reaction; it's especially sad to see, considering that Sushio did the character designs. Still, considering the fact that the anime was seemingly produced by the skin of its teeth, the show still manages to look, at the very least, decent or slightly better on average, which shows the talent behind the animation staff over at Satelight; even when given an unsuitable situation, they can still pull off something better than you'd expect.

Yeah, that DVD release never did get to "Engage!!"...

I was honestly kind of dreading finally going into Engage Planet Kiss Dum, because it had a bit of infamy behind it, due to the seemingly wild & troubled early development & debut. Now, after seeing these first 18 episodes, I can definitely tell that something went terribly wrong early on, and that caused the rest of the show to suffer. However, that doesn't inherently make Kiss Dum a bad show, because you can definitely tell that the staff behind the show tried their damnedest to prevent things from spiraling into the ninth level of anime production hell; this is nowhere near as ineptly made as Gundoh Musashi, nor as sanity-breakingly boring as AWOL. Yes, that second quarter of the show never really gets out of first gear, but at least stuff of actual worth happens, & character development is indeed delivered, and those last four episodes I saw gave me hope that the show will manage to stick some sort of proper landing. That being said, you can tell that I decided to focus this Demo Disc more on Kiss Dum's apparent production hell, and how that seemed to radically alter the direction the story took, alongside the sometimes rough visuals, rather than have it be a direct assessment of things like storytelling, the characters, or the people behind the animation, visual style, designs, music, or voice work.

That's because Engage Planet Kiss Dum did eventually see a home video release, one that actually did see the series officially make it outside of Japan. The path to get there, what was changed in the process, & my final feelings on the finished product as a whole, will come later when I give a proper review for Kiss Dum R - Engage Planet!

Anime © 2007 BVSN・Project NES (Bandai Visual, Satellite, Copyrights Bank)