Megazone 23 Part III (Manga UK Dub): *sigh*... Hard On. Done Laughing Yet? OK, Let's Move On...

Back in April of 2013, I reached my second milestone review with Review #100, in which I watched & reviewed Robotech the Movie, an infamous Frankenstein's Monster of a movie produced by Harmony Gold meant to tie into its loose amalgamation of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, & Genesis Climber Mospeada. Originally, Robotech creator Carl Macek wanted to simply dub Macross: Do You Remember Love?, but due to "political reasons" wasn't able to do so, so he went with licensing Megazone 23 (pronounced "two three"), specifically the Part I OVA, but movie distributor Cannon Films didn't like the end result (too many girls & not enough action), forcing Macek to jam in Southern Cross footage so that more action would be included. Also, Harmony Gold paid AIC & Artmic to produce a new, happier ending for Megazone 23 Part I, which became Robotech the Movie's ending; said new ending makes no sense in the context of Megazone 23 itself. However, it was likely through all of this licensing & production that resulted in Victor Entertainment hiring Harmony Gold to produce an English dub for Megazone 23 Part II, which today is now known as the "International" dub, which I also reviewed.

So, after eight years, I think it's time to finally end this trilogy of "infamous English dubs of Megazone 23" by looking at the most maligned dub of all, which itself goes with the most maligned Part of the entire franchise.

I just realized that if you add an "x" in the middle of
"Megazone 23 III", yet get "Megazone 6IX". Nice.

While 1983's Dallos is the first anime released straight to home video, & did make a profit, 1985's Megazone 23 was the first "Original Video Animation" to become a big hit, which lead to Part II coming out a little over a year later, despite there being no plans for a sequel originally. However, continued support for the two OVAs resulted in a third production, Megazone 23 Part III, being produced & released in 1989. Unlike what came before, though, Part III was actually a two-episode OVA, so you might see some mention of a "Part IV" online, but that's really just Episode 2 of Part III. To say that Part III didn't receive as much love from fans would be an understatement, with AIC even stating that their (long) planned reboot Megazone 23 SIN would only cover Part I & II. However, that certainly didn't stop Manga Entertainment UK from licensing Megazone 23 Part III (and ONLY Part III), produce an English dub for it, & release it on a single VHS tape in 1995 (simply titling the release "Megazone 23"), the same year Carl Macek finally got his wish & produced an uncut English dub for Part I via Streamline Pictures. Manga UK's Part III dub has since become extremely rare & elusive, having never been re-issued in any later release of Megazone 23. Even AnimEigo's most recent Kickstarter-backed Blu-Ray boxset doesn't have it, and that has literally every other English dub produced for Megazone 23, minus Robotech the Movie (for obvious reasons). However, it's actually been available over on YouTube ever since 2008, though split up across 15 parts (due to length restrictions of the time), while Mike Toole (of ANN & Discotek Media fame) uploaded a rip of the Manga UK dub to Archive.org just last month (& matched the audio to ADV's DVD release, at that!), so it's time to for me to finally watch Megazone 23 Part III, see how bad it truly is, & then see if Manga UK's dub deserves to have never been given an invite to the English dub reunion party that AnimEigo held.

Eiji Takanaka is a hacker living in Eden, the apparently final remaining city on Earth, and he's about to join E=X, an organization that protects the System, which monitors all residents of Eden & allows them to live the free lives they enjoy. Namely, E=X works to fight against the netjackers, a seeming terrorist group that, in their own words, wants to take out the System so as to "free" Eden & its residents. Eiji's hacker past is found out by E=X shortly after joining, but Director Jacob Halm feels that Eiji's experience makes him a perfect candidate to operate a Garland, a transformable motorcycle that allows E=X agents to hunt down netjackers. However, who's really in the right here, what does Eiji have to do with the battle between E=X & the netjackers, what relation do the netjackers have with game studio Orange (the makers of the hit VR arcade game Hard On, which Eiji is an expert at), what is the mysterious "Project Heaven" that E=X is planning for, & why does it seem like Eve, the virtual idol whose songs everyone loves, is trying to protect Eiji from harm?

As I mentioned, Megazone 23 Part III is the least-beloved entry in the iconic pioneer of the OVA, and it really comes down to one major problem: It should not have been a Megazone story. If this was allowed to be a completely original anime, then I think would have been slightly better received, if maybe forgotten with time. However, this was the next "Part" of a beloved sci-fi story, and while it does take place "over 1,000 years" after Part II, the second episode does a lot to tie it to what came before. Unfortunately, pretty much everything Part III does to tie back to the past kind of runs counter to the very thematic point of everything that came before. For example, it's explained that the System was established shortly after the end of Part II, in which a (relatively) small subset of survivors from the Megazone have the chance to restart humanity on Earth. Unfortunately, the existence of the System goes completely against everything original lead character Shogo Yahagi fought for in Part I & II. Shogo's battle against B.D. was that of a generational gap, in which the old generation felt that they knew better for all future generations, only to then realize that they needed to let the younger generation move forward on their own. Therefore, why would Shogo agree to produce an autonomously-run "System" that will eventually decide the future of humanity, instead of trusting that the future generations can decide for themselves? Trust me, I can go more into this (I won't even get into E=X's leader, Bishop Won Dai), but I'll refrain from that, so let's just get to Part III as its own story.

In that regard, Part III still has its faults, though not for a lack of trying. The first episode's main flaw is that it introduces a lot of different things, but in the end some of it is rather ancillary (like almost all of Eiji's friends), while the rest does play a factor but feels very front-loaded. For example, the video game Hard On plays a very heavy focus in Episode 1, as it's how Eiji's piloting skills are shown off & establishing why Sion, one of the main guys within the netjackers, has a vested interest in him, but otherwise has no relevance afterwards. Meanwhile, we see a lot of talk of "cycling out" & the like without ever getting an explanation, but a quick line in Episode 2 vaguely indicates that it's nothing more than a futuristic way of saying that someone has graduated to adulthood, as in finishing school. The second episode, however, focuses highly on relating everything to prior Megazone history, complete with Eiji feeling that he's a "replacement" for Shogo, followed by a major conflict between the netjackers & E=X, the reveal of Project Heaven to everyone, and then proper final conflicts between Eiji & Jacob, followed by Won Dai. Unfortunately, this also results in some really unfortunate or bizarre character moments that I'll get to later, which makes it feel like two different creative staffs were behind each half, despite this not being the case.

In the end, though, it all comes down to the characters. Eiji himself is a fine enough lead character, as while he is an ex-hacker he's shown to do it mainly for improving his skills, and he initially goes into E=X with full intentions to do good & not simply kill other people. Therefore, when questionable things start to happen to him, like Jacob virtually commandeering his mind in an attempt to kill Sion, it's understandable why Eiji is more than willing to drop E=X, find out what Sion & his crew are so interested in, & head down to the lowest levels of Eden to find Eve & figure out things for himself. Unfortunately, Eiji's really the only major character to have any sort of real character arc, or at least one that makes sense. Love interest Ryo honestly only seems to exist for no other reason than to give Eiji a female love interest, as her involvement with Sion is pretty loose, and her only major contribution to the plot could have been done in a bunch of other ways. Jacob is rather suspicious from the very beginning, so it's not a shocker that he winds up becoming a villain who trusts 100% in the System, regardless of how messed up that decision winds up being. Sion is a mysterious netjacker who's revealed to actually be a totally cool guy, but nothing much else. Won Dai is even more mysterious until the very end, but the major reveal regarding him is not only one of the poor ways it's meant to tie in to the prior OVAs, but is also rather insulting. Finally, there's Mueller Simka, Jacob's subordinate who always means well enough, & Bud, the only one of Eiji's friends to actually do anything of note, but both are not treated all too well in Episode 2. Bud pretty much turns into a completely different person entirely for the sake of cheap drama, while Mueller is given a rather... rough sendoff, to put it lightly. Seriously, while the reason for said sendoff is understandable, Mueller doesn't deserve the wild extent of what happens to her at the end.

As for Eve, she's perfectly fine and her importance in the story does make sense, for the most part. However, her very presence is another one of those elements that feels like it was only included so that this could definitely be a Megazone story. By the end of Part II, Eve's entire purpose had been fulfilled, and Part III even kind of backs this up in Episode 2, when we do see Eve where she was left at the end of the prior OVA. However, so as to give her relevance in Eden, it's now revealed that the Eve we had known before was actually nothing more than an AI duplicate of an actual human woman who had helped design the Megazone project, which should then put her as over 1,500 years old, and when Eiji finds the "real" Eve at the end of Episode 1 there's no indication that she was in some sort of cryogenic stasis, so she aged rather well for being that old; it is some form of stasis, but you just shouldn't think about it much. And, really, that's the biggest problem with Part III, from a storytelling perspective: It kind of falls apart heavily when you think about it. Granted, Megazone 23 as a whole is one of those anime that has a plot that isn't meant to be thought about in a strictly literal sense, as doing so will reveal plenty of plot holes & the like (i.e. "It's just plain cool"), but Part III suffers the most from that BECAUSE of how much it wants to tie in to the prior OVAs, when it could have worked just fine with a much more nebulous connection. Both Eve & the Garland get some notable focus here, especially in Episode 2, but in the end it's only so that the viewer knows that this is the third part of what was originally intended to simply be the equivalent to a compilation film for what was made of an unproduced TV series.

But this review is specifically for Manga UK's dub from 1995, so let's break with format a little & move onto that before we get to the staff behind the anime itself. To be perfectly honest, it's not as bad as I've generally heard it being, and for a Manga UK dub it surprisingly is light on the profanity, though there still are a handful of naughty words sprinkled in here & there. Really, its main problem is just that it sounds a wee bit too cheesy for its own good, as the actors tend to play up scenes more than they really should, giving some minor extra humor when there really shouldn't be. There are also a couple of minor differences in names, like Bud becoming "Bird" or Mueller's last name now being "Shimuka", with the first likely just being a mishearing of the Japanese audio & the second being a simple case of being too literal with the katakana. Meanwhile, E=X becomes "X-I", Jacob becomes "Yakov", Drakeman (the head of Orange) becomes "Drakman", Sion becomes "Zion", Ryo apparently becomes "Rhea", & Shogo's last name is kind of mutilated, but that's kind of to be expected with most anime dubs of that time when it comes to some Japanese names. Likewise, some of the line deliveries are a little awkward, but nothing especially infamous or meme worthy. That being said it's kind of surprising that this is the end result, considering that both John Wolskel & Michael Bakewell were apparently in charge of directing these dubs, and these are the people behind infamous dubs like Violence Jack (Wolkskel) or Angel Cop & Mad Bull 34 (Bakewell); sometimes, it really just comes down to the content you have to work with. As for the actors themselves, Michael McGhee & Lariss Murray deliver solid (for the time, at least) performances as Eiji & Ryo, & Anne Maria Zola is a decent Eve (if a little stilted & accent-slipping, at points), while Adam Malaton & Robert Glennister are a bit too awkward as Jacob & Won Dai, respectively.

Finally, we move on to the production staff for the anime itself, which is notable for once again completely changing nearly everything from the prior Megazone 23 OVA. Now in the director's chair we have the duo of Shinji Aramaki (in only his second directorial role) & Kenichi Yatagai, while the character designs now come from Hiroyuki Kitazume, with even Eve herself now being given a new design, though Haruhiko Mikimoto is still credited as the original designer for her. The end result here is overall solid animation, & Kitazume's visual style is solid, though the first episode is notorious for having a handful of moments where movement becomes a literal slideshow, as though key animation was never made for it; they're never as absurdly bad as Twinkle Nora Rock Me's infamous sections, but they're there. Meanwhile, the music by Keishi Urata is solid, if a bit unremarkably memorable, while Eve gets three new songs, all sung by Saki Takaoka, who replaces Kumi Miyasato from Part I & II (and, likewise, replaces Miyasato as Eve's new seiyuu). "Pandora no Hako" (Ep 1's ED), "Higeki no Idol" (Ep 2's ED), & "Nemurenu Mori No Bijou" (Eve's in-universe hit song) are all really good pop songs for their time, and the last does make for a good insert theme during the climactic battle between Eiji & Jacob, but Part III's soundtrack as a whole does kind of falter when compared to Shiro Sagisu's prior soundtrack &, especially, "Himitsu Ku-Da-Sa-I".

Going into this, I wasn't exactly expecting anything outstanding, due to the infamous notoriety of both Megazone 23 Part III & its Manga UK dub. That being said, I did try my hardest to go into both as neutral as possible, and the end result is both better than expected (even if only a little) & more or less agreeing with the general consensus. As a product of its own, Megazone 23 Part III is a lackluster follow up to what came before, faltering mainly in how it ties itself into the prior story, and really would have worked out better if it had been allowed to be an original property. That being said, it would likely have become a forgotten OVA if it wasn't a Megazone story, so it's kind of stuck between a rock & a hard place. As for the English dub Manga UK produced back in 1995, it's actually nowhere near as bad as its reputation precedes it, but at the same time is pretty much what is to be expected from an uncut anime dub of its time. If you want a much better Megazone 23 dub from 1995, then just watch Streamline's dub of Part I, which honestly does still hold up really well, though Streamline definitely had its own dub quirks that might rub some the wrong way. As someone who strongly supports re-releases of older anime including as much as possible when it comes to prior dubs, I am disappointed that AnimEigo wasn't able to include Manga UK's dub for Part III for its Blu-Ray release, but at the same time I'm not exactly going to say that we're really missing out on anything major.

It does feel good to finally finish up this look at Megazone 23's three infamous English dubs, though, and with the original smash hit OVA now fully covered here at The Land of Obscusion, I think it's time for me to finally start taking a look at the giant chasm that said success brought about with the OVA format. With that in mind, I think it's best to start with what came prior to Megazone 23 Part I's original release.

Anime © AIC・Flying Dog