Julien Neaves, Editor
Plot: On a planet with an exiled princess and a governor obsessed with the returning her to power by any means necessary, a robot that can think and act human may be everyone's only hope.
Review: I heard 1986 OVA The Humanoid mentioned in passing on a Facebook page and added it to my list of retro anime to watch and review. And I am happy to report that I really enjoyed it. With a moderate SPOILER ALERT let's dive in.
When you lift the lid of a toilet that you didn't close
The animation here is cool and the quality level on par with what you would expect for the era. The music is also decent with the standout being its banger of a "tension" theme. And there are some entertaining sequences of Sci Fi blasting action. The main cast of characters are pretty likeable, including flyboy Eric, his doting girlfriend Sheri, his coffee-loving partner Alan and affable robot scientist Dr Watson (not THAT Dr Watson). The villain Governor Proud, however, could not have been a more obvious bad guy if it was tattooed in neon colours across his forehead, though his motive not being the old "world domination" shtick was welcome.
The most memorable character is easily the titular Humanoid Antoinette. She's a softspoken robot helper whose design feels like a throwback to the machine-human Metropolis. Her grappling to understand humanity and emotions is not a revolutionary concept, and is done on a very surface level here, but it worked for her. And the transition of her being all sweet and friendly to blasting away fools and robots was such fun. She really had some Terminatrix vibes going there.
More tea meatbag?
What prevents The Humanoid from being a top tier anime is its length. It's only 45 minutes long and the brief runtime does not allow for storylines to be fleshed out and developed. There is a core plot point of Antoinette falling in love with Eric and being desperate to save him, but they rarely spend any time together and it feels forced. And we never find out why Governor Proud is willing to put the entire planet in danger just to restore the Princess. Some contexts for his evil machinations would have been welcome. And I also would have appreciated a couple of more scenes of Antoinette in action.
The OVA may not have done anything new in terms of storytelling and it is criminally short, but it is still entertaining for what it is and definitely worth checking out.
Editor Jules' Score: 6.5 out of 10
Are you a fan of The Humanoid? Sound off in the comments. And you can check out more retro anime content below:
TOY SOLDIERS: THE VENUS WARS RETRO REVIEW
DOMINION TANK POLICE (1988) IS SO VERY WEIRD
DOES CYBER CITY OEDO 808 LIVE UP TO THE HYPE
Julien "Editor Jules" Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by the Cryptkeeper, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like "13 flavours of awesome sauce". Read more.
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