Review: Level E

Level E

Alex: Ya know, the funny thing about Level E is that it makes every moment of its 13 episodes count. Nowdays you hardly find an adventure or a plot heavy anime make every moment count, but for a comedy anime to do that…well, it’s unheard of. If that hasn’t sold you on it, then I aim to by the end of this review.

I remember when it was first around, Mimi was like “OMG LEVEL E IS GONNA BE AWESOME”, but I saw the label “sci-fi” and “comedy”, and it put me off to the point I wasn’t excited about it anymore. Actually, it turns out that it’s absolutely fantastic. Think funky and awesome twists, outrageous comedy, and no end to the amount of twists which will have you cracking up. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that I was cracking up at the first episode and I was addicted every since. It’s had moment which caused me to fall off my chair with laughter, it’s just that good.

And the main character. That main character. Prince Baka Ki El Dogra is a douchebag through and through. He’s got an imagination so brilliant that it could scare anyone, and he has an over the top desire to cause havoc and hell for everyone, and he’s creative about it. The show DOES dip around the middle, when it takes one particular arc just an episode too far, and it doesn’t manage to live up to the amazing first episodes, but that’s not really reason enough to put the show down, since even the average episodes of Level E are better than most comedies I see.

The anime is nothing short of downright brilliance. The sheer creativity which goes into every episode, every pun and every comedy skit will leave you laughing. There’s no doubt about it.

Alex’s Score: 8 Meeps out of 10 (Very Good)

Mimi’s Score: 8 Meeps out of 10 (Very Good)

Level E Episode 13

Full Moon…!

Alex: I actually feel trolled. EVERYTHING which happened was part of the plan from the Magura Freedom Alliance. EVERYTHING. And Prince Baka’s played right into their hands, being trapped on Earth with an impostor Brother and an importer Wife trying to force him to marry.Even Kraft got himself captured…How on earth will he get out of this..?

Well, obviously, with some very clever moves from Baka Ouji. Oh, and we finally get to see Kraft snap again. God, Prince Baka is actually at his best here. He’s the smartest and the trollest he’s ever been as he unravels the plan to save the Earth. A perfectly fitting and intelligent finale to the best comedy i’ve seen.

Level E Episode 12

Half Moon…!

Alex: Yeah okay late post. It’s been kinda hectic with all the reviews to start writing, I get behind on the little things.

Anyway, if i’m honest, it was an unspectacular episode for Level E. It used an odd mix of humour and seriousness, and neither of them really sank through. It’s kind of a shame, considering you can use the whole Prince’s Brother and Fiancée thing so well. But ah well, let’s just see how it ends..

Also; the first cliche in anime appeared this episode with the girl playing baseball. The first cliche.

Level E Episode 11

Field of Dreams

Alex: Annnd coming back with a home run is Level E, with a brilliant story involving everyones favorite Prince and baseball player.I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry.

To do my usual tl;dr, Prince Baka hid into the back of the coach heading to a baseball match to cheer them on, and they ended up in a “twilight zone”, a replication of a famous baseball field that someone dreamt up to escape.  Cue hillarious solutions as he figures out how to get out whilst being thrown around by baseball guy.

But seriously, this was intense. It used the mystery genre to further its hilarity by both poking fun at it and using serious examples. For example, the fact that it was never told who was doing it was just trolling, and fits perfectly with the theme of the series.

But Kraft stole the day again. His brilliant acting “Tonight, we’ll have a celebration” when he realized that the Prince was gone was just…win. It’s just a shame that the series is only 13 episodes, if it had a little more time it could expand some of these episodes because the acting and the characterization is so brilliant. Shows what an amazing manga this was adapted from.(Yeah okay, I just want more Prince Baka)

Level E Episode 10

Boy meets Girl

Alex: An unfunny, serious attempt at a story with the only recurring characters being the color rangers? Uhm. Well, it was pretty serious. I guess. And a nice insight on aliens. Maybe.

There’s one problem. Episode 4. In a 13 episoded comedy series, having an episode which tries the same thing as a previous episode but falls flat is a bad thing. Very bad. Episode 4 was better than this in every single way. Sigh. I wish they would have come up with a comedy filler or something instead…Level E is (sadly) running out of airtime.

Level E Episode 9

Love me Tender

Alex: Recipe for disaster. Get an alien women who’s life is about mating with someone, Prince Baka and Kraft, and put them in the same episode. I knew I was in for some more side-splitting laughter the moment Prince Baka returned with a brilliant troll. “How did you know they were here?!” “I didn’t.”

Cue 20 minutes of side splitting laughter. Kraft and Prince Baka are probably the best duo of characters in the comedy business, seriously. One’s like D:<<<< and the other’s like ^.^. When we get disaster involved, it’s just.. hilarious. My hat goes off to his over-the-top conclusion, and the way he sounds so serious when he’s lying. I believed him when he said he was a girl until he said he was joking.

Since this is my first post on Level E, I should probably mention my thoughts.It’s the best comedy i’ve seen. Lets recap, shall we?
Prince Baka comes to earth and causes a disaster with a hostile alien race just to test how loyal his companions are, and turns around to say “Just Kidding ^.^” at the end.
Prince Baka makes a movie.
Prince Baka kidnaps school children and makes them into his own version of Power Rangers so they can fight Kraft for him.
Prince Baka then takes the school children into his own RPG where he has the starring role of a princess.
Kraft cockblocks a lesbian from making love to the princess of the MacBac race.
Prince Baka turns up to make fun of Kraft and saves the day, breaking several intergalatic laws and treaties, but to use his saying, “As long as we can get over being self-conscious about what we’ve done, this worked perfectly! ”

Yeah. Notice a pattern there? Anything which has Prince Baka in it ends up being side-splittingly hilarious, and his bodyguards are just as funny. There’s no way this final arc can go wrong.

Level E Episode 8

You’re my darling!

Summary: Princess Saki of the Macbac race visits Earth to find a mate.

Alex: Kraft. Master of the cockblock. Anyway, since Mimi’s feeling writers block for this right now, i’ll do it and she can add whatever she wants to it later. But alright. Even without that amazing twist at the end of the episode, this was hilarious. A brilliant parody of the rom-com genre, to be blunt. The Princess wants a mate, and Kraft doesn’t want her to have one. Que amazing and hilarious situations.

On his own, Kraft is an amazingly energetic character. When he’s coupled with some cuckoo princess who believes in love at first sight, well…you can just imagine how funny that could turn out. And it lives up to all your expectations.  But okay, next week is when it gets good.

The male who Princess Saki fell for is a crossdressing lesbian. And the Prince will get bored soon and come back..hopefully. It can only get better, to be very honest.

Mimi: Now this is more like it! A romance comedy well done. I’ll probably add more later, but like Alex said..suffering from a little writers block with this one. At any rate, Alex and I have decided to switch Level E and Wandering Son to blog.

Level E Episode 7

Game over…!?

Summary: The Color Rangers’ struggles finally come to an end…sort of.

Mimi: Oh man, it was once again difficult for me to find a good time to blog this during the week. I wish that Level E aired between Thursday and Sunday like everything else I’m watching, but ah well! This is one of those episodes that has so much crazy stuff going on that I won’t bother to summarize, but it’s a pretty enjoyable one, and it has some awesome visuals. Maybe it’s not as funny as the other episodes, but the arc ends with a really great twist. Prince Baka finally gets what he deserves (a golden hammer punch!!), Princess Baka is creepy, and chibi Baka is just adorable…until he turns evil, that is. If only the Color Rangers had put an end to the game earlier (which would have been incredibly easy, turns out), they wouldn’t have to be transported back there every time all five of them entered the classroom..to fight more demons. Those poor kids.. xD

Judging from the preview for the next episode, it’s going to be some kind of love story, and Kraft has a big role. Yay! I definitely need more of that guy in these episodes, so who knows, this upcoming arc might be the best one yet. Maybe. And why do I have Moritaka’s uncle’s anime adaptation theme song stuck in my head? o.O -random-

Level E Episode 6

Dancing in the trap!!

Summary: The Color Rangers play in an RPG game.

Mimi: Phew, this week has been really busy. Midterms always seem to creep up on me so quickly. x_x!! In the midst of it all, I became addicted to Dark electro/Industrial  music, which helped me pull a few all-nighters. I’m glad that I’m only behind on blogging this show (it’s been way, way worse), and of course, I’m grateful to Alex for taking care of Letter Bee…even though he tried to pass me off as being lazy. >_>

So without further ado, I have to say that this episode of Level E is just awesomeness. There isn’t the big Kraft vs. Color Rangers battle that I expected, but Kraft’s nonchalant behavior towards the whole thing is very amusing nonetheless. He just sits there making unenthusiastic sound effects as if they’re fighting, declares defeat, and throws them the key. The kids learn how to unlock the bracelets, but they each have to say the ‘password’, which is the name of the girl that they like. This ranges from being ridiculously easy for one guy who likes nobody to being incredibly difficult for another guy who likes…15+ girls. At any rate, they’re not done with the bracelets just yet, as Prince Baka abruptly sends them off to an RPG world. After a while, they become serious about leveling up and enjoy fighting as a team. This turns out to be a decent RPG parody, which I quite enjoyed~ :3

I definitely liked this episode more than the previous one, but this arc still doesn’t feel as great as the first one. I’m hoping for a crazy twist at the end of it. x3!

Level E Episode 5

Here come Color Ranger!!

Summary: Prince Baka kidnaps a group of kids.

Mimi: Uh, can this possibly get any more random? Or maybe I should rephrase that: Can Prince Baka possibly get any more bored? Seriously, this time he’s so bored that he kidnaps five elementary school kids and turns them into power–cough–color rangers. Lucky for them, their teacher happens to be an alien and an assassin! However, they’re more concerned with Baka for meddling in their lives in the first place, so they label him as the real bad guy.

Pretty much during most of this episode, the kids test out their transformations and confront their alien teacher. All of this is done in a very amusing way of course, but I particularly like how each kid reacted differently to their powers. Most of them just don’t want to be involved and laugh at their transformation in front of the mirror, but one other guy gets all into it and accidentally transforms at school (hence how he discovers his teacher’s identity). Secondly, I just love how Baka turned Kraft into the villain! He tells the kids that they must obtain ‘the key’ in order to return to their normal lives; Kraft was given the key earlier on and was only told to protect it with his life. So… The Color Rangers vs. Kraft… This should be very interesting… o_o

I have to admit though, this episode isn’t as good as the first three involving Yukitaka. I really hope that he will return to the series soon. At any rate, I’m looking forward to the exciting conclusion of Color Rangers! (assuming that they’ll only have one more episode)