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Jewel BEM Hunter Lime: Eps 1-3
Apr. 23rd, 2012 10:34 pmWelcome back to Chez Magical Girl. Our special tonight is Jewel BEM Hunter Lime, an OVA from 1997.
Jewel BEM Hunter Lime is an oddity because a) it was based on a video game and b) it appears to be the first half of a longer series that was never completed. The first episode sets up the extremely generic plot: six magical MacGuffins have been accidentally scattered across the human world, so two citizens of the magical world are tasked with retrieving them before they absorb too much negative human energy and turn into rampaging monsters. However by the end of three episodes, only three of the six objects have been retrieved, and then the series just... stops. I guess this is what Yahtzee would call "a show that ran out of something."
However that might be for the best because Jewel BEM Hunter Lime is not very good. In fact, I'd almost call it bad. The writing certainly needs some major help, the plot is your standard Monster Of The Week + Gotta Catch Em All affair, and the characters are all obnoxious clichés: Bass is the dim-witted lech whose skirt-chasing boob-grabbing antics are supposed to be funny but just make him seem like a total creeper. Lime is the humorless straight woman whose physical abuse and nagging of her male sidekick are supposed to be funny but just make her seem like an intolerable tight-ass. And Mizuki is the squeaky-voiced muggle best friend whose entire personality can be summed up as "nice." There's also quite a lot of fanservice that fortunately isn't too tasteless or crass, but it's not terribly interesting either. The English dub is actually okay, but it still suffers due to the clunky script and cardboard characters. And with the basic Monster Of The Week setup, you'd think there'd be some action scenes to liven things up, but you'd be wrong — the monsters are mostly defeated by trickery, and Lime's transforming powers are only used to put her in fetish outfits and a schoolgirl uniform. So just fetish outfits. Zing!
The show's only saving grace is something the Japanese have been perfecting for many decades now: CUTENESS. Yes, cuteness is something that JBHL excels at, and I'd almost recommend it on that basis alone. The weekly monsters are absolutely adorable both in design and personality. The first is a chubby little candle who is angry because modern-day humans don't use candles anymore, and he's one of those characters who's endearing specifically because he takes himself completely seriously and has no idea what an adorable little snugglemuffin he is. The second is a chubby coin-purse who continually tries to live up to his identity as an "evil" monster by doing bad things but consistently fails and does good things by mistake, to the point where Lime and Mizuki's classmates adopt him as a sort of class pet when he attempts to steal their underwear by politely asking for it. And the third is similar to the first except he's a chubby medical syringe who says hilarious shit like "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THE WRATH OF MY NEEDLE!" and "EXPERIENCE THE ANGER OF MY SYRINGE!" I should also mention the requisite cutesy sidekick, Poogie: a yellow blob with huge eyes who can morph into any object and who provides most of the few genuinely funny gags in the show.
Anyway, I'm glad I watched JBHM if only for the insanely huggable monsters and mascot, but in all other respects, this show is just mediocre. While Wedding Peach suffered from blandness and CosPrayers suffered from incompetence, JBHM seems to suffer from laziness. It really comes across as something made solely to cash in on the video game, like no one working on the show cared enough to at least try and make it a little less derivative.
Jewel BEM Hunter Lime is an oddity because a) it was based on a video game and b) it appears to be the first half of a longer series that was never completed. The first episode sets up the extremely generic plot: six magical MacGuffins have been accidentally scattered across the human world, so two citizens of the magical world are tasked with retrieving them before they absorb too much negative human energy and turn into rampaging monsters. However by the end of three episodes, only three of the six objects have been retrieved, and then the series just... stops. I guess this is what Yahtzee would call "a show that ran out of something."
However that might be for the best because Jewel BEM Hunter Lime is not very good. In fact, I'd almost call it bad. The writing certainly needs some major help, the plot is your standard Monster Of The Week + Gotta Catch Em All affair, and the characters are all obnoxious clichés: Bass is the dim-witted lech whose skirt-chasing boob-grabbing antics are supposed to be funny but just make him seem like a total creeper. Lime is the humorless straight woman whose physical abuse and nagging of her male sidekick are supposed to be funny but just make her seem like an intolerable tight-ass. And Mizuki is the squeaky-voiced muggle best friend whose entire personality can be summed up as "nice." There's also quite a lot of fanservice that fortunately isn't too tasteless or crass, but it's not terribly interesting either. The English dub is actually okay, but it still suffers due to the clunky script and cardboard characters. And with the basic Monster Of The Week setup, you'd think there'd be some action scenes to liven things up, but you'd be wrong — the monsters are mostly defeated by trickery, and Lime's transforming powers are only used to put her in fetish outfits and a schoolgirl uniform. So just fetish outfits. Zing!
The show's only saving grace is something the Japanese have been perfecting for many decades now: CUTENESS. Yes, cuteness is something that JBHL excels at, and I'd almost recommend it on that basis alone. The weekly monsters are absolutely adorable both in design and personality. The first is a chubby little candle who is angry because modern-day humans don't use candles anymore, and he's one of those characters who's endearing specifically because he takes himself completely seriously and has no idea what an adorable little snugglemuffin he is. The second is a chubby coin-purse who continually tries to live up to his identity as an "evil" monster by doing bad things but consistently fails and does good things by mistake, to the point where Lime and Mizuki's classmates adopt him as a sort of class pet when he attempts to steal their underwear by politely asking for it. And the third is similar to the first except he's a chubby medical syringe who says hilarious shit like "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THE WRATH OF MY NEEDLE!" and "EXPERIENCE THE ANGER OF MY SYRINGE!" I should also mention the requisite cutesy sidekick, Poogie: a yellow blob with huge eyes who can morph into any object and who provides most of the few genuinely funny gags in the show.
Anyway, I'm glad I watched JBHM if only for the insanely huggable monsters and mascot, but in all other respects, this show is just mediocre. While Wedding Peach suffered from blandness and CosPrayers suffered from incompetence, JBHM seems to suffer from laziness. It really comes across as something made solely to cash in on the video game, like no one working on the show cared enough to at least try and make it a little less derivative.
