Mat's Anime overviews--

COSMO POLICE JUSTY

 *note- as a warning for these overviews/reviews, I'll most likely review a lot of the films' plots so.. be advised, spoilers ahead!!

Cosmo Police Justy was an anime oav released in 1985.. In doing a bit of research, it was based on a manga of the same name. 

Oavs based on manga, specifically if they're one shots.. seem to suffer from pacing problems and vague characterization. You don't really get a *feel* for the characters, as to say, in 50 minutes that you can for a 5-10 volume manga. Justy itself ends up subverting some of the pacing problems with a self-contained story (with issues of plot only getting problematic near the end, more on that later). But my main source of contention is characterization... which I feel falls quite flat here.

We're introduced to Justy, an esper (ie: psychic-- the word esper seems to come up a lot in Japanese mediums for this purpose) who has.. well, incredible powers. Ironically it's here's where wherein lies the first problem-- Justy's powers really are never clearly defined. He can teleport, vaporize things with his mind-- things just HAPPEN around him. Sometimes you don't even see him actually using his powers, they just.. sort of materialize. I think it's not unfair to say that Justy himself is pretty much a "God Mode" Marty Stu... he can pull new powers effortless out of nowhere.

Then we have Astalis. Her main characterization is to be purely "moe-moe" (overly cute) so the audience will identify with her more. If she's cute enough, this means the audience will stick by her when she pretty much becomes a tool for the main villains to use against Justy.

LOVE ME AUDIENCE I AM MOE.

 
The film explains that when Astalis was little, Justy killed her father, who was an esper criminal. And when I say killed, he basically.. vaporized his upper half.

 

                                                               She must REALLY love those pants.

So, this (and I am not making this up) causes her to go into super-puberty. So I guess she is a child in a teenage body.

It's never explained WHY Astalis suddenly becomes friendly with Justy after growing breasts and trying to kill him; I assume this is handled in detail in the manga. But for those coming into the film without that knowledge, we have our first little plot hole.

Characters are then introduced and the fim acts like we should know them. Justy has a another sister I guess, and a boss, and a partner.. I lost track of them over the course of the film; you will too.

 

JUST LOOK AT ASTALIS' MOE. IT'S WHAT THE FILM WANTS.

Well, there are bad guys who want to kill Justy (no real explanation of back story as to why, he just "ruins their evil business, mwahahah" (stock villain dialogue here-- paraphrased). They decide to capture a ship of 100 people and use them as bait for exchange for Astalisu.

                                        Ok, wait never mind, one of the hijackers kills two, so we're down to 98.

It gets predictable from here. Justy sends Astalis to the hijackers, they psychically control her by showing images of Justy killing her dead dad that she previously repressed (but the movie never really makes this clear, we're just left to assume she repressed it.)

After a battle between what I dub "Psycho-Astalis" and Justy, Justy dissapears and the villians think they've won-- but SURPRISE no, he's still alive. He teleports to the ship, nukes some hijackers....  teleports off the ship (what.), and then proceeds to go God mode and wipes out the rest of bad guys.

And I'm not really rushing it here.. Justy really has little to no opposition in systematically wiping them out. Even the de-facto villainous leader, none too conicidentally the last guy left, is dealt with easily when his mind sword has absolutely no effect..

                                                          Don't worry, that happens to a lot of guys

The films end with Justy reunited with Astalis, who has no memory of what happened. She is clueless and he, of course predictably leaves out she became a psychic monster bent on killing him. Because you know, being the perfect god-mode hero he is, lying makes EVERYTHING better.

But here's where I specifically got frustrated-- that ship with 100-2= 98 people. WE NEVER HEAR OF IT AGAIN.
Were the people saved? Did they fall into a black hole? Did the ship blow up? I guess we're supposed to assume that great hero Justy saved them, but it would have been nice to have that plot resolution.

                                                                NO, just LOOK AT THE MOE.

I know I come off ribbing this a lot, but COSMO POLICY JUSTY isn't a bad film, it's just... probably among the weakest anime oavs I've seen latley. The characterization is somewhat weak, and relies on character archetypes to really try to get the audience invested in them without going into too much detail. You learn absolutely NOTHING about the villains, and the hostages are forgettable because you don't even learn anything about them. Not to mention I don't remember the other sister whats-her-face and the guy Justy was sometimes seen with.

The film more or less wants you to gravitate to Astalis as a character. Even Justy isn't very interesting, and only seems to serve to further her story. Whether or not this is successful, that the audience identifies with and roots for Astalis, is really up to the individual viewer.

The animation definitley looks dated, but being a connoisseur of retro anime, that is part of it's charm for me. Character designs are fairly nice and typical of what you'd see for the time period.

In all, it's a good film to watch for killing 50 minutes, just don't go into it expecting something deep out of it.

Author's note: Inspired by this film, Matsutzu has tested his moe theory with his cats-- "the cuter you are, the more you will get away with". It works..