Review for Daimidaler: Prince vs Penguin Empire Collection

Introduction

If ever my reviewer juices could start flowing on the strength of a title alone, it would have been with Daimidaler: Prince vs. Penguin Empire. There is a small, but notable and impressive history of penguins in anime, titles like Mawaru Penguindrum, the Prinnies from Disgaea, and of course the Emperor Penguin of them all, Pen Pen from Neon Genesis Evangelion. The idea of an antagonistic penguin empire sounds fascinating. Then I read a little about the show, and felt like I’d dodged a bullet when the distributor had no check discs to review. It was only a brief respite though, as someone had a fumble around the back of a sofa and discovered two Blu-ray check discs. To make matters worse, I start reviewing these 12 episodes of animated misogyny the week that the Harvey Weinstein scandal breaks in the news. Talk about bad timing!

The evil Penguin Empire wants to take over the world, and the only people standing against them are the mysterious Prince Beauty Parlor organisation, and their Daimidaler giant robot. The problem is that the robot requires its pilot to generate a constant stream of Hi-Ero particles. One man who has that particular ability is Kouichi Madanbashi. The problem is that only happens when he’s sexually aroused, something that happens a lot when he’s fondling Kyouko Sonan’s boobs, the girl who recruited him into the organisation. It isn’t long before the perverted hero and his reluctant co-pilot are in the thick of battle.

12 episodes of Daimidaler are presented across two Blu-ray discs from Funimation.

Disc 1
1. Fondle! Daimidaler Goes Into Action!
2. Danger! The Stolen Sun
3. Menace! Fiery Jake Appears!
4. Challenge From Six
5. Mad Dance! The Fearsome Penguin Flyers
6. Arrival! Shouma and Kiriko
7. Hurrah! Antarctic Number 11 Appears
8. Convenient! Electric Toothbrush
9. Warning! The Closed Gate

Disc 2
10. Invoke! Joseph’s Symbol
11. Distraction! The Emperor’s Sexual Harassment
12. Showdown! Sound Robots vs. Daimidaler

Picture

Daimidaler gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer, which with this simple, comedy animation, replete with simple world and character designs, and bright primary colours is not one to cause concern regarding compression or aliasing. It all looks as it should with all the boobs, nipples, and gussets present and correct.

Sound

You have the choice between Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese with subtitles and signs locked to the appropriate audio track. The dialogue is clear throughout, the action comes across adequately, and while the dub exists, I was satisfied with the original language track for the duration with its slightly less ribald dialogue. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typos.

Extras

The discs present their content with animated menus.

Disc 1 autoplays with a trailer for Dragonar Academy, and has two commentaries on it, the first on episode 3 with ADR Director Clifford Chapin, Jamie Marchi (Moriko), and Tessa Ellory (Ritz). The second is on episode 8, and features Colleen Clinkenbeard (Kiriko), Felecia Angelle (Macaroni), and Sonny Strait (Nelson).

Disc 2 autoplays with a trailer for High School DxD New.

If you want your boobs and crotch shots without the hindrance of a storyline, you have 6 OVAs on this disc running to a total of 22:43.

There are 1:06 of Commercials, 4:11 of Promo Videos, the US Trailer, and further trailers for Buddy Complex, Fafner, Good Luck Girl!, Tokyo Ghoul, Space Dandy, Terror in Resonance, Riddle Story of Devil, and Haganai.

Conclusion

I really did pick the wrong week to start watching this show. Since the whole Harvey Weinstein thing, the avalanche of stories from women in the public eye coming forth with instances of workplace harassment, begetting tales of ordinary people speaking about the same, you get the feeling that we might just be poised for a sea-change in how these things are discussed and dealt with. And this is the week I have to review an anime show about a kid that pilots a giant robot, and who gets charged up for battle by forcibly groping and fondling the breasts of his ‘co-pilot’. Normally I have a little pervert-mode switch in my mind that I flick that allows me to appreciate shows like this. With some shows, I don’t even need to flick the switch, shows like Prison School or Shimoneta, as the story, the characters are strong enough, or there is a message meaningful enough to justify the fan-service. I kept flicking that switch with Daimidaler, and nothing happened. I was sitting there, taking offence for 12 episodes, so much so that I didn’t even bother watching the OVAs through. Daimidaler: Prince vs. Penguin Empire is irredeemably crass.

It’s not as if there is a shortage of giant robot shows, and this one hardly adds anything new to the crowded genre. It’s all about Hi-Ero particles, the energy of perversion, generated by arousal. It’s that energy which fuels the giant robots. The Penguins need to steal human Hi-Ero particles as they can’t produce their own, so they’re always sending forth a giant robot to nab them. The secret Prince organisation stands in their way with giant robots of their own. And chief recruiter Kyoko goes and finds ace recruit Kouichi to drive a robot. The thing is that Kouichi only starts producing Hi-Ero particles by molesting Kyoko, and in typical misogynistic fashion, she may hate it at first, but given a good, lengthy, stripped naked groping, she eventually starts enjoying it.

Halfway through, Kouichi vanishes from the story, and the Prince group go back to an earlier, less successful pilot, Kiriko to fight. She could never get the particles flowing right, but since then, she’s met and fallen in love with a boy from her school, Shouma. That’s better, or so I thought, they finally have a consensual couple for their groping and fan-service, but it was too late by then, as I just couldn’t get the taste of the first half of the show out of my mouth, the image of Weinstein’s face plastered over Kouichi’s whenever he was a-groping out of my mind. And worse, Kouichi shows up again for the story’s final arc. Incidentally, the Penguins all sport low-slung erections between their legs, or as the show has it, they have their tails at the front... Subtle this show ain’t!

I’m a victim of poor timing with Daimidaler. This is not a show for this moment in time. However, I did come to it late for review, as it was actually released back at the end of July. With any luck for Funimation, they got their sales in before the current Hollywood scandal broke. I’ll give Daimidaler another go in a few years, after the current scandal has died down, and I can get into the right anime head-space again to appreciate these perverted shows. Maybe I’ll be able to enjoy it, but right now, I’m just glad it’s over.