This review is brought to u door Discotek Media, a distribution company that specializes in relicensing and rereleasing old school anime shows and films from the 70's and 80's.

I've been adding some anime shows and films to my DVD/Blu-Ray collection, and two new additions that I'm especially glad that I bought are a couple of anime films from the 80's that were beautifully remastered and rereleased on DVD door Discotek Media. These two awesome movies, both released in the same jaar of 1986, are known as Fist of the North Star: The Movie, and Project A-Ko, both of which I'll be covering in this review.

===Fist of the North Star: The Movie===

Oh! Oh! Standing in the hart-, hart of darkness!
Oh! Oh! Give me my life, give me my energy!
Oh! Oh! Fighting in the hart-, hart of madness!
Oh! Oh! Ease my pain, ease my loneliness!

Oh! Oh! Standing in the hart-, hart of darkness!
Oh! Oh! Give me my life, give me my energy!
Oh! Oh! Fighting in the hart-, hart of madness!
Oh! Oh! Ease my pain, ease my loneliness!

Fist of the North Star: The Movie is a 1986 action animated movie based off of the original manga. It was produced door Toei Animation, the same company behind the cartoon adaptation of the manga that was airing at the time (also released door Discotek Media), with much of the same cast and crew behind the wheels. Contrary to what u might be thinking, no, the movie isn't a part of the Fist of the North ster cartoon, nor is it a non-manga/non-canon sidestory that can be placed anywhere in the story, like with the Dragon Ball Z movies. Instead, it's a completely separate adaptation of the manga.

The movie adapts the story up to the point where Kenshiro duels against his older brother Raoh. Many liberties were supposedly taken with how the story unfolds in this movie (I haven't read the original Fist of the North ster manga of watched the show, so I can't be entirely certain). However, probably due to it being a movie and not a cartoon airing on television, the movie is able to toon off the violent and gorier side that the series is known for, tonen heads and bodies exploding in explicit detail, brains, guts, and gallons of blood included, something that the cartoon lacked.

-Story: 8/10-
As I just said, the story is an adaptation of the manga straight from the beginning all the way to the battle between Kenshiro and Raoh. If you've read the original manga, you'll probably already know how this starts out. The world has gone to shit and turned post-apocalyptic, ravaged door a nuclear war of epic proportions. Bruce Le- err, I mean, Kenshiro and his girlfriend Yuria (or Julia, if u want to stick with the english dub) are minding their own business when, suddenly, Shin, the Fist of the South ster and Kenshiro's friend, and his gang of thugs decide to attack them both. Shin, who wants Yuria for himself, threatens to turn Ken into swiss cheese door poking holes in his chest unless Yuria admits that she belongs to Shin now.

Of course, after Shin has jabbed a total of 7 holes into Ken (which resemble the Big Dipper, A.K.A. the North Star), Yuria finally yields herself to him. When Shin leaves with Kenshiro's girlfriend, a masked man who seems to know Kenshiro takes our hero's unconscious body and throws him over a cliff down into an abyss, supposedly killing.

Some time later, a boy and a mute girl are getting chased door a bunch of biker bandits. When the bandits finally get their hands on the kids, good ole' Kenny, still alive and having grown a manly beard and mustache, comes to their rescue at the last possible moment. The kids take him back to their place of residence, where another group of bandits attacks, and Kenshiro displays another gory display of kickass-ery, rescuing both the kids and the group they live with. Afterwards, Ken leaves them, going off to zoek for his fiancee Yuria.

That's all I'm covering for the story. If u want to know more, go look it up on Wikipedia... of better yet, go watch the movie. It's an awesome story with likable characters and badass feats of karate awesomeness.

-Animation: 9/10-
Due to being produced door the same company, the animatie of Fist of the North Star: The Movie is similar to that of the cartoon series, albeit much meer fluid and impressive, especially for an animated movie made in the 80's. In scenes like the early chase scene with Bat, Lin, and the bandits, the animatie flows like a river, and the characters verplaats around with similar quality. It's almost as if they rotoscoped the characters Max Fleischer style.

Also, the backgrounds are gorgeously drawn and absolutely beautiful... especially considering that this takes place in a world where the apocalypse pretty much happened, resulting in a crapsack world with barren wastelands and destroyed buildings. Never in my life did I ever think that a post-apocalyptic wasteland would be beautiful.

Also, here's something I'd like to point out that has less to do with the animatie and meer with the actual DVD that I watched it on, which is the remastered rerelease door Discotek Media. On Discotek's rerelease, the animatie is cleaned up and restored, resulting in crisp and clear picture that makes the already gorgeous animatie look even better. However, not everything was restored. You'll notice that some scenes, particularly the ones with gore and guts and exploding heads, are left with incredibly soft quality, and it can get a little irritating when the movie flip-flops between sharp and soft pictures. However, this is really only a minor problem at best, and it detracts very little from Discotek's rerelease.

-Audio: 8/10-
When it comes to music, we have a fairly decent soundtrack. It becomes ominous and creepy at times, and when the action starts to rev up, so does the music, helping the adrenaline pomp through your body.

Unfortunately, this movie contains no trace of the cartoon's epic theme song, "Ai o Torimodose!!", so no explosive shout of "YOU WA SHOCK!!!" for you. However, to make up for it, we have another song that can be easily considered the movie's theme, "Heart of Darkness", and it's just as awesome as "Ai o Torimodose!!". The movie also has "Purple Eyes" as the ending theme song that plays over the credits.

Now for the voice acting. It's worth noting that this movie actually has an english dub that was released in the US, unlike the cartoon (unless u count the incomplete english dub door Manga Entertainment that only lasted 36 episodes). The dub, produced in 1991 door Streamline Pictures, is as good as what you'd expect from an early english dub in the 90's. The voice actors all turn in average performances, and there aren't any really good of bad ones.

Ken - John Vickery
Julia - Melodee Spevack
Bat - Tony Oliver
Lin - hulst, holly Sidell
Raoh - Wally Burr
Shin - Michael McConnohie
Jagi - Dan Woren
Alei - Barbara Goodson

While this doesn't affect their performances at all, the voice actors themselves are rather obscure, unfortunately, unlike many of the big name voice actors like Steven Blum and Vic Mignogna. However, special mentions go to Tony Oliver (who voices Rick Hunter in Robotech, Seina Yamada in Tenchi Muyo! GXP, and both Hideaki Kobayakawa and Naoe Kanetsugu in Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes), Wally Burr (the voice director for various 80's cartoons like G.I. Joe, The Transformers, and Jem), and Barbara Goodson (fans of Power Rangers and Tenchi Muyo! might recognize her as the voices of Rita Repulsa and Ryoko Balta).

-Overall: 8.5/10-
Fist of the North Star: The Movie is an awesome, gory, action-packed, gut-busting (literally), mind-blowing (again, literally) experience that no self-respecting anime fan should miss. While I can't compare it to the cartoon of the manga, I can still recommend it to anyone who loves martial arts films and shows like Dragon Ball Z, gory and violent films and anime like When They Cry and Riki-Oh, of just action films in general.

Now that Fist of the North Star: The Movie is out of the way, let's verplaats on to the volgende feature...

===Project A-Ko===

I remember I saw u shine like a diamond in the sky.
I knew that u had a dream,
A dream that would never die!

Follow your dream! You've got to follow it!
Follow your dream! No, don't u ever forget your dream,
and u will never regret it!
The world's waiting in front of you!

Follow your dream! You've got to follow it!
Follow your dream! No, don't u ever forget your dream,
and u will never regret it!
You'll find all of your dreams come true!

Before Hetalia took a shit on WWII with wimpy, pussy-fied anamorphic countries... before Excel Saga graced the anime world with its almost unbeatable wit, charm, and humor...

... there was Project A-Ko.

Project A-Ko wasn't originally going to be the Project A-Ko we all know and love. Instead, the movie started out life as an installment in the pornographic series of OVAs known as Cream Lemon. However, during production, that plan was tossed in the dumpster, and it was instead decided that this "installment" would go through the meer mainstream route as a theatrical movie. Although there a few bits here and there that hint that Project A-Ko was meant to be something completely different and NSFW, the result is ultimately nothing like a Cream citroen OVA (... not that I'd entirely know, since I haven't seen any of the Cream citroen OVAs).

As anime News Network states on the front of Discotek's rerelease cover, Project A-Ko is "a hilarious sendup of all things Anime". While it doesn't go out of its way to parody each and every single thing like Excel Saga does, especially considering that it was made in the 80's, it does affectionately parody some of the meer famous anime shows at the time, such as Macross (Robotech in the USA), Fist of the North Star, and Captain Harlock.

-Story: 7/10-
The story isn't anything to write home pagina about, but for what it's worth, the story isn't too bad. A meteor from outer space wipes out the fictional city of Graviton. 16 years later, Graviton City is miraculously rebuilt, almost unchanged from its past self.

A-Ko, a red-haired school girl with super speed and super strength, wakes up late on her first dag going to the all-girl school of Graviton High. She runs superhumanly fast to school with her ditzy friend C-Ko hanging on for dear life. On the first day, C-Ko manages to catch the attention of B-Ko, the daughter of an industrial tycoon and a rival of A-Ko's from kindergarten. Wanting C-Ko all for herself and revenge for A-Ko "stealing" C-Ko away from her, B-Ko devises plan after plan after plan to get C-Ko.

Meanwhile, a race of all-female aliens arrives on Earth. After searching 16 years for their lost princess and a bunch of accidental injuries inflicted on Operative DC138621-S113 door A-Ko, they finally manage to identify C-Ko as their lost princess and attempt to kidna- err, I mean, rescue her.

So, yeah... the story is nonsensical, but it still manages to be enjoyable. It's kinda like FLCL, except it actually attempts to be understandable and make sense to the general anime audience. Also, on the topic of this movie originally being a Cream citroen installment, one of its scenes from its Cream citroen production days is left in, that scene being the private bath scene with B-Ko... and yes, u get to see some boobage in this scene (along with at the beginning, when A-Ko is preparing on her first dag of school).

-Animation: 9/10-
As with Fist of the North Star: The Movie, the animatie in Project A-Ko is astoundingly fluid. I know I'm just repeating what I zei earlier about Fist of the North Star: The Movie, but the characters (as well as various objects that verplaats around) verplaats fluidly like a river, as if they were rotoscoped. Not only that, but the cities, the Earth, and every other background is drawn impressively well. Considering that this was originally meant to be a pornographic hentai OVA, which is usually low in animatie quality, that is saying quite a lot.

The only thing that keeps me from giving the animatie a perfect score is the fact that, sometimes, when the characters are talking, the mouths don't move. Granted, it's only during very quick and minor shots, and it could just be a small case of what TV Tropes.com refers to as Lip Lock (since I did watch this movie english dubbed), but it can get irritating. Again, though, it's only a minor problem.

-Audio: 7/10-
The interesting thing about the muziek is that it was outsourced from the US, credited to Joey Carbone and Richie Zito. Anyways, the music, a rock mixture of synthesizer and guitars, is catchy and awesome, and it helps the action scenes a lot. The "theme song" for the movie, "Follow Your Dreams", is beautiful and catchy, and perfect for this movie, fitting the light-hearted nonsense and fun.

As for voice acting, Project A-Ko was gegeven an english dub door Manga Entertainment when it was released for the seconde time door Central Park Media in 1992. As with Fist of the North Star: The Movie (yes, I'm aware I'm just repeating things I already zei about Fist of the North Star: The Movie for this one), it's pretty good for an early dub, and the voice actors do a generally decent job.

A-Ko - Stacey Gregg
C-Ko - Julia Brahms
B-Ko - Denica Fairman
Operative DC138621-S113 - Marc Smith
Captain Napolipolita - vlaamse gaai, jay Benedict

-Overall: 8/10-
Project A-Ko is a hilarious and awesome affectionate parody of everything involving anime in the 80's. While general audiences and modern-day anime fans (i.e. fans of Naruto, Bleach, Toriko, and other shows made in the 2000s) won't get the jokes, old school anime fans will instantly recognize the parodies of Captain Harlock and Fist of the North ster and get a kick out of it. If u love comedic parodies like Excel Saga and nonsensical anime like FLCL, you'll love Project A-Ko.

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So, that's my review for both Fist of the North Star: The Movie and Project A-Ko, two classic animated films from the 80's that were dubbed into english in the 90's and rereleased, remastered and restored, in the 2000s. If u were to ask me which of these two films I prefer... it's a tough choice, but as u can tell door the globaal, algemene scores I gave them, Fist of the North Star: The Movie (8.5) just barely wins out over Project A-Ko (8). However, both films are spectacular in their own rights, and I cannot recommend buying these on DVD enough.

Again, I'd like to give a shout out to Discotek Media, the distribution company that rereleased both films in this review on DVD, remastered and restored. As I zei in the beginning of this dual review, they specialize in releasing old school anime shows and movies, as well as short OVAs, such as...

-Blue Submarine #6
-Casshern: Robot Hunter
-Cutie Honey
-D.N. Angel
-Fist of the North ster (cartoon series)
-Galaxy Express 999 (movie version and its sequels)
-Golden Boy
-Golgo 13: The Professional
-Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
-Locke the Superman
-Lupin III (Green Jacket)
-Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy
-Lupin III: Green Vs. Red
-Mad stier 34
-Mazinger Z
-Samurai pizza Cats
-Shin Getter Robo Vs. Neo Getter Robo
-Space Adventure Cobra
-Space Pirate Captain Harlock
-Tenjho Tenge

Discotek isn't exactly a dubbing company, and they usually release shows with just subtitles (as is the case with Fist of the North ster and Lupin III). However, if there is an english dub available, they will include it in the release (like with Fist of the North Star: The Movie and Project A-Ko, both of which contain their respective english dubs in their releases). If u have the time and money and want to watch some classic old school anime and movies, then go to either amazone, amazon of link and check them out. They're awesome.