Freezing (2011)
7/10
hunting for figurine, found Freezing experience
18 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
*** Adult Content *** (how else can you discuss this show?)

Nearly nonsensical concept I find hard to grasp. More succinctly put, hard to accept. Ereinbar Set, Pandora mode, Stigmata, Limiters, Freezing Mode, Novas, what kind of Sugar Pops has these Japanese blokes had for breakfast? And how come she has such an outlandish name? Satellizer el Bridget? Ah, but despite what the DVD says, it's actually Satellizer L. Bridget. Pray tell, what does the L stand for?

Okay, so I've just started watching ep. 05 and am hardly qualified to give an expert opinion. I got involved with this after scouting the Internet searching for a charming figurine to go with my DVD collection, but there wasn't anything from the likes of the shows I collect, while the mysterious Satellizer el Bridget popped up everywhere I looked. Unfortunately the prices are astronomical as I have to go through a third party, an importer, and one could buy a good-quality second-hand car for the price of one of these cute figurines.

Instead, when researching this FREEZING anime, I got hooked on the show itself. I downloaded episodes, but could not get all, and they were heavily censored anyway. Decided that it would look spectacular on my big screen. The rest is history. I am now watching my first season on DVD with that plain UK set*, not the one with the Blu-Ray combo and booklet.

*I was pleasantly surprised by the textless opening and closing themes. Great little junior music videos! Neat extras!

The thing is dazzling, and I love the theme song, Color, by MARIA, and the end theme, hell, two difficult names that escape me now, but apparently it translates to To Protect You. (I googled the pretty 17-year-old singer this morning. Aika Kobayashi, that's it). The OVA, the fan service bits, are kinda weird, some could hardly ever fit in with the rest of the story, but I keep having this running gag in the back of my mind: Imagine if MELROSE PLACE had fan service!

Satellizer was clearly molested as a child, and has developed acute aphephobia (along with a cute everything else), a fear of being touched. She is genetically enhanced by "stigmata" to enable her to combat Nova, and is trained at West Genetics, where she has been transferred after an incident that caused her to be suspended for a year at East Genetics - the permanent injury of her Limiter. Here at West Genetics she hospitalized another student for touching her, and earned herself the moniker "The Untouchable Queen". She has yet to find herself a new Limiter, i.e. male teammate assisting her in battle. This is where Kazuya Aoi comes in...

Like I said, it's dazzling. While it fails to make proper sense, and is quite inanely embarrassing in places, like that stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid scene with Kazuya Aoi falling between Satellizer's breasts, once you just sit back and cast aside the sneering comments inside your head re schoolboy inanities, this is a jewel.

Ooh, and I just love Caitlin Glass's voice! She gives Satellizer a depth of character. All those sighs, and the dropping of the tone of voice, speaking as if in lower case when the girl is unnerved... I switched to the Japanese soundtrack just to compare, and those guys do not know what they are missing out on. So cute!

I am really here for the sweet little faces rather than anything else.

It is particularly violent, and I do get the feeling that personal injury is used for entertainment. There is a plethora of mangled corpses, dismembered body parts and spattering blood. West Genetics really is a school for vainglorious psychos, and the student body slips into Killer Mode as often as there are pantie shots. Which, in turn, brings me to the frequent nudity. No complaints from me there, except (a) these girls must have had implants, they are gargantuan! and (b) the sad, sad little-boy reactions to this (although one must overlook the OVA bits which aren't intended to be part of the actual story). But the breasts flop about with a life of their own. Cascading hair even cause gale-force sound effects (I have to admit, that's cute!)

I do worship female beauty, and I do go ga-ga myself, but these Orientals, wow, they really never grew up, and it's all one-handed drawing, not that I am going to criticize it too much...

Just explain the stigmata thingie and the Ereinbar Set thingie to me again. How freaking outlandish can you get? Can't you just say that in Orgasm Mode they really get their freak on?

Addendum, 31 August 2015. Currently watching penultimate episode. Am really hooked on Satellizer's emotions. She goes from down in the dumps to perking up at a spark of hope to going all dejected again. Wonderfully drawn with, if you look closely at it, minimal effort. My heartfelt thanks to Caitlin Glass, I must mention that again, the Japanese side of things lack the finer nuances (where I checked)... If this is ever filmed, who's going to be Satellizer? Who'd risk playing the showy part, and would she be able to hold a candle to her cartoon counterpart? I THINK NOT. DON'T EVEN TRY. And this from a devout fan of real live actresses. The Raven himself.

Addendum, 8 Sept. 2015, Supersized Spoiler Alert! In the final episode, something truly nasty happens, so just know, do not think that your favorite characters are safe from harm. They might get killed off. In truly graphic horrendous ways. But I'll say this: In a heart-wrenching display that lifts the 'Lewd and Sadistic' series to a higher level. Okay, so it turns out to be a false alarm, but still... For a while there, it seemed Ganessa was done for.
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