AKA: 宝魔ハンターライム (Houma Hunter Lime), Jewel Demon Hunter Lime BEM

Genre: Sexy comedy (no, really; the DVD cover says so)

Length: OAV series, 3 episodes, 25 minutes each

Distributor: Currently licensed by Section 23 Films

Content Rating: 13+ (mild fan service, slapstick violence)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: Magical Project S, Ranma 1/2

Notes: (see main review)

Rating:

Jewel BEM Hunter Lime

Synopsis

(see main review)

Review

Mkay.

Stig had already given this a positive rating, so I felt no compunction about watching it when one of the younger THEM members offered it for an Anime Night.

To say I was mildly disappointed would be inaccurate. The whole club wanted the thing shut off after episode one, in fact, and I can't say I blame them.

Jewel BEM Hunter Lime is a manga adaptation that never took off despite the cast and crew working on the thing. I guess the executives figured that it would be a hot sell, but the main problem is that this series (barely a series at all) is seriously lacking in execution.

Take, for example, the cover art, which has a seriously sexy Lime in a pin-up pose across the cover. If this were the actual art quality in the show, I'd have been pleased. Unfortunately, this was during the mid-90s anime glut, and therefore, the art design is distressingly weak, with lackluster animation leading us to believe this looks more like a TV show than a video release. It doesn't help that Atsuko Nakajima's normally sterling record as a character designer doesn't hold up here -- everyone just ends up looking like something from an unaired episode of Ranma 1/2. (Honestly, it wasn't until halfway through the first episode that I realized, no, Bass really isn't Ranma in a fur suit.) Only Don't Leave Me Alone Daisy comes off as a greater waste of Nakajima's talents (and only by that series having had twelve episodes).

The BEMs (Big Eyed Monsters) themselves are just paragons of Japanese magic-monster kitsch, rivaling the inanity of late seasons of Sailor Moon, or perhaps the silliness of Magical Project S, without the purposeful self-parody that redeems the latter show. If the candle-monster was supposed to be funny, I didn't laugh. If the purse-monster was supposed to be cute, I didn't sigh. I don't even want to think about what the syringe-monster was supposed to be.

Even the title poses a problem -- it was originally Houma Hunter Lime, but the English translation is the classic "string a bunch of English words and syllables together randomly" sort of thing that looks like it came out of AniPLOT, or maybe a game of MadLibs, or even a Hong Kong subtitle. Sure, Lime's cute, but that doesn't make up for the jumbled nonsense of the plot, or that this series really isn't even that funny.

Of course, many of the same jokers who came up with this ended up on Mon Colle Knights, which leads me to believe that there's gotta be someone in Japan who likes this stuff. Right?

This deserved to be a better series, but as it stands, it's shoddy, substandard work from people who really ought to know better. — Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: The DVD box says "16 and up", and I sure as hell don't know why. Like I said, nothing really too outrageous happens here. There is a rather short scene in the girls locker room, with some lingerie shots of the girls. It's not something you haven't already seen in the Ranma series already.