“Hero Theater: Uma Soldier V!!”
What They Say:
The horse girls are back to charm you in this special, bite-size anime. Umayon comes alive as a cute and eye-catching anime! At a school-turned-training facility, the girls will race, perform, and train… but that’s not all! Saddle up for a short-form anime that displays the laidback school days of the horse girls! Aaaaand, they’re off!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The advantage of shorts, especially ones like this, is that it can just go silly on the turn of a dime. While past episodes have focused on some exploration of school, events, or the characters themselves, this one plays up a sentai style parody with the Uma Soldier V group. That has them all done up in cute bold colored uniforms and reay to do the right thing to help and protect others. Of course, they don’t have it easy as they face off a dark-clad opponent, but with their trusty carrot weapons that are way too on the nose here, they’re able to fight back and save the day. There’s something about a carrot-shaped bazooka that’s colored the same way that’s just delightful.
In Summary:
The show goes for a quick and easy parody piece here but it works well because this is the kind of show where you can do that easily. They could drop the characters into any number of genres and it would work by being cute and enjoyable, comedic or serious. The designs look great, the jokes are as expected, and it hits all the right notes with ease. Definitely another cute episode in this series.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
