Kiss Dum: Engage Planet

I highly recommend it.

Now before I continue, there were only 19 episodes subbed for this series and most of the resulting subs were either sub-par to horrible to acceptable. This was due to having 3 different fansubs from the superb subs from the original fansub group (MENCLAVE) to the infamously "horrible" fansub group Mendoan.When I state "horrible', I meant the English composition that one will read when watching the series from episodes 8 onwards.

Another note: After episode 7, Bandai Visual bought the rights and any viewer of the series will no doubt, notice how inferior the subs got once the announcement was made ... by Bandai.

Now to the series...

One thing that caught my attention was the concept of oversized bug-like creatures who begin to obliterate humankind and they are called the Hadians. The storyline revolves around Aiba Kun who is one his path of revenge against his former boss who betrayed humankind to these creatures. The reason is slowly told in the late episodes. Also in this blood-lust package of revenge, is to avenge the "death" (or disappearance) of his love, Yuno. As the story progresses, Aiba is given the ultimate power of the Messenger from the Book of the Dead, as a savior of humankind. He is guided by 3 cute-girls who are demi-gods acting as Aiba's arsenal because his body can transform into different weapons.

Another thing worth mentioning is the original and superb design of the flying war-ships like the Dolphin and the NES-1 which makes Gundam and Macross look silly. This eye-candy makes me want to buy one (if it really existed and if I'm rich) and that what separates it from the rest of the mecha series that abound in the anime universe.

There are only 19 episodes subbed and there's a rumor after 2 years of no news, that a new season is underway..named Planet Engage R. R either stands for the mythical episode 27 which is the actual fill-in for episode 4 ( a repeat of the past 3 episodes) or signifies according to the last info dated 11-2008 that a season is being produced. It also is ridiculous that Bandai hasn;t done anything in 2 years, unlike Funimation which releases their series as quickly as you can say "money".

A fantastic series, IMHO and worth watching. If only they would not HAVE bought the series rights that we would all enjoy a show whose greatness would have been comparable to Gundam or Macross.

✪ Genre: action (gunfights, swordplay), adventure, mecha (robots, power suits) military, sci-fi (alien, post-apocalyptic), seinen with some elements of romance and dementia


✔Positive Aspects✔

◧ An interesting rehashing of a very familiar concept: an invasion of Earth by an alien genus which is incredibly heterogeneous since it is comprised of countless species, all united in their quest to wipe humanity off the map.

◧ Pretty cool soundtrack: a decent and large selection of songs for all kinds of different scenes, mostly revolving around j-pop, electropop, and techno.

◧ I very much liked the pace of the plot, at least, up until the 19th episode, where the series started ... picking up very quickly and quite unevenly at that.

◧ Decent character development, at least, for some of the protagonist's frenemies.

◧ Decent animation: the characters' designs were unmistakably clear, while the piloted robots and Hardians were sufficiently clear, but could have been better (more vibrant, highly saturated colors).


✘Negative Aspects✘

◧ Although I liked the overall concept behind the series, I can't say that I ended the series without any bewilderment and second-guessing of what I witnessed. The series had more than enough air time to sufficiently explain major themes (origins of the alien genus, origins of the 'Book of the Dead', origins of the 'servants', the arrangement of the international political system, etc.) but instead, it opted for wasting time with the protagonist walking around the country (?) killing monsters in pursuit of revenge for his lover's murder. Also, the series ended without clearly explaining the state of the protagonist and his lover's existence, whether they were alive somewhere, dead or reincarnated.

◧ Pretty mediocre action scenes: they tended to not unfold, from start to finish, in a consistent, satisfactory manner, since they were either starting/ending too quickly or developing slowly and escalating quickly.

◧ Inconsistent use of gore elements: they were either popping up during mass killings or not at all.

Overall: The series had potential, but squandered it on the meaningless wandering of the protagonist while he was killing Hardians and screaming in frustration about his lover's untimely fate.

Kiss Dum is an easy anime to get sucked into. It's got airplanes and transforming vehicles designed by Shoji Kawamori! It's based on the Lovecraft mythos! The anime director stormed out after finishing the first episode, so the team had to make things up as they went! Though Kiss Dum has infamy for its troubled production, it's easy to expect that it will, at the very least, be an entertaining, unpredictable trainwreck and that it will keep things interesting by peppering lots of Lovecraft references and vehicle action throughout -- but it does none of that past the first three episodes.
Kiss Dum's first three ... episodes leave a great impression. It's a hopeless battle of humanity's forces against an incomprehensible alien threat -- and in the midst of it, a young man freed from death and granted amazing powers via the misleadingly-named "Book of the Dead" to be humanity's messenger and saviour against the conspicuously-named "Hadean" aliens. It's nonstop mecha action anchored by melodrama and betrayal. It even implies a cosmic scale for the story since it shows Hadeans in space. However, that all goes away after these first three episodes. It's obvious this is when the show's production began to suffer; the fourth episode is a recap. While one may expect this to mainly affect animation quality (which it does), it also affects the story quality in a really big way as it devolves from a promising Lovecraftian mecha show to post-apocalyptic Pokemon with the pacing of One Piece. The emphasis on vehicles and mecha disappears -- to drive home that this show is now a battle shonen and not mecha, one of the few episodes past the initial three that's what one would expect from a mecha show is a dream sequence, and in real life the only mecha pilot of importance is killed! The Lovecraft stuff is irrelevant as well aside from a few monster names and unimportant artifacts; the backstory isn't explained until much later, and the monsters are only there for pointless fight scenes that do nothing but distract viewers from the anime's sluggish pace and failure to follow its initial premise.
The story the anime decides to stick with is very bad as well. It's mostly the main character searching for revenge, angsting, and fighting monsters, but the monster-fighting parts are totally undercut by the fact that the main character is told what to do by a pseudo-harem of three ghost anime girls that follow his every move. On top of that, the main villain that gets introduced a while later is ALSO an underage anime girl! The main backstory and plot twist isn't worth sticking around for either; it's nothing Kamen Rider hasn't done before.
Kiss Dum is a testament to how anime's worst tendencies -- moe girls, endless filler, pointless fights, brooding, nonexistent worldbuilding -- arise from rushed production. This show had the potential to be one of the most memorable mecha shows of the 2000s, but it wasted that potential thanks to the producers leaving the story on anime autopilot while scrambling to present something, anything, for broadcast. The true cosmic horror Kiss Dum presents is that so much anime since its production has done the same thing, yet it gets applauded if it has enough loud comedy, fanservice, and self-insert bait. If you want to watch Kiss Dum even after all this, just watch the first three episodes and pretend it's an OVA that got cancelled afterward -- because the story presented by those first three episodes sure did get cancelled.