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Review

by Luke Carroll,

Heaven's Lost Property - Collection 1

Blu-Ray

Synopsis:
Heaven's Lost Property - Collection 1 Blu-Ray

Be careful what you wish for!

Tomoki's life was normal until a wish-granting angelic android named Ikaros fell from the sky and started calling him master! Of course, thanks to his raging teenage hormones, most of Tomoki's wishes have something to do with panties. And that makes things pretty complicated, because one simple wish can lead to a rampaging robot made out of frilly undergarments or turn bloomers into bombs capable of blowing up entire neighborhoods!

If Tomoki doesn't learn to control his impulses around Ikaros and be more careful with his wishes, the chaos will only get crazier. Luckily, even with such a dirty mind, Tomoki's heart is in the right place. His hands, however, are a completely different story.

Review:

It's not too often that I can summarise a whole anime series into one disjointed phrase, but the words 'Ah! My Goddess with a perverted freak' certainly goes a long way towards describing this show. There's no denying that I knew exactly what I was in for when I inserted the first disc, after all, just look at the cover! What I didn't expect was to actually enjoy this series. Maybe it was the shamelessness of the main protagonist or just the completely ridiculous plot ideas and cast members that got to me. Either way, Heaven's Lost Property certainly gave me a few real giggles, something I admit I haven't had for a while.

Like any soon to be disjointed anime, life starts out rather peaceful for our main lead Tomoki Sakurai. He lives in a quiet and simple town, resides next door to a childhood friend whose got a secret crush on him, and has no real goals in life but to live in peace and quiet. Of course things go pear-shaped rather quickly for Tomoki. A re-occurrence of a bad dream has him seeking advice from a less than normal class-mate, who believes his thoughts are tied up with a 'new world' that has been circling the globe for many years. Of course coincidence has it that this phenomenon is passing over the town that night, and Tomoki soon finds himself alone as a girl falls from the sky and eventually saves him from near death.

The next morning, Tomoki learns that he wasn't simply dreaming, and that he is now the master of an Pet-Classed Angeloid named Ikaros, who as we quickly learn, not only carries some of the largest melons around, but can also grant almost any wish using advanced technology. With such world changing power at his hands, this of course means Tomoki starts using his new companion and her powers for good, right? Well, that's if you call becoming invisible to perv on your next door neighbour, stopping time to run naked through school, and looking up girls skirts good things for mankind.

It is this sort of shameless approach however that makes Heaven's Lost Property rather special. Instead of darting around the fan-service bush with 'accidental' exposures of underwear, this series isn't afraid to have regular change-room scenes, flying panties, and not one, but two swimsuit episodes packed in for good measure. And when Tomoki eventually accrues a device that can transform him into anything from the opposite gender to a floor in a room, well I don't think I need to say more. Of course the series isn't all just panties and perverted acts. In amongst all of this is a rather solid supporting cast that does well to ground things and nudge the actual plot along. Although it is slow to start, things really do gain traction at the midway mark, and the ending, although a tad predictable, is quite solid.

Visually, this Blu-Ray release looks great. Colours are solid and lines are for the most part quite sharp. The overall quality does vary at times, but thankfully when it does drop a tad it isn't a big deterrent. With fan-service being somewhat at the forefront of this series, the Anime International Company have made sure not to skimp on underwear details or colours for that matter. The series also makes excessive use of SD artistry for Tomoki, however barring the Angeloids, the rest of the character art is really nothing too out of the ordinary.

Audio wise, the background music is a solid enough affair. The opening theme “Ring My Bell” provides a nice peppy tune to start each episode, however things really get interesting for the closing theme. Each episode ends not only with a new tune to listen to, but also with a new set of visuals that range from a simple reference to the episode, to a full blown parody of another anime or live action film. The English dub also walks away a winner with this release. The scripting isn't tight, however the voices are solid. The only real hiccup of it all would be the decision to also dub the singing during a band performance. Whilst the effort is appreciated, Brittney Karbowski unfortunately sounds right out of tune compared to her seiyuu counterpart.

Extras wise, there isn't a whole lot contained in this release. Included is a clean version of the opening theme as well as all thirteen different ending tunes. Like usual, there's also a handful of trailers included for those wanting to preview other titles. It is also worth noting that the OVA episode “Project Pink” has been tacked on as episode 14 in this release, which is fine as it directly sequels the series.

Overall, this first season of Heaven's Lost Property is somewhat of a giant teaser for the second season. Despite throwing some intriguing background information into each episode, nothing is really wound up at all by the final episode. With the teaser footage for the second season suggesting that another Angeloid will be making her appearance in Tomoki's life, one can only hope that the series wont lose any of its shamelessness along the way.

©2009 Suu Minazuki/Kadokawashoten/Solaoto Partners. Licensed by FUNimation? Productions, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Grade:
Overall (dub) : C+
Overall (sub) : B-
Story : C+
Animation : B-
Art : B
Music : B

+ Manages to build an actual interesting plot, creative closing themes.
Needed to build on its story a little more, a few repetitive gimmicks.

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Production Info:
Director: Hisashi Saito
Series Composition: Yūko Kakihara
Script: Yūko Kakihara
Storyboard:
Shishō Igarashi
Rie Kawaguchi
Yoriyasu Kogawa
Noriyuki Nakamura
Hisashi Saito
Shinichi Tōkairin
Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Episode Director:
Noriaki Akitaya
Takayuki Fukuda
Yōsuke Hashiguchi
Hiroyuki Hashimoto
Shishō Igarashi
Kouta Okuno
Hisashi Saito
Shinichi Tōkairin
Yōichi Ueda
Shinji Ushiro
Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Unit Director: Shishō Igarashi
Music: Motoyoshi Iwasaki
Original creator: Suu Minazuki
Character Design: Yoshihiro Watanabe
Art Director: Hiromasa Ogura
Chief Animation Director: Yoshihiro Watanabe
Animation Director:
Kyoko Kametani
Takahiro Kimura
Yutaka Matsubara
Masami Nagata
Kiyotaka Nakahara
Shinya Nishizawa
Hidetoshi Sano
Hong Shen
Yōichi Ueda
Yoshihiro Watanabe
Tetsuya Yanagisawa
Yūichi Yoshida
Sound Director: Tsuyoshi Takahashi
Cgi Director: Reina Kawabata
Director of Photography: Nanae Hirabayashi
Executive producer:
Satoshi Arashi
Hiroyasu Asami
Nobuhiko Sakoh
Takeshi Yasuda
Producer:
Seiichi Hachiya
Yuka Harada
Tomoko Suzuki
Tsuneo Takechi
Licensed by: FUNimation Entertainment

Full encyclopedia details about
Heaven's Lost Property (TV)

Release information about
Heaven's Lost Property - Collection 1 (Blu-ray)

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