Sunday - July 09, 2006
Aphrodite A ruined my life.
(Image from Mazin World.)
The Pre-Cambrian layer of anime in the Philippine cultural landscape had Mekanda Robot, Daimos, Mazinger Z, UFO Grendaizer and Voltes V. (And Balatack, and Danguard Ace, but they were on Channel 9.) One thing they had in common was the token girl.
Token girls could fight, but only so far. They got crushes on the non-token boys, who got dibs on the fancier mecha. (Jamie Robinson's Volt Lander turned into feet.) Token girls squealed a lot. They always got into trouble and had to be rescued, even if they knew a couple of martial arts moves.
Aphrodite A was a knock-kneed big-breasted robot who ran like a girl and was always tripping over buildings. She was supposed to help Mazinger Z, but she only possessed two weapons: the left breast missile and the right breast missile. After those two fired, not only was she defenseless, she was slightly off-balance.
I hated having to identify with her, but she was all we girls had. Erika screamed "Richaaaard," mostly, and Mekanda wasn't too interesting to watch, and Catherine in UFO Grendaizer was always mooning when Bryk was around.
At least Aphrodite A fought. She never won. But she sacrificed her breasts almost every episode.
After her, we got Candy Candy and Ron-ron the Flower Girl.
Ruined, I tell you.