Growing up, I was never a big TMNT fan, I watched the show and movies from time to time in my 20 years of existence, but I was never what you'd call a fan. Never watched the show religiously, Never collected the merchandise or toys, I personally feel like the Power Rangers and Pokemon made a bigger to me. There is one legendarily WTF piece of Turtles history that always intrigued me, No not the concert, any of the movies, or even the Next Mutation (which I have to talk about sometime), I'm talking about the Legendary presumed to be lost for years anime, Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend...
FIRST A LITTLE BACKGROUND...
These 2 features are based off a more popular in japan than in the US line of Turtles figures known as the SuperMutants and the Metal Mutants. They spawned 2 30 minute features that seemed to be lost because Mirage never approved of them. You could say the same for the Next Mutation, but they thought it could've worked. Guess how that turned out. What do I think of the most intriguing interpretation of the Turtles? Find out today...
STORY:
*This is the Fandubbed version just FYI...*
The OVA begins with some Exposition about Kris Mu and Dark Mu and their powers of their Mutastones. The powered up characters look more mangaized than their cartoon counterparts. A custom openening appears. After the Intro we get NASA observing Space seeing stars vanishing. While that's happening, the Foot is awakening Dark Mu and Shredder gets mad. April O'Neil is airing a news cast about the Stars Vanishing. The Turtles meed Kris Mu, and Splinter says damn, like in the first movie. The foot's plotting when the Turtles find them, and we get the supermutant versions of all the characters... Krang is still trying to summon Dark Mu and the 2 factions are using their calling out their attacks Digimon style. Krang is still summoning Dark Mu when Splinter and Kris Mu try to interrupt. Disasters start happening all over the Earth with no subtitles over the japanese text. The footsoldiers are on vacation because their on strike. A tidal wave appears taking everyone with it. The Foot head to the surprisingly buoyant Technodrome. The Turtles use a pizza billboard to float. Krang Summons Dark Mu...
I'd Love to stick my Mutastone in your... Right...
April broadcasts a newscast that no one's going to see. Dark Mu uses her power to create...
Dark Shredder!!!!
(AKA A Daikaiju version of his Supermutant form)
The Turtles and Shredder do battle, after chasing the turtles after a while, like Super Shredder, he's no match for things falling on him. The final boss of this episode is Dark Mu. So we get...
TURTLE GATTAI!!!!
TURTLE SAINT HAS ARRIVED!!!!!
Like the Supermutants 3 minute time limit, which I'll come back to, The Turtle Saint can only stay for 100 seconds. The Turtles and Dark Mu fight in space. Kris Mu holds off Dark Mu and Splinter tells the Turtles that they only have 20 seconds left, so they use the...
FINAL WAVE!!!!!
That destroys Kris Mu and Dark Mu. The Powers can never be used again. The Turtles are now on a NASA Shuttle and the 2 fairies are now back in the crystals ending the episode with a custom credits sequence.
The next episode begins with a recap, and the custom credits again, then the turtles head to the land of the Ninja, Japan. Krang is laughing. We then get Krang playing the Ninja Rap while Shredder is complaining. The Turtles are riding a train to an ancient Ninja Temple. when the Shredder does...
Sayonara...
The Turtles notice him and his 2 lackeys flying... The 2 factions fight on a train, When a ninja appears. The Foot guys go flying again. The Ninja expositions about his magic mirror. This mirror contains another set of Mutastones. The Foot guys are lost then the next morning we get Bob the Ghost. The Turtles and the Foot guys are fighting over the stones, when an ancient temple appears. The 2 factions race to get to the mirror. When Shredder and his gang make it there's a race to find the real mirror in a bunch of fake mirrors. The Turtles bump into Krang and the go right through him. The Foot finds the real Mirror and gets a armour hydra, catfish, and tiger. Which gives them Armour. Which gives Bebob the power of water, Rocksteady the power of Snakes, and Shredder the Power of Tigers. The Turtles get the mirror and an armour Dragon, Phoenix, Lion, and Beetle. Which gives Michelangelo the power of bees, Raphael the power of firebirds, Leonardo the power of dragons, and Donatello the power of the sun. they 2 factions fight while yelling out their attacks. When the power time limit ends the foot escapes and the episode ends with a cliffhanger that'll never be resolved because Toy commercial. We get the custom credits again with different clips...
This is pretty much what it says on the box, an anime version of the original TMNT cartoon, It has anime elements, but it isn't as bizarre as people might think it is for it's legendary status... One question though, Does the first part take place over the span of a few minutes? Because the turtles stay transformed for most of the episode... Does time go by slower in the world of TMNT, there's no way that the Super Turtles stay like that for only 3 minutes...
CHARACTERS:
The characters aren't really displaying their main properties in this Toy Commercial, but this has more in common with Power Rangers/Super Sentai and Saint Seiya than it does with Ninja Turtles, and the characters look pretty good, I wouldn't mind having the toys if I was a Ninja Turtles fan. Not to mention Dat Turtle Saint. The toy for it looks badass, Why didn't they release it HERE?!
PRESENTATION:
The voices in the fandub are all over the place. Some sounding close to the cartoon officially, some sounding like Australians with strong accents, but the animation looks like an episode of the cartoon, minus all the anime elements. Shredder goes through a design overhaul to fit his metal mutants toy, which makes sense from a marketing stand point not so much for consistency. The soundtrack for the dub has some familiar tunes for you hardcore anime fans out there...
OVERALL:
It's an interesting specimen. It what it says on the box, an anime version of TMNT. but too bad were not getting an official dub anytime soon. Still Worth a watch. This gets 3 Turtle Saints out of 4. Your choice if you want to watch it subbed or dubbed...
Blogger in a half shell, YOSHI POWER!!!!!
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