Fight! Iczer OneWar tests people's resolve. Either you become better than you were, or you become a monster. Fight! Iczer One is an anime sci-fi action miniseries--edited together into a feature film--about an alien invasion by a race of all-female soldiers called the "Cthulwulf" who use shapeshifting parasitic monsters called "vedims" to infiltrate the Earth in preparation for their eventual takeover. Humanity is as of yet unaware of this shadow war on its doorstep. The only meaningful resistance comes by way of an android with big hair and a skin tight suit called "Iczer-1". But in order to synchronize her power with her giant mecha--called "Iczer-Robo"--she must have a human partner. For that, Iczer-1 has chosen a high school girl named Nagisa Kano...a choice that will forever alter the young earthling.
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One of the most striking aspects of the story of Fight! Iczer One is in the way that it depicts the psychological toll of warfare. This is most evidenced in Nagisa, a bubbly teen who begins to hallucinate of monsters replacing her friends at school. After falling off of the rooftop of her school while in such a state, Iczer-1 explains that she chose her to be her partner in the war to come--a decision which imperils her and her loved ones. Sadly, Iczer-1 lacks the necessary empathy needed to clearly explain her mission to Nagisa, largely due to her inherent alien mindset, and so she fails to convince Nagisa to join her. When Nagisa's parents are later transformed into nightmarish creatures before her eyes by the Cthulwulf's vedims, she is understandably traumatized, blaming Iczer-1 for her suffering. It isn't until she is forced to the breaking point by Iczer-1--who frequently teleports her into danger without her permission--that Nagisa finally steels herself to fight back against the warrior emissary of the Cthulwulf called Cobalt and avenge her parents. The Cthulwulf are an interesting alien species, not just because they are exclusively female. The final act of Fight! Iczer One explains (to a degree) that they are a people without a planet, forced to travel the stars in a mobile asteroid concealing their celestial ark. (Fight! Iczer One tends to drop a lot of exposition bombs very quickly, so apologies if any of my takeaways are incorrect.) The leader of the Cthulwulf, Sir Violet, contemplates how their home was violently overtaken, necessitating their exile, and worries that her "daughters" will be forever adrift in cryosleep. Suddenlty, an ephemeral being calling itself "Big Gold" manifests and transforms some of the Cthulwulf into vedims while indoctrinating Sir Violet to be its puppet, all while directing the asteroid toward Earth for conquest by the Cthulwulf. Big Gold makes its home within the main computer of the ark, but as to whether it is a ghost, an artificial intelligence created by mankind (as it claims), or some demon remains ambiguous. Regardless, the reforged Cthulwulf sets its sights on Earth with a militaristic mindset, believing itself entitled to have the planet for themselves. The implication behind Iczer-1's presence in the story is that before Big Gold could overtake the entirety of the Cthulwulf, Sir Violet released Iczer-1 as a safeguard to fight back against their oppressor--a lone commando cursed to fight against the very people who created her. It gets a little fuzzier later when Big Gold creates a superior android expressly to destroy Iczer-1 (uncreatively called "Iczer-2"), who refers to herself as a "daughter" of Big Gold and Izcer-1 as her "sister". Constantly outgunned and outnumbered, it's understandable to see how Iczer-1 is forced to seize every advantage to achieve her mission, even if it means fundamentally press ganging Nagisa into her war--an act that destroys everything that she cares about in her world. Iczer-1 claims that she does this because she "loves" Nagisa, but it's clear that Iczer-1 doesn't truly understand what that means. Although by their very nature the Cthulwulf are homosexual--evidenced by the relationship between Cobalt and her lover, Sepia--Iczer-1 lacks the emotional depth at the start of the story for this to be an honest reason for choosing Nagisa. It is more likely that Iczer-1 has been programmed to believe that "love" and "compatibility" are the same thing, and as a result, she has chosen Nagisa because of her compatibility with Iczer-Robo. This speaks not just to Iczer-1's alien mindset, but more importantly that of the Cthulwulf on the whole compared with humanity's--a common thread in escalations of conflict that lead to war.
The Eighties was a watershed moment for anime, as its popularity spread across the Pacific Ocean and into the the West, fostered by the likes of Carl Macek with shows like "Robotech". The character designer for Fight! Iczer One was Toshiki Hirano, who also wrote and directed this OVA (Original Video Animation) series. His other works include the seminal "Super Dimension Fortress Macross" TV series, which in turn served as the basis for "Robotech". Both "Macross" and Fight! Iczer One share a great deal in common, not least of which is their appearance. In each act of Fight! Iczer One, Earth's defense force launches a flying battleship from a secret base that looks a bit like the SDF-1 from "Macross", but in each case it is utterly obliterated by the Cthulwulf in the blink of an eye, to the point that each subsequent iteration begins to feel almost like a running gag. Another common feature is how both stories explore how war transforms ordinary people. Nagisa is initially panicked and traumatized at the loss of her family, not to mention the assorted trauma yet to come. But ultimately she fortifies her will and--combined with Iczer-1--they slay Cobalt. Yet this, in turn, causes the heretofore gentle Sepia to harden her heart and make it her life's mission to destroy Iczer-1, becoming the "partner" to Iczer-2. Despite her profound sorrow, Sepia wasn't created to be heartless like Iczer-2, so the two do not bond as closely as Iczer-1 and Nagisa--a key difference that gives Iczer-1 and Nagisa the edge in their confrontation. The pervasive tension in Fight! Iczer One comes from the constant escalation of violence and retaliation. It's easy to draw parallels between the war between the Cthulwulf and Iczer-1 and other modern conflicts where each atrocity is returned in kind, further reinforcing the hatred between both sides and diminishing the possibility of peaceful reconciliation. It's worth noting that even without learning later that Big Gold had seized control of the Cthulwulf, that their ingrained hatred toward humanity may have stemmed from a deep-seated sense of superiority and entitlement. One wonders if this was a factor in the battle that forced the Cthulwulf off of their homeworld in the first place. Of course, Big Gold could also be a metaphor for political demagogues--someone leading a nation to violence and ruin by selling them on the idea that they deserve something which they don't. Either way, these are heady themes for an anime which, to be fair, began as a pornographic manga. (The anime is far less graphic.) Fight! Iczer One embraces many of the tropes that made Eighties anime so iconic, from the giant mecha, the bevy of attractive women engaged in martial arts fights, and plenty of horror, drama, and even a few (comparatively tame) instances of nudity. But to dismiss this as just another antiquated anime emphasizing fan service over story would be unfair, as Fight! Iczer One thrives on its detailed animation and complex themes ranging from emotional intelligence to the psychological cost of war.
Recommended for: Fans of an unsung--and often nightmarish--anime from yesteryear that features robots, pretty girls in action, bloody aliens, and all the good stuff that era's anime had in spades. Fight! Iczer One is yet another anime that has all but fallen through the proverbial cracks, and it would definitely benefit from a rerelease by some enterprising distribution company.
The Eighties was a watershed moment for anime, as its popularity spread across the Pacific Ocean and into the the West, fostered by the likes of Carl Macek with shows like "Robotech". The character designer for Fight! Iczer One was Toshiki Hirano, who also wrote and directed this OVA (Original Video Animation) series. His other works include the seminal "Super Dimension Fortress Macross" TV series, which in turn served as the basis for "Robotech". Both "Macross" and Fight! Iczer One share a great deal in common, not least of which is their appearance. In each act of Fight! Iczer One, Earth's defense force launches a flying battleship from a secret base that looks a bit like the SDF-1 from "Macross", but in each case it is utterly obliterated by the Cthulwulf in the blink of an eye, to the point that each subsequent iteration begins to feel almost like a running gag. Another common feature is how both stories explore how war transforms ordinary people. Nagisa is initially panicked and traumatized at the loss of her family, not to mention the assorted trauma yet to come. But ultimately she fortifies her will and--combined with Iczer-1--they slay Cobalt. Yet this, in turn, causes the heretofore gentle Sepia to harden her heart and make it her life's mission to destroy Iczer-1, becoming the "partner" to Iczer-2. Despite her profound sorrow, Sepia wasn't created to be heartless like Iczer-2, so the two do not bond as closely as Iczer-1 and Nagisa--a key difference that gives Iczer-1 and Nagisa the edge in their confrontation. The pervasive tension in Fight! Iczer One comes from the constant escalation of violence and retaliation. It's easy to draw parallels between the war between the Cthulwulf and Iczer-1 and other modern conflicts where each atrocity is returned in kind, further reinforcing the hatred between both sides and diminishing the possibility of peaceful reconciliation. It's worth noting that even without learning later that Big Gold had seized control of the Cthulwulf, that their ingrained hatred toward humanity may have stemmed from a deep-seated sense of superiority and entitlement. One wonders if this was a factor in the battle that forced the Cthulwulf off of their homeworld in the first place. Of course, Big Gold could also be a metaphor for political demagogues--someone leading a nation to violence and ruin by selling them on the idea that they deserve something which they don't. Either way, these are heady themes for an anime which, to be fair, began as a pornographic manga. (The anime is far less graphic.) Fight! Iczer One embraces many of the tropes that made Eighties anime so iconic, from the giant mecha, the bevy of attractive women engaged in martial arts fights, and plenty of horror, drama, and even a few (comparatively tame) instances of nudity. But to dismiss this as just another antiquated anime emphasizing fan service over story would be unfair, as Fight! Iczer One thrives on its detailed animation and complex themes ranging from emotional intelligence to the psychological cost of war.
Recommended for: Fans of an unsung--and often nightmarish--anime from yesteryear that features robots, pretty girls in action, bloody aliens, and all the good stuff that era's anime had in spades. Fight! Iczer One is yet another anime that has all but fallen through the proverbial cracks, and it would definitely benefit from a rerelease by some enterprising distribution company.