Sadamitsu The Destroyer

Sadamitu is a die-hard fighter and the leader of the Corpse Gang. While settling a fight with another rival gang Sadamitsu finds himself in the middle of a battleground between an alien fugitive and cyborg pursuer. When the cyborg is destroyed in battle, Sadamitsu ends up recovering its head (which looks like a motorcylce helmet) and putting it on his own body. This allows Sadamitsu to act as a host and allow the cyborg (who he names Junk) to merge. Through the remainder of the story, Sadamitsu and Junk battle alien fugitives who are landing on earth (20 million to be precise) in an attempt to make it their new home. As the story unravels, Sadamitsu begins to learn about his past and discovers that there are blocked memories that may explain his destiny to become a "Destroyer".

This was a very short series (only 10 episodes). In fact so short I ended up finishing it in a couple of days. For 10 episodes, there was a fair amount of detail in the story. The story felt much longer and further drawn out (not in a bad way of course). There was a good level of character development considering the length. One of the stronger points here is that the writers did not focus on the whole cast of characters in the development, but also did not run the risk of emphasizing only the main character and forgetting about the supporting cast.

The soundtrack was nothing to write home about. The intro was pretty bad in all honesty. It sounded like a mix between a samurai film and a Western gun fight. The cheesiness of it was actually entertaining, but after watching the intro for the first episode and having to listen to the same corny tune every time there was the moment of clarity in a fight got annoying quickly.

Animation was very clean and appealing to watch. I have to say that I do enjoy when the artists take the time to make the characters in a series like this look tough without going to serious with the facial expressions. Sadamitsu and his gang looked intimidating enough that I could take them serious while not being so serious that there was no room for joking. The female characters were nothing out of the ordinary. Exactly what you would expect from an anime that takes place largely in a school setting.

Voice overs (yes I watched the dub) were well selected. It was a nice change to hear some new voices. Many of the newer shows or more recent dubs seem to always use the same select actors to portray voices (which is honestly confusing when you start to watch a lot of anime and the voices make you think of other characters). There were no overly annoying characters which is always a plus.

Overall, I think this anime exceeded my expectations. While I struggled to find an anime with some good fights and action in it, this seemed to be a refreshing selection. Being short it was easy to get through and still had enough happening to keep me engaged. I would recommend taking a look at this if you are in the market for something short and sweet with good fights, a funny/semi-romantic plot, and cool costumes.