CRUSHER JOE, the 1983 theatrical animated feature from Japan, introduced to audiences a group of characters created by Haruka Takachiho-a team of "Crushers," independent civilian contractors hired out for dangerous space work, led by 19-year-old Joe and including 17-year-old blonde female Alfin, 15-year-old Ricky and, for muscle, the massive middle-aged cyborg, Talos. The team returned in two 1989 hour-long OAV (original animated video) episodes, "The Ice Prison" and "The Ultimate Weapon: ASH." Both are available in the U.S., along with the movie, as part of a 2-disc DVD set released by AnimEigo.
While the movie was long enough (130 min.) to allow us to spend time with the characters and follow their often humorous interactions and offered a sprawling story with endless twists and turns that went all over the galaxy, the OAVs are concentrated more on narrowly focused plots which tend to take place in one locale and deal with confrontations putting our heroes in tense life-or-death situations. They're well-written, offer excitement and genuine suspense and are marked by high quality animation and design that's as good as any theatrical space anime we've seen.
"The Ice Prison" starts out on a planet run by an autocrat ruler who sends dissidents to an orbiting icy asteroid used as a penal colony which is then knocked out of orbit by a laser "accident" and threatens to plunge to the planet's surface. Crusher Joe and his team are called in to set things right but soon find they've been set up in a power play by the corrupt regime. "The Ultimate Weapon" finds a female army officer, Major Tanya, who is cuffed to a case containing a life-destroying new secret weapon, held hostage on a deserted planet by renegade officers seeking to undermine a peace process set to end an ongoing conflict between two warring systems. The Crushers are assigned to rescue Major Tanya and destroy the weapon. On the planet, not only do they have to fight the military but a hidden menace as well. Thousands of "Cloakers" appear-basketball-sized killing machines left over from an abandoned research project, which are self-replicating and target any and all humans.
The first episode mixes a compelling sci-fi premise-how to stop an asteroid from hitting a planet-with conspiracy-type political intrigue and climaxes with rousing space combat that's as good as anything of its type seen in, say, the Gundam and Macross animated space series. The second episode is virtually nonstop action and suspense and is just so masterfully done that one wonders in frustration why no more Crusher Joe stories were ever animated and why there's been so little fan praise of these films, which rank with the best of anime space opera. Crusher Joe himself is a worthy successor to the whole Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers tradition of space-hopping pulp heroes, but with significant differences. He's younger, more quick-tempered, a bit more arrogant and money-hungry and notably reluctant to engage in noble heroics for their own sake (although he always does). In short, he's more human.
The production crew includes character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (who directed the Crusher Joe movie, as well as ARION and VENUS WARS), mecha designer Shoji Kawamori ("Macross Plus") and composer Keiichi Oku, whose sweeping, full-bodied orchestral themes might recall the work of John Williams.
