Steel Angel Kurumi

Just rewatched Steel Angel Kurumi.

Length: 24 episodes

Rating: 5/10

Genre: Ecchi, Fighting, Romantic Comedy

It was probably early 2003 when I saw the DVD for the first volume of Steel Angel Kurumi in the small anime section of the Naval Exchange on base at NAS Whidbey Island, WA.  The box art was pretty cool so I picked it up on a whim.  Pretty much the only thing I did in my off-time was watch anime and play X-box.  I was still relatively new to anime, having only seen classics like Tenchi Muyo!, Dragonball Z, Record of Lodoss War, and The Vision of Escaflowne.

I was completely blown away by the delicious visuals that Steel Angel Kurumi offered.  I believe this was the first fully digitally produced anime I ever saw.  Though today I look back on cel animation with appreciation and fondness, the vibrant colors and clean lines that digital animation can offer was really amazing at the time.  This was also my first "robot girl" anime and thought the idea was pretty cool.  There's also quite a bit of ecchi scenes in this show.

Steel Angel Kurumi follows Nakahito, a young mystic in training during the 1920s(?).  Bullied into sneaking inside a mysterious, abandoned building by his friends, he inadvertently awakens a highly advanced battle android, steel angel Kurumi, with a kiss.  Of course, Kurumi now identifies Nakahito as her master, and obeys his every order.  Everyone is trying to get their hands on Kurumi for their own goals, and Nakahito is pulled along, fleeing both the military and other steel angels.

Looking back, the story is really weak and predictable.  Nakahito follows the old-school formula of "total pussy protagonist" to a T and is grating until, predictably, he grabs fate by the horns during the last few episodes of the show.  With Kurumi, the air-headed genki girl, Saki, the blatant lesbian, and Karinka, the bitchy tsundere, this show is full of stereotypes.  Also, the love story is stale to the point of being painful.  But I loved it at the time.

This is one of the shows that I watched dubbed, and I can say that ADV (now defunct) did a pretty good job casting the voice actors for the English dub, at least for the main characters.  Though they used their core VAs, Monica Real (Saki), Hilary Haag (Karinka), Kelli Cousins (Kurumi), and Kira Vincent-Davis (Nakahito), they were cast well and it worked.  Claudia Black provided a voice for one of the later steel angels, but I think her performance was unnatural and shitty.

As I said before, the animation was good for the time.  Digital animation has progressed even further at this point, and Kurumi definitely looks a bit outdated.  You'll see plenty of reused action scenes and uninspired battle choreography.

I would recommend Steel Angel Kurumi to anyone who is new to anime, likes battle android series, and doesn't mind a cliche plot and stale action sequences.  If you're more interested in a decent story and better characters, Gainax's Mahoromatic does it better.  Alternatively, check out the excellent movie Eve no Jikan, which completely drops the battle android theme and offers a thought-provoking take on androids similar to I, Robot mixed with Chobits.