Wondering Why "Wonder Momo" Blows

Taking advantage of Crunchyroll's many pleas to have me subscribe to their streaming site, I signed up for a 30 day trial. It's one of only two only legit place to find episodes of Wonder Momo, the anime based on an old Japan-only video game and a webcomic currently drawn by my man Omar Dogan. The series I was dying to see was, well... not so wonderful.

• The Wonder Momo anime loosely adapts the webcomic: Momoko, a high school student and aspiring idol, gets pulled into a war with the Waru aliens, fighting them off with super powers. The plot is chopped up into super short, seven minute episodes. This isn't so bad. Some of the best anime programs I've seen clock in under this time, like Ai Mai Mi. I was surely disappointed, but hey, short episodes are alright in my book. Just depends on what you do with the time you've got.

• The episodes are all pretty similar. Momoko spends her time lamenting her lack of idol success and compares herself to the lovable idol Aki, right before the Waru aliens invade and try defeating her. Wonder Momo's a lot like Power Rangers, except I can accept the Power Rangers formula after watching for 20 years. I don't like seeing that same formula (fight minions, defeat boss minion) in other shows, as there's nothing anyone can possibly add to it. Maybe an action-figure deal is in the works for Wonder Momo. That's what Power Rangers does best, sell toys.

• Momoko's voice is anything but music to my ears. She's so whiny!

• The animation's second-rate, probably the most painful part of this series. Wonder Momo has a simple two-tone shading scheme and only uses the brightest colors in the rainbow. It's like staring at, well, an old 16-bit arcade game. The designs are close to Omar Dogan's work in the current comic series, but they aren't being served justice through the animation. A studio named Graphinica's handling this one, and they've done key animation for more shows than I can count. What happened, guys?

I wish I had better news, guys: my precious Wonder Momo has been robbed of a proper series. There's a lot of garbage out there in the world of anime. This might be something to add to the refuse. At least I've still got my autographed Wonder Momo poster.