Hello everyone, DarkdaemonPK2 here with my complete review of Photon: The Idiot Adventures. I decided to put a closure to this OVA that mesmerized me to watch this show the first time I read information about it on the pages of a certain defunct game magazine when I was a younger. Here we go!
Plot summary
Keyne Aqua is part of the rebel group trying to find his grandfather’s device when she was attacked by the galactic emperor’s henchmen which forced her to crash land on Planet Sandy. While on the planet, she accidentally married Photon Earth, an incredibly strong, yet simple-minded boy who accompanied her on her quest.
Review
Photon: The Idiot Adventure’s plot can be very confusing at first since it doesn’t develop until much later in the OVA. It’s not really its strongest point since I find it very weak. The end goal may be established earlier, but this OVA churns out plenty character arcs as a distraction to the actual plot that make up the numbers for the episodes which can be either a hit or miss. The only character arc I find to be good is Princess Lashara’s development during her journey where she finally found a closure to her relationship with Papacha where she became strong and independent after the realization that she was only being treated like a puppet. Also, the final episode unleashed a lot of revelations that I never saw it coming, but it was too little to late since I don’t see the significance of any of it being told nor relevant to the plot anymore. Episodes can range from funny, weird, or just plain weird which made me stare blankly in complete silence. The humor can be also sometimes repetitive and crude, especially with the slapstick. It was good the first time, but I got bored when it became redundant. There’s also mild nudity seen on some of the episodes for both men and women which is especially disturbing whenever I see Papacha buck naked only for his ‘sensitive’ part covered by a convenient black circle. There’s also some terminologies they used in the show that I couldn’t understand that made me a bit antsy. Either my brain no longer works or they are just using deep words, then it would had been better if they simplified some of it for me to get what they are trying to elaborate.
Like I mentioned previously, Photon’s personality is as interesting as a rock. He may be the main character, but he is boring as heck. In contrast, I find Papacha as an amusing villain since he may be a coward and lame most of the time, but he has a goal and that motivates him to do anything to achieve it, even it means manipulating or sacrificing other people to accomplish it. I really don’t like Aun since she is bratty, selfish, and makes life miserable for Photon and the crew due to her immaturity which leads to crazy hijinks. Keyne is there and she is okay as a main heroine, but I find her a bit lacking on some traits. Lashara is my favorite since she is the only individual out of the entire cast that underwent the best character development. We can’t discount OG Pochi who also went a similar character development, but not as good compared to Lashara’s.
I think the best defining feature of Photon is the visuals and the fluid animation which still looks very good even to this day. I may be arrogant on my statement, but I think it’s better compared to most of the anime of this decade. However, good visuals and animation does not compensate for a bad plot since everything should be balanced fairly to deliver a good experience for the viewers. Unfortunately, they allocated everything on the animation leaving the narrative quite bizarre, or maybe that was the entire of point of the show?
Conclusion
Overall, my viewing pleasure of Photon: The Idiot Adventure was not that enjoyable. I’m a bit devastated that it turned out to be like this even after many years of wanting to watch the show, only to crash and burn. Can I recommend this show to anyone? No, but you can watch it at your expense if you are curious, just don’t blame me for what will happen next. It’s not a terrible show, but just a bad one with good animation. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
-DarkdaemonPK2
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