St. Ignacio Junior High School is one of the finest school for girls run by the family of the richest and most popular girl, Sayaka Kitaouji, also the president of the leading Debutante Club. Its rival, Manners club (Etiquette club), led by Reika Ayanokouji and vice-president Rie Shibusawa, only has a few members and a secret. As Bishoujo Yuugekitai Lightning Attacker Exstars manning multi-purpose robot vehicles (MRV) called Battle Skipper, they battle against evil in Neo-Tokyo.

It’s nice and it had a lot of potential but, it all lacks a good conclusion. There are all this nice MRVs… good mecha design and mobile vehicle concept, actually. The concept of an Exstar is also good. Another one of those schoolgirl turned superhero kind of things? Get used to it as Japan built an entire genre on that. But the Exstar fares differently — good costume, add a dash of elegance, rich, refined, and drives a good looking MRV. “Kakkoii!” That’s what one would say when they saw an ExStar. Marvelous eye candy! That’s what drew me too!

It continues on to build on the concept with a rich story. Apart from the ExStars, you’ll find some crazy characters like Sayaka and her assistant. The battles continue to build up the excitement mounting an intense amount of curiosity. In the end, though, you’re left with nothing but that. In the end, it actually makes me think that this was meant to be a series that wasn’t continued and simply left to be an OAV. If it were a series though, I think it would give Naoko Takeuchi and her Bishoujo Senshi series a run for their money. Where else can you find a schoolgirl shoujo story fused with mecha? Good thing for Takeuchi-san though. This OAV seems to have lost momentum.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation 9; Story 5; Characters 7; Sounds 6

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2001 at 11:02 am and is filed under Battle Skipper, Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.