Dear Anime God, can this 12-episode rule not be a thing anymore? Please? I watched two winter titles and they were so, so good… but then ended in the blink of an eye! Just make all seasonal titles 24 episodes. It's perfect for short series. It gives enough time for them to develop and is vitamin C to character development. So many anime end before they should, and I wonder why; budget restraints, maybe? 

One of the titles I watched was World Conquest Zvezda Plot. The story starts out in the distant future with a man, seemingly in his middle-age, walking down a path that leads to a statue of a young woman. It’s a foreshadowing scene that gives us an indication of what we’re about to witness. In brief, this anime revolves around a young high school boy named Asuta Jimon, and involvement with an organization called Zvezda— a team of people with anonymous identities whose sole purpose is to conquer the world. Zvezda’s got a home base (that looks like a condensed water park) with the ability to transform into a regular-looking house for the sake of concealment. They target specific groups of people which make them a threat to their town.

But wait, it’s really not that serious. Did I mention Zvezda’s house is powered by an underground field of green onions? Their power-up transformations are also organically charged by that same field of green onions. Oh, yes, and I forgot: their leader Kate Hoshimiya, is a little girl stuck in her prepubescent body forever.

The series rolls out in a format that makes it seem episodic, but it really isn’t. You have to watch it chronologically to get a clue of the values that Zvezda have, and the relationships between each member. We get to learn about the past of the team members, and how they got involved in world conquest, but there isn’t much knowledge of Kate’s past and why she’s stuck being a little girl for the rest of her life. I think I enjoy the matter; there doesn’t need to be a reason for everything in a case like this quirky anime. I also found myself liking the antagonists, White Light. They’re a bunch of interesting people themselves, and I noticed that one of them was designed aesthetically after Sailor Moon! There’s a sweet twist in their relationship with Zvezda that kept me at the edge of my seat, excited to see it unravel.

I’d say this anime is a weird mix between magical girl, mecha, the typical shonen plot, and a pinch of sci-fi. It’s also got a lot of comedy. Actually, it’s like a comedy with a serious tone to it, if you can imagine. I’ve never really experienced an anime so odd, and so I really like it. The reason why it should have expanded to 24 episodes is because you might get a little too comfortable in your seat watching it. So before realizing, you’re on the 9th episode, about to end the series soon, when you thought it just started! At least that’s what happened to me. Needless to say, the end was rushed. Things unraveled a little too fast, and the foreshadowing of the first episode—the very first minute of the entire show—didn’t even correlate with the ending; we, the viewers, were never brought back to the future.

But this poor ending still doesn’t change how I feel about the anime as a whole. World Conquest Zvezda Plot because will make you laugh, keep you guessing, serve you the unexpected, and give you the “feels”.

So how was your winter anime, guys? Did you enjoy Space Dandy on your American TVs?