Hyper Speed GranDoll

Do high school girls take baths together? Well, yes they do, if you're talking about Japanese anime titles, which often feature knockout animation, complex narrative lines, and the testosterone-addled sensibility of a 13-year-old boy. While sporting sharply drawn and colorful graphics, Hyper Speed GranDoll, which is comprised of three separate episodes, is disappointingly formulaic in structure. In a stereotypical postmodern twist, teenage Earth girl Hikaru, enamored of Japanese anime heroes and heroines, discovers that she's really an exiled princess from Planet Gran with access to "royal armor" that conveys upon her superpowers (meaning she can kick the circuitry out of her human/machine enemies). In each episode, Hikaru either a) takes a shower solo, b) takes a bath with a girlfriend, or c) chases boys...until the final ten minutes when she is forced to transform into Hyper Speed GranDoll and trade nicely choreographed blows with another transformer-type until he/she runs off to the Mother Ship with his/her mechanical tail between his/her mechanical legs. Ho-hum. As is often the case, the English dubbing ranges from passable to laughable and the animated teen sex kitten angle (also fairly common) is discomfiting (though, to be fair, the treatment is not that much different from Hollywood teen scream flicks). Really good Japanese anime (such as Akira) marries solid narrative with great visuals; Hyper Speed GranDoll doesn't. Not recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)