Plastic Little

A Parent's Guide to Anime
Rated: M
Recommended for Mature Audiences

Review by John M. Brown, P. Eng.:

Tita is the 17 year old captain of a pet hunter hypersub on the planet Yietta, a world composed entirely of a dense liquid/gas something like Jupiter. The main city is kept afloat with artificial gravity generators that play an important part in the story. Tita rescues a young girl, Elysse, from a renegade military force that is using the girl to activate a super weapon invented by her father that will enable them to take control of the planet. The story is about Tita and her crew trying to evade and then counter this military force. These is a lengthy nude bath scene with Tita and Elysse and later a nude scene with Tita in sick bay. Tita also tends to complain about the small size of her breasts. There are a few bloody scenes as well as combat oriented violence.

Review by Julia Pfaffenberger:

There are two things that caught my eye in Plastic Little; the first was the incredible animation quality, and the second was the amount of nudity, gratuitous even by anime standards. The plot isn't completely non-existent, but Plastic Little was meant to emphasize the art. The bath scene the previous reviewer referred to does not contain the casual nudity that others like Ranma 1/2 do, but a direct focus on the nudity. A guy-pleaser, obviously. What saved Plasic Little in my opinion is the quality of the animation, which was so well done I really can't remember how much violence there was. I recommend watching Plastic Little before you show it to any children.

Additional review by Alex Mackenzie:

The story takes place on the planet Yietta. The planet, or at least the city, is kept afloat by a gravity device. The film opens with a 16 year old girl named Elysse and her father running from the evil Guizel. Elysse's father activates a escape pod for Elysse, but he is gunned down. As it turns out, Elysse's father had built a machine that affects the gravity device. He found out too late that Guizel had plans to mistreat the device (mistreat is a understatement). Tita, captain of a group that captures various creatures in the clouds and sells them, meets Elysse one day when Elysse is fleeing from Guizel. She helps Elysse escape temporarily, and they become friends. Of course, anyone friends with Elysse is an enemy to Guizel, and Tita, trying to help her new-found friend, gets involved.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from "Plastic Little". I had heard different opinions about this one. One of the reasons I saw this anime was because at that time, I was feeling like a decent comedy/adventure. "Plastic Little" filled that hunger more than a snack, but less than a feast. One of its flaws was for me that it was too short. At one hour, some of scenes seemed to be too short, while some were too long. However, I enjoyed the animation and the animation was eye candy. It was beautifully animated. It helped me sit though certain scenes. The character designs are well done and interesting looking. The only character I disliked was Guizel. He bears a resemblance to Ashram from "Record of Lodoss War", save the hair color and a couple other things. He serves as the tall, unmerciful bad guy. Like most Anime fiends, he tries to dress in the faishonable black cape. To add to his little costume, he wears a big helmet that could probably crush his skull. His personality would have been much more satisfying if they had revealed more about his past. The Plot gave no idea at all to what his motive was for wanting to cause so much utter chaos, death, and destruction. But that doesn't mean all the characters were poor. With a couple of them, you'll probably become attached too them, while most of the supporting characters personalities seem as bland as cardboard. For example, Elysse was suprisingly not that annoying as most anigirls, (unlike the EXTREMELY obnoxious brat C-ko of "Project A-Ko" ), and her story was told slowly, and was very important to the plot. Elysse was one of those characters that you get attached to. But Mei, like most of the crew members, did not do anything that was particularly memorable.

The plot may be a little weak, but it's executed well enough to make it worthwhile and entertaining. The animation really added to the overall feel of the movie. You can tell it doesn't take itself seriously. I also enjoyed some of the action in this movie. The action packed bike chases are one of the high points of "Plastic Little". Certain parts are fast-paced and exciting. It's too bad that "Plastic Little" tends to surprise you in situations that seem calm, instead of attemping to build tension.

In my opinion, the mature content of "Plastic Little" is a fairly low R.

Overall, "Plastic Little" is a nice little suprise. Sure, it has its share of flaws, but it's far better then you would expect. It's a funny action movie, but it's also unique in its own way. While it isn't worth it to be purchased, it's a very worthwhile rental. You'll get more out of it then you'd expect.

Additional review by Sophie Rocheleau:

Plastic Little was, in my opinion, an extremely good anime. It had pretty good animation, and very good dubbing.

The plot is something like this:
Captain Tita of the Cha Cha Maru, is 17 year old "petshop hunter" a job that involves searching for exotic creatures and selling them to pet shops. Then, one day she meets Eleeyse, a girl who holds the secret to a giant Navy plot. The rest is pretty much about their adventures together, while trying to unveil the plot.

Parent's Guide Rating:

red (recommended for mature audiences)

warning: contains scenes of mild violence,excessive nudity,and foul language.

A note to parents: this movie has gratuitous upper body nudity. To some, this is a warning; to others, it is another reason to see the movie. It seems like the artists were a little preoccupied with womens chests. The worst scene was when Mei suggests Tita and Elysse should take a bath. As it turns out, the "bathing area" is more like a theme park. It consists of a bunch of water slides and swiming pools. However, Nichol, a male fellow crew member with a crush on Tita, tries to peep at Tita. Tita retaliates by electrocuting him. That's the most sexually oriented scene. The rest is just excessive nudity. While the nudity is related to the plot, expect to see plenty of skin when someone is shot or injured. Also, everyone in Tita's crew wears a skintight suit. The violence for "Plastic Little" wasn't that graphic, but a couple scenes are fairly grim. At one point, Guizel lifts up Tita and starts to fire a gun into her stomach. The scene may be fairly disturbing to young children. Another one of the worst scenes was when Tita blows a persons head open, but it's tastefully done, not hardly as messy as it sounds. Barely anything is shown. Also, at the very beginning, Elysse's father is shot up very badly, but, like when Tita blasts into the head, it's done tastefully and controlled. There is also profanity, which is quite frequent. They say sh*t, cr*p, and b*tch when they are frustrated. - A.M.

Plastic Little did have some pretty explicit nudity, mainly of women's breasts. The sexuality was pretty much harmless in my opinion, though. The violence level was pretty low, and the language wasn't too bad. As one of the above reviewers said, there was one rather disturbing scene in which Tita gets shot repeatedly in the stomach. - S.R.