The concept of teenagers with special powers fighting to save the earth is at least as old as the X-Men comics, possibly more. I thought Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love! was supposed to be a parody of not only that kind of series but also of magical girl shows, complete with transformation sequences, but like many parodies it failed to go far enough and instead become exactly what it’s trying to parody.
Bunch of high school boys, weird mascot from outer space, turns them into heroes, they get into the role pretty quickly, they fight against some kind of hotpot monster in episode 1, end of show. I’m not sure what was decided by the end of ep. 1 because I was already skipping through at that point.
Even though ‘Binan’ is a synonym for handsome guys (with different kanji), the guys don’t look special at all. Even your low-budget smartphone otome ‘game’ has better-looking characters, and that’s saying a lot. I’m not interested in fanservice, male or female, so the naked butt shots in the transformations were actually a disservice. Cover up, luvs.
If I’m supposed to stick around for the comedy, it’s not funny in the least. There’s nothing remotely amusing about it. There’s a wombat and it’s pink and it keeps talking about love. ???? Come on, my toddler nephew tells funnier stories than that, and he’s 2. As for action there isn’t much of that, just boys flying around waving wands at people, pew pew pew! My toddler nephew and his friends play more exciting games than that, and they’re all two.
tl;dr there’s nothing lovely about Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Love! and even 3/4ths of an episode was a waste of my time. Moving on!
