Project #59: Hyperdimension Neptunia the Animation

Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Let’s talk about the video game industry. The video game industry is a constant battle ground where game developers and companies battle it out continuously for dominance in your homes. Throughout the years we’ve seen video games evolved not just console wise but game specs, designs, appearance, and story wise what once was meant to only give us a short moment of relaxation has become something that is both time consuming, rewarding, and a lot of fun. With so many video games and video game companies you have to wonder what a game would be like if it was based around them? Well you get a little something known as Hyperdimension Neptunia. Hyperdimension Neptunia is a role-playing game that came out in 2010 it was developed by Idea Factory (Trinity Universe), published by Compile Heart (Record of Agerest War series), NIS America (Disgaea series), and distributed by Sega with two sequels that came out in 2011 and 2012 for the PS3 exclusively with a number of spin-offs for the Vita in Japan only. The games take place in this alternate world ruled by goddesses called CPUs who basically represent the 4 major console companies over the years battling it out for their countries and seeing who can get the most shares while having fun with each other. The games are basically a take on the console wars going on between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. I’ve only played the first game and to be honest it was okay if I had to give it a score I give it a 5.5/10, it was nothing major or groundbreaking but to be fair the games weren’t meant to be, they were just made to have fun at the expense of the video game industry. While the games were okay there are 3 things that do make them stand out and keep people coming back to play them. One is the number of video game references they make in the games, if you’ve played video games for a long time like I have you’ll find yourself laughing at the references made and feeling nostalgic. Second, the concept is interesting, fun, and done well. Third, all the major characters in the games are cute girls who either represent a game console or game company with each one having their own personality and character. Because of the games popularity in Japan it got an original anime based off the first 3 games in 2013 under the production of David Production (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure) who also helped in the production of Soul Eater and the second season of Code Geass. Let’s get ready to see an anime adaption of the console wars and take a look at Hyperdimension Neptunia the animation.

Opening and Ending Theme

The opening for this anime is “Dimension tripper!!!” by Nao a rockin’ good song with great instruments, good lyrics, and a very impressive singer who gets you pumped up for the series. The opening fits so well with the series, its fun, exciting, and energetic. The ending for the anime is “Neptune☆Sagashite” by Afilia Saga which is both a good and cute song. It’s a good song in that it’s catchy the group Afilia Saga sing it well and sound like they’re having fun singing it and they all sound cute. The animation is also cute in the ending, all the characters are dancing in chibi forms to the song.

Episodes 1-4

So we start the anime off at a peace summit going on Planeptune where we get introduced to the 4 goddesses. We have the main heroine of the series Neptune the goddess of Planeptune who is a mature beautiful woman who has a strong sense of justice and confidence in her CPU form. Her human form on the other hand is an optimistic girl with a ditzy personality who rather goof off rather than do her job as CPU and enjoys giving others nicknames. She represents Sega’s Neptune game console, a game console Sega was working on to release in the mid-90s until it got cancelled. Sega has never given an official reason why they cancelled it. Some say it was finance issues, others development issues, me, I think Sega realized that they were doing poorly in the console race and just decided to wait a few years and try again with the Dreamcast (which failed). Representing the PS3 we have Noire the goddess of Lastation (get it Playstation *laughs* it’s funny) who does her best to hold up the honor of CPU and takes her job seriously but secretly has a hobby which I’ll get to later. Next up is Blanc who represents the Wii and the goddess of Lowee, a loli-looking soft-spoken girl who acts introverted and looks innocent but in truth she’s a foul-mouthed girl who gets easily angered and has a complex about her bust size. Lastly, representing the Xbox 360 (boo~) we have Vert the goddess of Leenbox who acts like the maternal big sister when around the other CPUs and is somewhat of an otaku. Also, she has the biggest bust size out of all the CPUs and characters which is odd considering the Xbox doesn’t do so well in Japan. I guess the creators of the game had to give Vert some redeeming quality so people would pay attention to her (that, and she’ll provide plenty of boob jiggles to make you want to motorboat her, //youtu.be/DC2teMi1nZg). We also meet the little sisters of the goddess, Nepgear who is Neptune’s sister, Uni who is Noire’s sister, and the twins Rom and Ram who are Blanc’s sisters. Once again, surprisingly Vert is the only one without a sister which is a shame we could have named her sister Della and had her represent the Dell computers.

Anyway, they’re all gathered at Planeptune to sign a treaty for peace in which they will no longer fight each other over shares anymore and instead share them all equally (ha! Like all these 4 game companies could get along with each other and let this happen. They can’t even sit in the same room for 2 seconds without thinking of ways to kill each other). The peace treaty goes off without any problems and everyone seems to be happy that there will be no more fighting. Fast forward one month later and we see that Neptune has been slacking off in her goddess duties and just stays at home playing video games all day while her nation’s share energy goes down. In this world each nation has a share crystal which is the power source of that nation’s goddess. The share crystal is powered by share energy which comes from the citizens belief in their goddess, the stronger the belief the more powerful a goddess gets and the weaker the belief the weaker the goddess gets. While Neptune’s share crystal is still good it’s been declining little by little and rather than sit through a lecture of Histoire the oracle of Planeptune and the recorder of every event in history, Neptune along with Nepgear and their friends IF and Compa (Idea Factory and Compile Heart inserted themselves into the games) decide to go to Lastation to learn from Noire in how to act like a true goddess (good idea, let Sony show Sega how to make their fans happy. While you’re at it send Capcom over there as well).  Noire takes them on a monster elimination request where they fight dog blobs where they sort of tentacle rape Neptune, Nepgear, Compa, and IF (geez bestiality tentacle rape, just when I think I’ve seen it all Japan finds a way to broaden my horizon on hentai situations). After that they go into a cave for the second part of the monster elimination request which is slaying a dragon (for King Arthur). They split up in the cave where Noire finds and engages the dragon but a strange red stone causes her to lose her goddess powers temporarily making her defenseless (the color should have been yellow, the light of death on any game console, a gamers mortal enemy). Luckily, Neptune comes in dynamic entrance style (//youtu.be/PDOZ_hyu7Lo?t=3s), transforms into her goddess form and defeats the dragon. The episode ends on a funny note with Neptune accidently leaking pictures of Nepgear getting bestiality raped (I swear to God if this becomes a thing I have lost hope in the world) which makes the pervs of Planeptune happy and increases Neptune’s shares (never underestimate ero-power).

In episode two Neptune, Noire, Nepgear, and Uni (that’s a lot a Ns folks) go to visit Lowee since they have a new amusement park open called Retroland (this park needs to be real) and they invite Blanc, Rom, Ram, as well as Vert who was also there (trying to steal ideas from Nintendo huh Microsoft) to join them on their trip. Vert, Rom, and Ram go but Blanc decides to skip out on the event which makes Rom and Ram sad (how cute they want to spend time with their foul-mouthed easily angered big sister. Why do you want to hang out with her again). They go to the park where Neptune gets attacked by a turtle trying to steal her peaches (Mira: oh nice a Legend of Zelda reference. (Nitsuj): 0_0? (Mira): I’m kidding it’s obviously a Mario bros. reference). At the amusement park Rom and Ram collect floating coins (okay why don’t you just call the park Marioland, this could not be any more obvious) as a present to give to Blanc but they get captured by a fella named Trick who happens to be pedophile (call the cops) and his partner in crime a grey colored girl named Linda. Back at Blanc’s mansion the grandchild of Dr.Wily Abnes barges in on Blanc where she exposes Rom and Ram’s kidnapping to all the citizens and downplays Blanc as a goddess because she’s a little girl (said the little girl playing news reporter). Neptune gets rid of her and Blanc collapses from exhaustion (something I think a lot of people at Nintendo face every day). Vert reveals that the reason Blanc’s been so exhausted is because she’s been working nonstop on a plan that will allow all nations to see satellite images of each other (this means nothing to me the government has been doing that for years). Using the satellites, they find out that Trick is hiding out in an abandoned amusement park (oh how cliché can a character be). They go to the park where Vert offers to take the place of Rom and Ram but Trick says he’s not interested in big-breasted girls whose game systems have nothing of interest on them. This pisses Vert off and she transforms into her goddess form (where her breast are even bigger now if you can believe it) and blows Trick along with Rom and Ram into a junkyard (nice going Vert). Rom and Ram try to run away from Trick but he grabs them and is about to lick all over their bodies until Blanc shows up all pissed off at the pervert for touching her sisters. She transforms and takes him out with ease sending him flying (looks like Trick is blasting off again). As for Linda she also gets taken out by Noire and Uni and gets sent flying (looks like Linda is blasting off again). Blanc apologizes to her sisters and all is well.

In episode 3 Vert invites everyone to a concert being held on Leenbox a concert which Vert doesn’t bother showing up to because she’s busy playing online games and slacking off (you know they really represent Microsoft well in this series don’t they). After the concert they go to Vert’s place where they see her locked in her room playing a video game and get the house setup for a party that she’s supposed to be hosting (man this girl came more unprepared than Microsoft did at last year’s E3). Once everything is setup Vert shows everyone Leenbox’s newest invention Kinect (which is somehow cooler, better, more effective and functional than the Kinect 1 and 2 will ever be). As they enjoy their party Vert receives word that a large swarm of monsters have gathered on an island near Leenbox and the goddesses go to take care it leaving the little sisters behind (//youtu.be/4F4qzPbcFiA). They go to the island and beat the monsters where they see the mastermind behind the monsters reveals herself to be Arfoire the fallen goddess. For those of you who haven’t played the games Arfoire was the sole goddess before Neptune, Noire, Blanc, and Vert. After abusing her powers and being stopped by the 4 legendary heroes, she created Histoire and together the two created the CPUs we see today and gave them each a quarter of Afoire’s goddess powers (so technically she’s kinda of their mother). She pretty much represents the R4 device chips found in the Nintendo DS which allows its owners to illegally download music, movies, and games for the DS.  She’s also the one responsible for the console wars going on between the 4 goddesses and has been using their war to work on plans to take over the world (//youtu.be/X8u7px_GzWQ) and become the true goddess (than why did you create Neptune and the others if you wanted to become the true goddess). She also has a cute little mouse companion named Pirachu who has a crush on Compa and considers himself to be the third most popular mouse in the world (I don’t know I think he’s the fourth most popular mouse in the mouse. First is Mickey, followed by Jerry, then Pikachu, and finally Pirachu). Afoire uses the red crystal we saw in episode 1 known as anti-crystal to trap the goddesses in a force field which is made out of anti-crystals which will continue to absorb the powers of the goddesses until it is no more and they turn back to normal where they’ll get absorbed by this black substance which will destroy them (very evil plan).

Not a whole lot happens in episode 4. Afoire distributes pictures of the goddesses trapped for everyone to see so that the citizens will start to lose faith in them and the little sisters plan to go and rescue their older sisters. They arrive at the island with IF and Compa backing them up where they see that the island is overrunning with flying mini-shooting hover bots (oh shit those things are dangerous, quick use a homing attack). With their backs up against the wall Nepgear reaches down within herself and transforms into her goddess form and helps the team gain the upper hand to end the episode.

Episodes 5-8

The battle continues in episode 5 with the newly transformed Nepgear helping the team gain the upper hand against the enemy (and all it took was the thought of your big sister getting killed to get you to transform). They reach Afoire where she takes on Nepgear and reveals that she has the power to copy the powers of others (sounds like Ditto from Pokémon, Rogue from X-Men, and Combot/Mokujin from Tekken). With this skill she starts to use the moves of goddesses on Nepgear backing her into a corner and pummeling her nonstop (haven’t seen Sega take a beaten this bad since releasing Sonic 2006). Rom and Ram can’t stand watching Nepgear get hurt and they themselves transform into their goddess forms (no! Loli-girl transformation scene. AHH~, unclean, unclean). The twins attack but their attacks do no damage to her and Afoire begins attacking them. Uni distracts Afoire with her rail gun and is able transform into her goddess form (and for some reason her breast shrink as well when she’s in her goddess form. Isn’t it usually the opposite effect). But they’re too late as the black substance finally reaches its peak and absorbs Neptune along with the other goddesses (//youtu.be/Q_d_BiERUDQ?t=6s). Sad and angry at the deaths of their sisters the girls pull together and resonate their share energy to negate Afoire’s anti-crystal energy causing her to lose strength and deliver a crushing blow to her destroying her entirely along with the anti-crystal field (damn, little sisters showing off in this episode, major props to them). With the field destroyed we see that Neptune and the others are alright (how? I don’t know I’ll just say its love and friendship). We also see that Afoire is still alive and has escaped with Pirachu. We end the episode by finding out that all the nations lost some share energy but they all gained it back by doing various things. Vert launched the Kinect to the public (if it’s anything like are Kinect you’re gonna be hearing a lot of complaints), Blanc and sisters started selling hot buns to the public (no doubt to make up for the lack of buns they have), and Noire and Uni went on a monster hunting spree earning back more shares than they lost. As for Neptune and her friends they have their hands full with the arrival of a new friend in the form of an energetic little girl named Peashy a character who is also a goddess and represents the PC games (a child as a representation of the PC? That’s crazy! That’s like Capcom representing themselves with Angry Joe. Sure he’s good for the public eyes but Joe is good and Capcom is evil, //youtu.be/urb6WPtoKIk).

We start off episode 6 by seeing that Neptune and the others have taken Peashy in and are trying to find her parents but so far they have no leads as to who or where her parents are. Also, Vert is trying to convert Nepgear into her little sister (one could call Nepgear a total bitch for betraying Neptune but when you got a nice pair of boobs like Vert it’s hard to resist her temptations and ideas). Anyway, in this episode someone has hacked into Lastation’s servers (geez this sounds like something that happened around 3 years ago for any PS3 owners out there). So Lastation gets help from Leenbox’s version of a female Bill Gates, Bill Setag who likes to make bill puns (she’s gonna flop worse than the Kinect) to help them find the hacker. With the help Setag (the creators of this show have no shame do they) they find the location of the hacker who turns out to be a drag queen robot (a dragbot if you will) who has an unhealthy obsession with Noire (can’t say I blame him, she’s the cutest out of all the goddesses) and has been hacking into the Lastation’s system to spy on Noire doing her secret nightly activities (send those pics to me dragbot) which is just her making cosplay costumes and trying them on (again, send me those pics dragbot). Embarrassed by the pictures Noire transforms and begins destroying the dragbot’s (whose name is Anonydeath but let’s face it you’ll be calling him dragbot every time you see him) system of her allowing him to escape. The dragbot runs into the little sisters who are also investigating the hacking incident, capture the bot and throw him in jail where we see that the real reason he hacked into Lastation’s servers is because he was looking for someone. We end the episode with Noire trying to explain to Uni what she was doing until a mysterious woman comes falling from the sky (make way for the new character) and lands on top of Noire (I said make way for the new character). This new character is Plutia the goddess of Planeptune. Also, that’s Kana Hanazawa doing the voice of Plutia. I swear you couldn’t watch half the anime last year without hearing this girl’s voice. Also, while Plutia is cute and having the voice of Hanazawa only makes her more adorable, I gotta ask, why does she look like she’s high? I’ve never played the third game so I don’t know a whole lot about her except for the fact that just like Neptune she neglects her duties as a goddess and goes through a drastic character change when she transforms into a goddess but I swear in her normal state she looks and sounds like she’s high as a kite. Just look at the girl’s eyes you can totally tell she’s somewhere else, //i.imgur.com/NRUtND9.jpg, well with that smile and peaceful look I imagine it must be a very nice place, I just hope she finds her way back safely.

In episode 7 we find out that Plutia is the goddess of Planeptune not in Neptune’s universe but a different dimension all together which is similar to Neptune’s dimension except it represents the rockin’ 80s (ahh~ the 80s, a simpler time when games were only 2 or 4 bit, only lasted 5 minutes, and weren’t nearly as invented, complex, and well-developed as today’s games are. God, am I glad I was born in the late 80s and raised in the 90s). As they’re all eating dinner Histoire receives a call from the Histoire in Plutia’s dimension (who is smaller and cuter) and goes to meet her (Histoire, you’ve created a dimensional paradox). The Histoire from Plutia’s dimension explains that she sent Plutia to Neptune’s dimension to recover a large flow of energy that belonged in their dimension and somehow slipped into Neptune’s dimension. She tells Neptune’s Histoire to stay on the lookout for any changes in their world and help Plutia discover the lost energy (geez we got two goddess on one nation now and a child who popped out of nowhere who seems to have unexplained super natural strength and energy. THINK~). While driving Compa to work IF and Compa get captured by Arfoire and Pirachu and are taken to an eggplant farm. Why (Isis: Why indeed)? Because she found out that Neptune can’t stand eggplants, her plan is to lure Neptune out to the eggplant farm hoping the eggplants will distract her which will allow Arfoire to destroy Neptune once and for all (//youtu.be/imqFvfbch6Q). While they’re waiting for Neptune, Nepgear, and Plutia to arrive Arfoire forcefully shoves eggplants down IF’s mouth (lot of suggestive imaging in this scene). Neptune and the others arrive and Arfoire begins to attack them with eggplant monsters (//youtu.be/OVqIIIYEpng) causing Neptune to return to her human form and run away from the eggplants. Plutia has enough of Arfoire torturing IF and transforms into her busty goddess form where we see the easy-going Plutia turns into an evil sadist who gets off torturing and beating up others whether they be friends or foes (hmm~ sadist, suddenly she’s more attractive). She beats up Arfoire allowing Neptune and Nepgear to save IF and Compa as well as the day. We end the episode with Arfoire deciding to give up on world domination and become an eggplant farmer along with Pirachu (quite the drastic career change. Well I give her credit she at least looks happy at the end).

Episode 8 is the fanserive episode. After getting into a fight with Peashy over pudding and not making up with her Neptune, Noire, Blanc, Vert, Nepgear, and Plutia go to the island known as R-18 the island for adults if you know what I mean (//youtu.be/rv9qs5WVHS8?t=30s) to investigate what they believe to be an artillery battery that their satellites saw. They get to the island where the security system mistakes Plutia and Blanc for kids because of their bust size and won’t let them in (but if you know the internet, security restrictions have never stopped us before and won’t in future). Blanc destroys the system with her hammer and she and Plutia join the others in the adult paradise where they run into Linda who’s working on the island, play with the mysterious beam of light censorship, and eventually find the artillery battery where we see it’s just a machine that makes bubbles (//youtu.be/oFs3lOqr1UE). While that’s going on Rei Ryghts (get it game rights) a shy activist who believes the world would be better off without the goddesses shows up at Neptune’s place claiming to be Peashy’s mom and uses some hypnotic odor to bend Peashy to her ways and she takes Peashy with her. Neptune and the others return and find out that Peashy is gone which makes Neptune feel sad (now where are we going to find an adorable cute annoying girl who causes trouble with her wild antics).

Episodes 9-12

In episode 9 Neptune is still upset about Peashy leaving and instead of facing it she does what every anime protagonist does and engrosses herself in her work as a goddess working nonstop to keep her mind occupied instead of you know facing the issue. While on a patrol Plutia confronts her on the issue and Neptune is finally able to express how she’s sad about Peashy leaving and that she wished she spent more time with her (you sound like a girl who just broke up with her boyfriend). After that Histoire tells them a new nation has formed near R-18 island (we’re calling it the Fire Nation) and Neptune, Nepgear, Plutia, as well as the other goddesses go to check it out (except for Rom, Ram, and Uni since they’re too young to go to the island). They arrive on the island where they see that the dragbot has somehow escaped prison and is now a resident of the new nation (oh good the nation sounds very pleasing with this guy being the first person who greets you). Noire is about to attack him but the goddess of the new nation known as Eden comes in to stop her calling herself Yellow Heart. She also has big breast that are even bigger then Vert’s (well there goes Vert’s only defining character trait, so long Microsoft you won’t be missed). The goddesses try to fight her but none of their attacks seem to harm her since she’s indestructible (//youtu.be/FYFcT9sDSBs?t=55s). Plutia eventually joins the fight after interrogating Rei and loses to Yellow Heart making the other goddess get serious and they manage to break Yellow Heart’s transformation to reveal that Yellow Heart is really Peashy (//youtu.be/km27QN8Zq00) still under the control of Rei and the dragbot. Rei and the dragbot come to get Peashy and make the demand that they want all the nations to allow Eden to sell their (no use in hiding it) porno games to their nations in unlimited quantities (I can see this happening on Lastation and Leenbox but Lowee and Planeptune that’s not happening) and if any of the nations fail to do this Eden will consider it an act of war and go to war with that nation (than let there be war). So. . .a child is representing the porn games in this series? *Gets up and walks out onto porch just to stare out into the horizon not saying a word and trying to understand what I just saw? Returns back to the room and sits down after fully analyzing this situation* WHAT)
Moving on to episode 10 we see that the nations refuse to give into Eden’s crazy demand and are now at war with Eden. Peashy is leading the army of Eden (which is all women mind you. Seriously are there no men in this anime, how do people reproduce? Better yet am I really to believe that women are actually in support of porn games) to the borders of Planeptune where they get stopped by Nepgear and IF. The other nations are also having their own problems with people rioting in the streets (under the control of the dragbot) demanding a lift on age restrictions and more extreme adult content (once again it’s the females demanding this with no men insight. Again, are there no men in this world? Do the women just go out, find the dragbot and fuck him when they decide they want a baby or do they just make them in a test tube). As for Neptune, she’s locked herself in her room unsure of what to do because she doesn’t want to hurt Peashy. Also, we find out that Peashy is the major flow of energy that Plutia has been looking for this whole time (no~, really, the girl who came out of nowhere and has unexplained powers is the power source you’ve been looking for this whole time. NO SHIT). This means that Peashy is actually a resident of Plutia’s dimension (again no shit, tell me something I don’t know) and if she doesn’t bring Peashy back soon a part of her dimension will be destroyed (that’s more like it). After a pep talk from Plutia and Noire, Neptune goes to face Peashy in her human form instead of her goddess form (you’re just asking to be killed aren’t you) trying to get Peashy to remember her. While that’s going on Noire and Plutia sneak into Eden and try to find the secret to Peashy’s unlimited share energy. They fight (or in Plutia’s case torture Linda into finding where the secret entrance is) their way into the artillery cannon and discover that the key to Peashy’s power is a machine that gives a nation an unlimited amount of share energy and destroy the machine along with Eden (no! keep it! That could have solved all of the nations’ share energy problem and bought peace to all the nations). This returns Peashy back to her human form but she still can’t remember who Neptune is and says she hates her. With Eden destroyed everyone under the control of the black substance returns to normal and stops rioting. The time comes for Plutia and Peashy to go back into their dimension but before leaving Neptune gives Peashy a bag of a pudding cups which brings back all of her memories just as she’s about to leave.

In episode 11 we find out that thanks to Neptune’s effort to stop Eden from invading Planeptune her share energy has sky-rocketed big time so much so that her share energy pretty much outweighs the other nations (Sega. It does what Sonwon’t, Micronothing, and Nintendon’t). Wanting to show her gratitude to the people of Planeptune, Neptune decides to throw a festival and invites the other goddesses as well but they refuse because at the time Neptune’s share energy sky-rocketed their share energy dropped drastically particularly Blanc’s share energy (well what do you expect, you guys so far have done nothing. I haven’t seen a big name game from Nintendo in like forever. Yeah you made Super Mario 3D world but in all honesty that should have been done years ago). The next day during the festival Blanc calls Neptune out to the forest and attacks her accusing Neptune of stealing shares from Lowee (Blanc: You stole Atlus from me! That was my company you bitch). Rom and Ram come in to stop Blanc and she retreats but not before threatening Neptune with war. While that’s going on Noire goes to visit the dragbot (*Hannibal Lecter impression* hello Noire) who tells her that the real mastermind behind Eden was Rei Ryghts. Not the shy activist Rei but her alternate personality which is more aggressive and sinister than the normal Rei. Rei busts out of jail and makes her way to Planeptune where she steals all of Planeptune’s share energy, causes the sky to turn black, transforms into a goddess, and raises her fallen nation from the depths of Planeptune. Rei reveals to Neptune and everyone on Planeptune that she is Rei the goddess of the once great super nation called Tari. Okay, time for a history lesson, gather around kiddies it’s story time with Uncle Nitsuj. For those of you too young to remember, during the 80s before Microsoft, Sony, Sega, hell even before Nintendo were duking it out for dominance in your living room the living rooms of North America were dominated by one game system, the Atari 2600 from Atari. While the graphics weren’t as great as they are today Atari was your place to go in the 80s if you wanted to play good console games. There were other consoles that came out in the 80s that represented the second generation video game consoles such as Intellivision, the Emerson Arcadia and Colecovision as well as many others but the Atari 2600 was the one that everyone loved and remained dominant in the video game industry at the time. That is until 1983 when they started making many big and bad mistakes such as market saturation, not giving credit and paying royalties to creators of the games which caused them to get sued in court, and sending out many low-quality and horrible games which lost them consumer confidence. These factors caused people to look down greatly on the video game industry and stop buying them which resulted in many game companies including Atari at the time to go bankrupt and shut down for good. This tragic event would later come to be called the Video Game Crash of 1983 or the Atari Shock in Japan which almost destroyed the video game industry all together in North America. This crash lasted for 2 years until Nintendo came along in 1985 and introduced the Nintendo entertainment system which revived the video game market altogether and paved the way for other game companies that we see today. Anyway, getting back to the anime, Rei wants to destroy the goddesses as well as the world to get revenge on everyone for abandoning her (it’s your own damn fault). In the games her motives are a little different, Rei wants to destroy the goddesses because she believes that just liked she failed in the past Neptune and the other goddesses are doomed to fail as well and wants to prevent that from happening (should of gone with the game’s backstory instead your own anime). Neptune goes to confront Rei where Rei demands that Neptune hand over her nation or she’ll destroy it. Neptune refuses and Rei has Tari launch a laser cannon at the people attending the festival. This makes Neptune mad and she prepares to fight Rei head-on to end the episode.

In the final episode we get one big battle to end the series. Neptune takes on Rei but gets overpowered by her because she can control lightning. Nepgear tries to join the fight but since Rei has pretty much stolen all of Planeptune’s share energy she can’t transform. Luckily, Noire, Uni, and Vert show up to help Neptune and they figure out that she’s using the same device Eden used to steal share energy and they try to destroy it but they keep getting struck by lightning (and they say lightning never strikes twice in one spot. Fucking liars). Rei fires her laser again on Nepgear and the citizens of Planeptune but Rom and Ram deflect the laser fire and Blanc destroys the share stealing device which restores all the shares stolen from Planeptune and allows Nepgear to transform and join the others. Rei decides to stop playing around and uses all the remaining energy she has to set her laser (which is called the Pongg laser) to destroy the world but they all work together and destroy the Pongg laser as well as Tari. Not giving up Rei decides to release the share energy in her body to destroy half the world but everyone holds hands, gather around her, and create a shield to contain the blast (in other words they Care Beared the shit out of this scene). They contain the blast but get knocked out on the ground except for Rei who is somehow still conscious (her hatred keeps her awake). She gathers up what little energy she has left to destroy them but Afoire comes in with Pirachu and uses the anti-crystals on Rei’s share crystal which destroys it causing Rei to lose all of her goddess powers and returns her back into a shy activist. We fast forward several months later where Planeptune is done rebuilding and Neptune is giving a thank you speech to everyone. After the speech Neptune returns to her human form and abolishes the peace treaty saying that they don’t need it anymore since they’re all good friends now and instead they’ll just compete for shares fairly from now on. Everyone agrees and they all fly off in the sky to have an exhibition match to end the series.

Final Thoughts

This was a good anime. For making an original story from 3 games they actually do a good job at introducing all the characters and creating a fun and entertaining story with plenty of action, comedy, and suspense to keep you entertained. All of the characters maintain their same characters from the games so if you’ve played the games you’ll be happy there and even if you haven’t played the games you’ll quickly come to know the characters and soon pick favorites. As I said before my favorite character is Noire but also have to get an honorable mention Afoire for being a good rogue villain. She doesn’t like the goddesses but deep down she does have this mother-daughter bond with them so when they’re in trouble she’ll step in to help them only because she wants to destroy them herself. I also like Plutia because despite her high as a kite look she’s very wise, caring, and peaceful but when her friends are in danger and she sees something she doesn’t like she’ll transform and punish you all while keeping a smile on her face. The references they make in this series are great as well, that Bill Gates joke still cracks me up every time I see it and there are plenty more video game references that’ll keep you laughing. The animation is good and the music is also quite catchy to listen to if I had to name my one complaint which really isn’t a complaint in my opinion it’s that the anime kinda falls into the same category as the games it’s based off of. It’s a good anime but just like the games it doesn’t bring anything new to the table or try to stand out from other animes not that that’s really a bad thing or anything I just wish it would have a took a risk and tried to be something a bit more memorable.

Final Score

Hyperdimension Neptunia earns a 7/10. Even though it doesn’t standout that much it’s still a fun anime to watch. If you liked the games you’ll like the anime and for those of you who haven’t played the games this anime is a good introduction into the series. It’s easy to follow, you’ll learn who the characters are quickly, and you’ll find the story fun and interesting. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.

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