Review: STEEL ANGEL KURUMI

We go from isekai maids to robot maids as I dig up this forgotten bit of nonsense from ADV's manga division.

STEEL ANGEL KURUMI (Kotetsu Tenshi Kurumi), by Kaishaku.  First published in 1997 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

In an alternate version of the Taisho era, Dr. Ayanokoji is on the run.  The army wants to seize his plans for his "Automated Dolls," and he's willing to do anything to protect them.  Nakahito is a cowardly young orphan who happens to stumble upon Dr. Ayanokoji's hideout in the middle of a dare.  He awakens one of his Dolls with an (accidental) kiss, and she pledges her eternal devotion to him.  Now Nakahito has a robot maid who will protect him from anything, including her mechanical 'sisters' and those who would wield them as super soldiers.

STORY:

We meet again, Kaishaku.  The first time I dealt with their nonsense was when I reviewed the absolutely wretched Kannazuki no Miko.  Steel Angel Kurumi was their first work and is mercifully not THAT bad...but I wouldn't call it particularly good either.

Like Kannazuki no Miko, this thing is crudely patched together from ideas that either in vogue at the time (maids, magical girlfriends, harems featuring robot girls) or stolen from other properties.  You can't convince me otherwise that the only reason this is set during the Taisho era is because they saw how popular the Sakura Wars games were at the time!  There's an entire sequence towards the end of the book that is shot-for-shot a ripoff of Amuro's first meeting with Lalah from Mobile Suit Gundam, an homage that this work is in no way, shape, or form smart or worthy enough to make.

That lack of original ideas extends to the cast as well.  Nakahito may not have a proper harem, but he's practically the platonic ideal of a harem lead from this era.  He's a scrawny nebbish seemingly devoid of personality, yet by volume's end seemingly the entire plot pivots around him.  This is entirely because of our title character Kurumi, who after getting literally awoken with a kiss like a princess is defined entirely by her ditzy, single-minded devotion to Nakahito.  The rest of the cast consists of a rotating cast of gag characters and minor antagonists.  The only supporting cast members who make any sort of impression are the doctors Ayanokoji and Amagi, and that's because it's revealed midway through the volume that these two opponents are also exes not long before Amagi switches her loyalties away from the Army and basically takes over Dr. Ayanokoji's mentor role when he gets kidnapped.

So what are Kaishaku doing with all the space where character-building dialogue and actions might go?  Fanservice and gags.  The timing of the gags are just awful and always guaranteed to puncture what little drama this nonsense can muster.  Like most hack mangaka, Kaishaku think fanservice is a punchline onto itself.  The final insult is that there's a nasty little homophobic streak behind some of these "jokes."  A lot of them comes at the expense of Nakahito, whether it's having his brother grope him while he's been temporary transformed into a girl (don't ask) or a random antagonist hitting on him in a very Kaworu-coded sort of way.  The translation (by Kaoru "Kay" Bertrand) doesn't help things, as it employs terms like "gaywad."  That's not even getting into the end of this volume, where it's implied that one robot girl is sexually assaulting another one because the only way Kaishaku can wrap up a volume is with the prospect of lesbian rape.  

ART:

The look of this manga is firmly stuck in 1998, with all the narrow faces, pointy chins, and lemony boobs that would imply.  The sad thing is that the character designs onto themselves aren't bad (even if they make absolutely no effort to maintain the period setting in their look) except that half of the cast is built first and foremost for fanservice.  They seldom miss an opportunity for somebody to whip out some nipple-less boobs, tear off some clothes, or twist and turn to better facilitate a panty shot.  Why else would they bother dressing Kurumi in a skimpy maid's outfit?

Indeed, excess is the name of the game with Steel Angel Kurumi.  The panels are small and cramped, and Kaishaku insists on filling every bit of that space with murky screentones, excessive speedlines, and sound effects.  The sad part is that they employs some good, dynamic poses during the action sequences, but they're all drowned out in visual noise.  

RATING:

Steel Angel Kurumi just goes to show that Kaishaku didn't become hacks over time - they were hacks from the start.  This manga didn't piss me off quite as much as Kannazuki no Miko did, but it's still tacky, dated, and painfully unfunny.

This manga was published by ADV Manga.  This series is complete in Japan with 11 volumes available.  9 volumes were released and are currently out of print.