Today’s quick review: Project A-ko. A-ko (Stacey Gregg), a teenager with superpowers, and her friend C-ko (Julia Brahms) are new students at Graviton High. B-ko (Denica Fairman), a spoiled girl in their class, becomes jealous of their friendship and uses an array of machines to challenge A-ko, hoping to win away her best friend. But their fight gets interrupted when an alien spaceship attacks Earth looking for the girls.
Project A-ko is a Japanese animated sci-fi action comedy. At its core, Project A-ko is a slice-of-life high school comedy about two troublesome girls and their stuck-up rival. A-ko and C-ko are cheerful and oblivious, more worried about getting to school on time than B-ko’s machinations to win C-ko’s friendship. At the same time, A-ko’s superhuman strength and speed turn her into a destructive whirlwind, fueling the movie’s action and comedy alike.
Project A-ko’s best feature is the way it has fun with its premise. A-ko’s powers open up a wide range of cartoonish action, from her racing to school at super speed to her acrobatic duels with B-ko’s machines. Most of the humor comes from the gap between the characters’ priorities and what’s going on around them. A-ko and C-ko are focused firmly on the day-to-day details of their lives, and both B-ko’s attacks and the alien invasion are afterthoughts.
The qualities that make Project A-ko fun also make it an odd watch. The movie is casual about world-building, starting with a semi-futuristic setting and going from there. A-ko’s powers and B-ko’s mechanical expertise are never properly explained; they’re just treated as facts of the universe that the viewer is expected to simply accept. To the movie’s credit, its enthusiasm and sense of humor help it gloss over some of these issues.
Give Project A-ko a watch when you’re in the mood for a colorful, action-packed romp with a minimum of plot. Its freewheeling sci-fi story won’t appeal to everyone, and its comedy relies more on goofy situations than sharp writing. But for anyone willing to roll with the punches, Project A-ko’s light tone and lavish action sequences make it a fun pick.
For an action comedy that expresses ordinary interpersonal conflicts through larger-than-life battles, try Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. For a superhero comedy with a similar tone and a more grounded story, try Ant-Man or Shazam!.
[7.0 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091794/). I give it the same for unabashed fun.