DICE

Publisher
Bandai
Director
Jun Kamiya
Production
Bandai, Studio Galapagos, XEBEC
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2004

D.I.C.E. V1

By David Rasmussen
25th Jun 05

Yes, it’s true, unless there’s a special something out there you’re waiting to play for the most part the Summer is a cultural deadzone of new video games. Other than a handful of really good games coming this Summer for the most part it’s just no good for gamers. Lucky for you the Anime industry doesn’t seem to have that same problem as we have new releases coming this June in Region 1 format (hopefully Region 2 sometime soon) to look forward to.

This week I’ll be reviewing three series from BANDAI, all releasing during the first month of the Summer of Reviews, June! We’ll be looking at… top of the Cartoon Network totem pole of viewing D.I.C.E. DVD V. 1, shot in the arm for basketball fans and hot new sports series Hoop Days DVD V. 1, and finally the long awaited Anime of the sleeper Manga hit that’s infecting fans left and right like a T-Virus outbreak in Raccoon City, Planetes DVD V. 1.

This, however, is our review of D.I.C.E. and, yes, it’s one of those shows you might have seen on Cartoon Network if you watch Cartoon Network. No, no, don’t run away yet. Just because it’s on Cartoon Network doesn’t mean it’s scary. Cool stuff like Wolf’s Rain, Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex, Gundam SEED, Cowboy Bebop, Big O and more have been on Cartoon Network… as well as stuff you’ll never watch like Duel Masters & Rave Master and something with the word Master in the title… yeah.
But BANDAI is cool so you know you’ll get something good.

HOWEVER seeing that this is probably a series for kids you might have to lower your expectations abit if you are one of my more mature readers. Take the following with a grain of energon please.
However don’t judge it obsolete until you’ve seen the series for yourself and judged it fairly.

D.I.C.E. DVD V. 1
Before we begin?
What is D.I.C.E.?
No it’s not a series about a band of sweaty fantasy RPG addicted gamers who love jiggling their 20-sided dice! Please don’t tell anyone I said that, by the way… just in case somebody decides to turn that into an anime by the way.
D.I.C.E. is a Sci-Fi series set in the farflung Sarbyllion Galaxy, where danger and trouble go hand in hand. Good thing for the law abiding citizens of the Sarbyllion Galaxy they have someone to look towards when the bad guys come rolling down the streets looking for a fight, that would be the forces of D.I.C.E.! Yes, D.I.C.E.! A band of armor wearing, mech riding sweaty fantasy RPG addicted gamers who… sorry, same joke. Ahem… take two.

Yes, D.I.C.E.! Aka the DNA Integrated Cybernetic Enterprises… D.I.C.E… what’s with that name?
Anyway this organization (which sounds abit WWWA since they sound abit like a troubleshooting private corporation) dispatches teams of highly trained personnel capable of solving any problem thrown their way.
This series focuses on one such group, the team assigned to mobile command base Fortress F-99, and their leader Captain Tak. Tak, along with his ace pilots Marco (polo?), Robert (Downey Jr.?), and the fiery Jet (whoosh) take on any task regardless of the danger! Like Ghost Recon Jr. or Rainbow Four with mechs!
The D.I.C.E.’s weapon and vehicle of choice is the “dinobreakers”. These vehicles, invented by a person who seen either/or the Jurassic Park movies or Beast Wars one too many times, transforms from vehicles to dinosaurs for savage ground, sea and air combat be it man made or something more primal (like mother nature on a ‘roid rage)! As we join the cast they are on another mission…
And they do it with a bouncy opening credit song to boot.

Episode 1 - SOS from Planet Saffaron
Within the first two minutes you’ll get the quick laydown of the plot… thanks.
Uh… speaking of narration there’s a ton of it at the start so you can’t say you don’t know what the heck is going on because you’ll get a full on mission briefing just at the start of each episode.
It all starts on Planet Saffaron. They’ve been using power plants to keep the planet from having to be abandoned, but suddenly the plants begin to disappear beneath the ground. Is this an accident, or is it sabotage? What is going on here? Somebody needs to investigate the strange goings on and it looks like there’ll only be 3 hours before the planet becomes the next Krypton (bye-bye Saffaron!)
So it is during this most disastrous moment that a distress call is sent out to D.I.C.E. HQ and it’s fleet of command fortresses for help. That’s where this special team of youthful D.I.C.E. members come in (they‘re all for the most part, as you might have suspected from the youthful audience numbers, young kids to teens).
They have to infiltrate one of those power plants, which is the key to the life or death of the planet, and save a man whose wife/child are waiting for him to return, and do it all in 3 hours or less. No prob.

Episode 2 - The Pirate Planet
Arrr! Avast ye scurvy D.I.C.E. roller! Arr! Shiver me mecha and blow the towering robot down…
And now I’d like to present myself with the Chet R. Chase Award for bad stereotyping, because that pirate imitation sucked… hooray for me for sinking to a new low… sorry.

As often done by pirates be it them water borne dudes who work for Disney, or the space farin’ type, they always seem to be seeking their booty in the shipping lanes. And this pirate crew is no exception, only they now have to deal with a D.I.C.E. unit employed to counter the threat. But why is one of these pirates riding what seems to be a Dinobreaker? Aren’t these the exclusive playthings of D.I.C.E.? What gives!

Episode 3 - Race Through the Plasma Blizzard
On a planet swamped by brutal winter and plasma blizzards the life of one young boy hangs in the balance.
Life, and death, hold hands and stands bedside waiting for the outcome of the struggle against “acute vacuum sickness”… damn you, Hoover vacuum cleaners! Damn you all the heck!!
Uh… “vacuum sickness” is something you may be hearing about in future series with planets that use artificially developed atmospheres, really, because since it’s a body’s rejection of the artificially created oxygen made during terraforming you’d think we’d hear about this on more sci-fi series.
This is, of course, fatal if left untreated. So with a most serious thing here it looks like they’ll need to vaccinate the kid in order to save him, but the vaccine needed to save his life cannot be delivered because of the severe plasma storm, and unless something is done he is as sure as gone. Enter D.I.C.E., who will undertake this most urgent mission to deliver the life saving vaccine in time, if they can get through the plasma storms to save the kid.

Unfortunately the Captain wants to wait 12 hours for the storm to settle down, which means Jet is going to take matters into his own reckless hands even if it costs him his career in the process… heck, it could cost the fiery little hothead his life! How they manage to get out of this one? Only watching will tell.

Episode 4 - Countdown to Impact
Looks like a peace loving planet is about to come under the hammer of planetary destruction due to incoming cometary body. It’s like “Deep Impact” only the planet can’t take an impact seeing how it’s an artificial planet… I.e. one good hit and this house of technological cards goes boom. So with only three days and counting the D.I.C.E. team has to find a way to do a Bruce Willis on this puppy and blow it out of the sky Armageddon style… only they end up having to do a rescue of a couple of losers from a low grade ripoff group… V.D.I.C.E.? They’ve been hanging around a few episodes now it seems.
This rescue is nothing but bad news, especially since the boys miss their extraction and face imminent and painful death as their explosives are about to rip the comet to shreds before it hits.
Maybe a little change of strategy might help, but how? Time to think good and… ouch, that hurts.

Episode 5 - The Monster of Lupis Sea
Well, it’s the last episode of the first DVD so I’ll leave this for viewers to discover.
That’s that. We’re wrapping here so let’s break this down.

D.I.C.E. Breakdown the 1st
What’s Hot?
This is a kind of series you really need to be a fan of from Cartoon Network… but there is another fan who might dig this series, but I’ll go into that shortly.

Now, of course, if you love the series from Cartoon Network then by all means you’ll be sweeping up these DVDs like nobody’s business. HOWEVER if you are not…? Hmm… I’ll leave it up to your judgment, so pick up DVD Vol. 1 and try it. Now, mind you, that should open your mind to it and give you a choice as to what you think of it. But, for my two credits worth, BANDAI has better all ages series that they’re keeping hidden up their sleeves starting with the underrated (yet far more satisfying) Magical Meow Meow Taruto.

HOWEVER this doesn’t mean I’m completely down on the series, I do have some nice things to say!
Yes, there’s some action to it and actually there is some merits to it, but it’s more like one of those spunky action series you’d wake up Saturday morning to watch while eating cereal or some other breakfast while in your jammies. Yes, if you are one of those fans of series that are just spunky (mindless) action, the kind you got up early to watch on a non-school day, then you’ll be signing up for a tour of duty on D.I.C.E.
Yes, some thought does seem to need to be exercised to achieve some of these missions, but heck if we’re watching it it’s for the action and the occasional weird quirky voice acting that has us smirking at the show.
If you’re looking for a mind expanding sci-fi experience you’ll be hooking up with Planetes, if you want quirky fun in your sci-fi then you’ll be watching Galaxy Angel, but if you want a Saturday morning serialized action yarn that is just a good sit down in front of the telly then you’ll be watching D.I.C.E.

What’s Not?
Where do I begin? Oh where, oh where do I begin? Actually there isn’t anything bad about D.I.C.E. believe it or not (yes, D.I.C.E. is NOT a horrible series! Princess Tutu is a horrible series, D.I.C.E. is somewhat watchable.), but it’s not a series for the die hard Anime fanatic either.
Guess you, like Adam Sessler, need to live through an extended childhood to even get this series… but after watching the trailer for the PS2 game I don’t think BANDAI will find a friendly review face at X-Play when they roll out their review of the tie-in video game… hope they have their expectations of X-Play’s reaction set nice and low. I hazard a guess D.I.C.E. for the PS2 will get… hmm… a 2 out of 5. Maybe a 3 out of 5.

Back to the Anime. Make no mistakes about it, D.I.C.E. is your standard bowl o’ cereal munching Saturday morning style action yarn, and not exactly what I would call a hardcore serious sci-fi experience.
But then again a little light fare can do wonders for you, and since it’s not a burden on the budget (you can even afford the deluxe release which features a D.I.C.E. action figure) I don’t see why you shouldn’t at least give it an experimental whirl for luck. If you love low key series that is more action and flash than plot here is the series for you. And some people do like series like that, so why not roll out this series that just feeds that habit for mindless action that puts you in the mood for popcorn and breakfast cereal!
The only thing I regret is that they don’t have the original Japanese language version along with the English dub, but that is a regret I often feel when reviewing series like this so don’t mind me. I wish it were different, and they took a page from the Ronin Warriors book and did a flip disc release (original version on one side and new English dub on the other) but they haven’t done that lately since they wrapped up releasing Ronin Warriors on DVD sometime ago and that’s a shame.

Moments to Remember?
Hmm… it’s a Saturday morning action yarn so you’re just here for the action. Nuff said.

What to Ignore?
Hmm… yeah, it’s not Planetes, but it’s an action yarn so it’s up to you. I say if you like something light and just for mild watching it’s a consideration for your collection. Not everything has to be a dark dramatic series, a spin off hit of a classic sci-fi wonder or a full on mind expanding experience you know!
A little light-ness in the collection might not be a bad idea now and then.

Overall?
Time to go buy your favorite cereals, stock up on microwave popcorn, and get good and comfortable.
Ready? Right, because it’s time for you to relive your action addicted, who cares about the story as long as it’s fun, series addiction of younger years with D.I.C.E…. yeah, it’s not Planetes and it’s not Gundam SEED (stop staring at me, Adam Sessler, people actually DO LIKE GUNDAM SEED!! So bite me!!) but who cares about all that! That’s meaningless against the joys of Saturday morning action fare.
Sure, while it might not be in the same category as your favorite classic yarns of old (that you spend lots of money on to buy the new age toys, manga series and re-released Special Edition DVDs for your collection) it still has merits as a Saturday morning munching series. So feel free to pour a bowl of your favorite cereal, or pop a bag of popcorn in the microwave and get your goofy grin on. It’s action, and it’s not very deep, but who cares! Saturday morning action yarns have their place in our collections too, and their time might be now with D.I.C.E. And, yes, be on the lookout for my D.I.C.E. PS2 review in the near future.

-- David Rasmussen 25th Jun 05

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