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El Hazard - The Magnificent World Boxed Set Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 15 Reviews)

El Hazard has an excellent mix of slapstick humor, romance, adventure, in an involving storyline (not to mention the gorgeoous artwork)

The story revolves around Mizuhara Makoto (your typical, Japanese, high school boy which tips you off right away that he's in for it), his crazy rival Jinnai Katsuhiko, Katsuhiko's sister Jinnai Nanami, and their drunkard teacher Fujisawa Masamichi. They get transported from Japan to the world of El Hazard by Ifurita (a demon god although they don't know it at the time) and have all kinds of crazy adventures.

I wouldn't let any kids watch this, though. Like the Tenchi series (in its original form) it contains a lot of nudity and sexual innuendo (two of the characters are lesbians if you haven't gotten the point by now). At any rate, its a great buy for the true anime fan.

AAAAAAAAGH - Includes the horrid 2nd series!!
Finally, El-Hazard comes out on DVD, and it's even released as a set--but WITH the disgusting tumor that is El-Hazard 2. Why?! They aren't alike--series 2 is almost a betrayal to the development of series 1, besides being horribly derivative, uninteresting and just downright dumb. 4 volumes for 11 episodes probably means you can't split off the 4 episode refuse and sell it (or more likely trade it in as used somewhere). So the real question is: is a 7 OAV series worth $90? For El-Hazard, it might be. El-hazard follows the adventures of some kids and a teacher who are transported to a world of magic. They don't all follow the same path, and there are some interesting turns along the way to the world-threatening climax and a suprisingly touching end. Also, its humor is well done, and doesn't detract like in so many other recent anime series. If you must watch El-Hazard 2, at least wait a while in between so your memory of the first is less tainted by the horror that is El-hazard 2. Well, to be fair, El-Hazard 2 alone isn't _that_ bad compared to a lot of other low-grade anime out there. It's just so much worse after the first series. What a disappointing release.

Stunning...
Pay no heed to the heathens who would dare to say this series is anything but the best. If you love anime, and you love beautifully done anime then this is definitely the series for you.

This series ranks right along with Tenchi Muyo as being a very creative, very well drawn and beautiful series. It is also hilarious! The jokes are great and timed perfectly. Although I must caution that the content of the series is definitely of a PG-13 to R rating, don't buy this for your kids if you aren't cool with that.

The basic plot of this series (if you have never seen it before I am trying to write this so not too much of anything is given away) is a group of ordinary people from Shinanomi High School in Japan get transported to a far and distant world called El Hazard. Upon arrival we find a young boy who gets thrust into the "hero" spot of the series, and his teacher, who is sort of a cross between comic relief, and a sidekick. Then there is his rival, and evil bastard of a high school student who happens to hate the "hero," so he teams up with the Bugrum, a group of large humanoid bugs that can talk. And we find a few more people get sucked into the world as well, as an added bonus they all get super powers upon entering the world. The teacher becomes super fast and strong, and the evil bastard gets the power to communicate with the Bugrum and so on.

The world is in the middle of a power struggle between the Bugrum, and the alliance of nations against them. We also learn that these nations have had wars with each other and everyone else frequently in the past, and have developed some pretty nasty weapons, including a demon or two.

Over all this is a great series, and one most any anime fan will love to own, enjoy!