Chargeman Ken!

It is the year 2074. In a world threatened by aliens... an unlikely hero emerges! Ken Izumi may look like an ordinary 10-year-old boy, but he secretly possesses weapons, armor, and accessories that transform him into the superheroic Chargeman Ken. Ken protects his mom, dad, little sister Caron, robot pal Barican, and the rest of mankind from the diabolical Juralians, shape-shifting alien invaders bent on terrorizing the earth with flesh-eating butterflies, booby-trapped scientists, an evil doll, a prison break, alien mummies, a kid that sets stuff on fire, a song that makes you die... basically, they have about 65 plans for world domination.

The only thing standing between the fragile human race and conquest by the Juralians is Chargeman Ken and his unquenchable thirst for fiery, atomic justice!

(Source: Discotek Media)

Izumi, Ken Main

Sawada, Kazuko Japanese

Barican Main

Izumi, Caron Main

Volga Supporting

Hoshi Supporting

Jural Seijin Supporting

Izumi, Saori Supporting

Izumi, Hiro Supporting

Maou Supporting

Mogaki, Hiromichi Producer

Miura, Noboru Episode Director

Wakuda, Masaaki Script, Series Composition

Andou, Toyohiro Script, Series Composition

Reviews

Aug 22, 2022

Zarvanis

Recommended

Funny

I adore this show with every fiber of my being. I was genuinely disappointed when I finished it because I knew I wouldn't be able to experience anything so beautifully terrible again.

Never in my life did I think there could be an anime so staggeringly lazy, so bafflingly inept, so utterly spellbinding in how it gets everything wrong in the most spectacular way possible.
Chargeman Ken makes Mars of Destruction, Skelter+Heaven, and Garzey's Wing look almost competent by comparison.

I could go into incredible details explaining why this show is a disaster on every conceivable level, but I implore you to watch it knowing as little as ... possible. It is an experience like no other. You can find a playlist of the entire series on YouTube, or you could watch it on Crunchyroll if you feel so inclined.

Do it. Right now. Preferably with friends if you can. Chargeman Ken is an absolute treat from beginning to end.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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Aug 18, 2024

doctorminsuks

Recommended

Chargeman Ken.... Oh, Chargeman Ken. Probably one of the few anime everyone can cohesively say is the worst anime ever made. But oh, that's the charm of the entire anime.

I first discovered Chargeman Ken by this video by Kenny Lauderdale that a friend sent to me — https://youtu.be/uczvIKDcnS4 (this is not sponsored in any way) — and I watched this in disbelief. Surely there can't be an anime as bad as Kenny's saying. It can't be as lazy, thrown together and hash tag as anyone is saying in the comments. It just couldn't be.

So I went with a few episodes Kenny highlighted in the video ... and I ended up on a full binge of Chargeman Ken.

Look : everything about this anime is lazy and the definition of cutting corners.

There's literally no sound effects. There's a scene where a giant statue steps around and the ground shakes but all we have is... Silence as this ground shattering stepping occurs. The only sound effects we do get is a recurring fire sound when something burns, the odd sound of footsteps when Ken runs (and even the, It a 60/40 chance you're going to get them) and the same overused sounds of laser beams as Ken takes down the Juralians.

The script is... Remarkable. I don't know how any of it got to be accepted. One of my most favourite lines of this anime is "and then we'll hold all the children from Earth known as Earth's children hostage". Writer was trying to make it to a word count. Then we have an entire episode where the Juralians have a bunch of school kids eat 'poison mushrooms', can't do their school work because they're so focused on eating them again and - what? That's right, there's an entire episode of the aliens getting an entire young teenage class addicted to essentially magic mushrooms. How about the episode a kid sets an entire building on fire and gets told not to do it again and he says sorry and that's it. With no explanation as to how the people in the apartment blocks are after heavy insinuation people are trapped in there.

There's also the fact these episodes are about 5:27 in length cutting the credits time and there's an entire episode full of filler of Ken practicing fighting with his robot companion for 2 and a half of this minutes for.... For filler.

The script writers went for filler when the plot of each episode is so cohesively away with the fairies that I couldn't tell you what the hell this anime is about without sounding like I'm explaining it to a young child — all I have is "aliens keep invading and the superhero beats them up" because that's all the plot is.

That is the only plot this anime has. At all. It's glorious.

There are frames missing from some episodes with real life notes flashing at the viewer like some strange subliminal targeted messaging. When they make earthquakes or something happens to cause the characters to shake, they literally just have an extended frame and shake the drawing up and down, there's no animation here — calling Chargeman Ken an animation is something I feel is wrong because so much of each episode is just static. It doesn't feel right on the tongue to call this anime anything that involves movement because there's so little of the anime that just does not move.

I also need to know how any of these kids have education, their out of school educationary activities or anything of the sort. The amount that occurs within classes — including the Juralians trying to suffocate an entire class in an underwater aquarium during a field trip for biology, and someone being brainwashed to kill someone during a casual piano class — all of these kids are failing their exams.

I just cannot put into words how much of an absolute disaster this show is. It's a 1/10 anime, the one out of ten rating was created specifically for Chargeman Ken, but it's a masterpiece. It's stunning. It's beautiful. It's grotesque. It's watching a car crash in slow motion.

I ended up giving it a 2/10 due to an extra point for enjoyment. Please watch this. Please grab your friends together and watch this. It's a gem. Treat yourselves.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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Jun 12, 2022

Suzukipot

Not Recommended

Preliminary (29/65 eps)

Chargeman Ken is, without a doubt, one of the worst things I've ever decided to voluntarily sit down and watch.

The story is basically off the walls insane. It really is something that can only exist in an anime. My personal favorite one to show people is the episode with killer butterflies.

The best way I can describe the art is like a slightly better version of Twinkle Nora Rock Me. I say slightly better because at least the characters actually move more often. The designs aren't actually terrible, and they're probably the only thing I liked in this whole series.

Characters are wild, inconsistent ... from episode to episode, and there are multiple episodes where characters make really baffling decisions that leave you scratching your head. There's also Barican, who fits into the annoying sidekick role a little too well.

I can't even say I enjoyed it because the novelty of the whole thing wore off after three episodes. I know the run time per episode is only 6 minutes (omitting the minute-long theme song, of course) but I can't help but remember that that adds up to about 2 hours of my time when I could have been doing anything else.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Chargeman Ken! Episode 27 Discussion removed-user - Feb 8, 2020	2 replies	by modboy »» Jun 2, 4:31 PM
	Poll: Chargeman Ken! Episode 65 Discussion FMmatron - Mar 8, 2019	7 replies	by marblefoot »» Nov 8, 2023 1:48 PM
	Poll: Chargeman Ken! Episode 16 Discussion removed-user - Feb 8, 2020	6 replies	by Dracowyn »» Oct 13, 2023 3:10 AM
	Poll: Chargeman Ken! Episode 7 Discussion modboy - Nov 10, 2017	6 replies	by Dracowyn »» Oct 11, 2023 7:23 AM
	Poll: Chargeman Ken! Episode 4 Discussion modboy - Sep 3, 2017	4 replies	by Pitto_ »» Sep 14, 2023 5:06 PM