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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Jun 26, 2023

garkon_icky

Recommended

Funny

Utterly terrible in every way that matters and some that don't. A must watch. This studio loathed every second of making this show and the results that barely make every 5 minute episode functional are peak art. The titular Ken is a one-man Juralien apocalypse, he does not suffer a single one to live and will do as many pointless transformation sequences as he needs to until the job is done. He will gun them down in the street. He will run them over in a truck. He will tie their families to bricks and throw them in the river. He will traumatize them and ... force them to do it themselves. He does this not because he wants to, nor because anybody told him to, because nobody did, but because it must be done. Juralians could be anywhere. They could be anybody. They could be your parents. They could be your dog. They could be the cute girl at school. They could even be Juralians. In this world you need to Charging Go or you'll be Charging Gone.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Dec 9, 2021

FunnyCartoons

Not Recommended

Preliminary (10/65 eps)

Chargeman Ken is the anime equivalent of that one kid in high school who threw together his book report in five minutes on a book we all knew he didn't really read or understand.

The show stars Ken, during his failed child acting phase before he moved on and became famous on the Street Fighter circuit. Living in that curiously 60's-70's era of sci-fi where everyone lives in glass bubbles and reality itself lowered its framerate to increase computing power, he's just your ordinary jumpsuit wearing future boy. But when Bubble City is threatened by the forces of Vague Geometric Shapes Loosely Gathered Together to Look ... Like Easily Animated Aliens, Ken goes into his secret identity. That is to say, he puts on a helmet, and then his jumpsuit gets a "V" printed on it. You know. "V," for "Chargeman," obviously.

Episodes of CK are five minutes long, and going back to the book report analogy, it's pretty easy to see where the wordcount was padded. The smoothest animation is in the once-an-episode transformation sequence, which still dedicates half its runtime to a static image of Ken the cameraman rapidly zoomed in and out on "dramatically." Ken's weapon of choice is a laser gun which, conveniently for the animators, has no recoil and is being held by the steadiest hand in the West. Fight scenes are an ironic joy to watch, being half composed of static shots of Ken with his gun way too close to his face, and half of shots of purple triangle tentacle things getting a little bit glowy and popping off-screen.

The plot of each episode is perhaps the greatest treasure of this show. Again, each episode is five minutes long. None of the episodes are related to one another (at least, none of the ones I saw). Between those two facts, the thrust of each episode hits you like a sledgehammer. You'll turn on the episode, listen to the few seconds of Ken and those two other shrieking hellbeasts that follow him around as "comic support," and then suddenly-WHAM! Killer butterflies! WHAM! The Headless Horseman is real and he's got clones and ice powers! WHAM! We've discovered Chargeman Ken's weakness in the literal second episode and now we've covered the planet in eternal darkness. Sure hope Ken's superpowers can't be activated by being in contact with any sort of portable light like a match or something. It's the kind of demented storytelling that more surreal shows have to struggle to do on purpose, and here's Ken doing it before it was cool.

Chargeman Ken is awful. It is bizarrely, inexplicably bad. Somebody, some team of people in an office building somehwere, got paid to draw, score and produce this, and some other group of people greenlit it for publication. It's objectively one of the worst pieces of fully realized media I think I've ever seen, and it's *awesome.* Seriously. You're probably here because you've heard somebody clown on this thing, anyway, but if you've somehow managed to stumble across this review and never heard of the show, believe me when I say this: Chargeman Ken is an absolute dumpster fire of an anime, and you *have* to watch it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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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