Here I go diving into a show without a whole lot of story again. Zvezda Plot is ironically rather plotless, and has a staggering disconnect with anything resembling proper reality… and I kind of love it for that. It’s an original production that you would think could only come out of the fever dreams of Trigger (though oddly enough it’s by A1 Pictures) that has a little grade school girl trying to take over the world as the main hook and just gets goofier and goofier from there.
Because the story is so light, I’m actually going to go through this one by characters instead of chronologically. Just remember: if you’re ever asking yourself “Is that really…?” the answer is “Yes.”
Asuta Jimon is our main character, introduced as a fairly normal student who is kind of caught on the streets (technically becoming a runaway) due to having a falling-out with his father. Throughout the show, he acts largely as the voice of reason and then necessary straight man for the comedy, actually recognizing how insane some of the scenarios are. Once recruited into Zvezda, the shadowy group trying to take over the world, he’s given the code name Dva, used when he wears his Zvezda-issue black jumpsuit and gas mask.
The leader of Zvezda, then, is Kate Hoshimiya. She’s a little girl obsessed with the idea of world conquest, and surprisingly able to accomplish something of it. In her masked and transformed state (where she’s known as Venera). While most of the time she seems to look and think like a normal grade school kid (well, an egomaniacal grade school kid on a Pinky and the Brain inspired power-trip), she’s occasionally shown to actually be some kind of ageless, possibly demonic being, and bears a strange power to ‘Conquer’ anything “with a human heart”, a kind of finishing move that seems effective on crowds but not so much our other leads it seems. Kate is mostly a static character; any growth she experiences is momentary for a gag, similar to Princess Syalis.
The next most relevant character would probably be Renge Komadori, Asuta’s classmate at school and slow-burn love interest. She’s not with Zvezda at all; in fact, she serves a group called White Light, fighting for peace and justice, usually against Zvezda, as a discount Magical Girl called White Robin. Asuta and Renge take a long time to properly (and without question) learn where they stand on opposite sides, operating and interacting both as themselves and as Robin and Dva, building a rapport in both identities. Honestly, a big part of my respect for the show is how weirdly good the chemistry between the two is. They work great as friends, and the thought that they could both want and possibly achieve something more feels very legitimate without being thrown in the face of the audience. Ultimately, in the final few episodes, Renge defects in order to protect Asuta, and they end up living together on the lam for a while, in what is basically the show’s one big dramatic sequence and an eerily effective one at that. The show tries to imply for a moment that it doesn’t quite work out, but I’m not convinced: they built those too up too well and having a difference on “Thing I have to do at this moment” doesn’t seem like an irreconcilable difference.
Since we’ve covered Renge, it might as well be time to mention White Light’s other face member, White Egret. Her mortal identity is the queen bee of the school, Miki Shirasagi, a girl Asuta had a crush on when he was little (she crushed his heart like a tin can), and who Renge looks up to while, real identities unknown to each other, she as White Egret looks up to White Robin. Miki is a little more aware, and seems to noodle out who’s who faster. She is also, unlike Renge, a hard-liner, remaining a “good” antagonist even after Renge decides to stand up for individuals over pure order. For most of the show, White Egret is the most competent recurring foe Zvezda faces, so she’s got a lot of lifting to do and she handles it well enough.
On to the members of Zvezda we have Kate’s apparent second in command, Itsuka Shikabane, more often known by her Zvezda name, Plamya. She’s a harsh high school girl with an eyepatch, obsessed with and obedient to Kate while acting as something a drill sergeant with the other Zvezda members. Through most of the show she doesn’t get a lot of development, essentially acting as a foil to the more goofball characters (Asuta included) but during the momentary dive into drama in the penultimate two episodes, we actually get a good bit of backstory for her, how she was affected by her mother’s untimely death and how she reverts to the crybaby persona she had before Kate picked her up if her eyepatch is removed. It’s weird, but also a little heartfelt, if not as much as Asuta and Renge or her father.
Yeah, her father: Gorou Shikabane, aka General Pepel (most often known by his human name) is the big old guy who seems to be Zvezda’s token walking tank. Their relationship isn’t brought up until the end of the show, and he doesn’t act very fatherly, but his backstory with his late wife and former Yakuza gang gets a lot of attention and ultimately ties in to Palmya’s story, as well as that of another character, the hidden head of White Light, who is eventually revealed as Palmya’s aunt, fighting in part out of a deep resentment of how Gorou could move on. Much like the relationship between Asuta and Renge, the dive into Gorou’s past is more slow burn, but is pretty worthwhile once it ‘clicks’
Gorou also brings in his former gang henchman, Yasubee Morozumi. His code name is Odin, but it’s basically never used; he’s called “Yasu” and serves as the butt of the joke more often than not. He’s kind of arrogant and kind of a jerk, so it’s usually pretty funny to see him in pain. He also serves as something of the ‘lovable traitor’ – he’s a craven coward who first turns on Zvezda in episode 3 when Kate starts a crusade against smokers, returning at the end of the episode when his dedication to smoking (and his now-inhuman fellow smokers) is overwhelmed by his fear of Kate. Thereafter, he’s consistently a coward and consistently getting punished until, in the final episodes, he backstabs Zvezda to act as a toady to the final arc villain, then attempts to backstab that villain to claim the glory for himself before finally crawling back to anyone who will take him (namely Kate). Yasu is pathetic, but pathetic in the right way to enjoy.
Rounding out the humans of Zvezda we have Natasha, aka Professor Um, a mad scientist schoolgirl who seems to enjoy having tentacles and hate wearing clothes beyond the bra-panties-cloak-hat ensemble (or lab coat and underwear when not transformed). She’s a kind of weird font of exposition, and serves as our access to Zvezda’s less than human assets, while not really (despite an early episode largely dedicated to her) having much personality of her own. Oddly enough, she doesn’t come off as fanservicey as her design sounds like it should be.
Our major nonhuman character is Roboko, a robot from the ancient civilization that existed in caverns beneath the town (it’s a thing). Roboko’s main gag is in gap moe and incongruity; when not ready for battle, she passes among normal people without any (or with extremely minimal) effort, and she has a schoolgirl mode that exchanges her normally fairly, well, robotic persona for that of a shy schoolgirl on command. Along with Roboko in the inhuman category are the KuruKurus, brightly colored little blob creatures obedient to Natasha and Kate particularly who act as pets and, when swarming, can form up into a giant monster. They are pretty much never explained.
Most of the show is just getting these characters through various batty scenarios in which White Light and Zvezda often clash. We explore the underground city with Natasha, deal with Yasu and the Smokers in Kate’s smoke-free city quest, and have Zvezda infiltrate the school to participate in a treasure hunt, among other little moments. These episodes are largely disconnected from each other and most of them don’t really add anything to the story outside the developments between Renge and Asuta or to a lesser extent the slow build about Gorou’s past.
Finally, after the obligatory hot springs episode (in which both Zvezda and White Light were trying to take a vacation, unaware of each other until part-way in when the staff seems to be of split alignment as well), Zvezda comes home to find the final three-episode dramatic plot I’ve alluded to: their base is destroyed, Yasu has betrayed them, and they’re set on the run by new forces belonging to the Mayor of Tokyo, a would-be despot who’s also Asuta’s father. As Zvezda tries to live on the lam, they take loss after loss: Roboko is shown torn apart, Gorou is seemingly killed, Natasha is imprisoned and tortured, most of the KuruKurus are rounded up, and at the last exchange Plamya has to take Kate one way while Asuta (with Renge, who switched sides to defend him when it turned out his dad didn’t want him back alive) goes another, leaving us with the second of the three episodes spent melancholy-sweet with Asuta and Renge’s life as wanted criminals.
Along the way, Asuta’s dad sets out to subjugate the town they’re in (West Udogawa) and bring it under Tokyo rule, which has spread along with martial law at his discretion.
Now, here’s perhaps the show’s biggest problem: it throws us at this “Tokyo Sengoku Period” scenario, where Tokyo’s administration is spreading across Japan through militarism, very late in the game. When you’re doing something like this, you have to be careful, because the tendency is to assume that things are like Earth except where noted. We largely assume that most of the nonsense that Zvezda gets up to, like ancient underground civilizations, power vegetables, giant monsters, and battles with an order of Magical Girls, are probably secret from most people in setting. At the very least, Asuta usually seems surprised at the weird turns. He notices that Roboko is weird even when she seems to get glossed over in public, doesn’t know about ancient bullcrud civilizations, and so on, just like the viewer…
And yet he’s apparently going to school in West Udogawa despite being the son of, let’s be honest here, a despotic warlord trying to take over the nation. Here, right at the end, the show takes a deep and abrupt swerve into the weird, removing it from anything we might have some comprehension of (true, we saw a martial law curfew in episode 1, but there was a giant monster about). You’d think this, all of this, would be a bigger deal. You can go weird or you can go normal, but either way you go, you have to acknowledge where you are on the scale between Earth, Bizarro Earth, and realms that might as well be fantasy.
In Witch Craft Works, we’re pretty clearly on Earth. The witches get up to all sorts of nonsense, but when push really comes to shove they do bring the story back and recognize what sorts of consequences would exist in a real setting, explaining why those consequences don’t necessarily apply. In Kill la Kill, we’re supposed to be on Earth, but the extreme thematic strangeness and insanity of the setting is pervasive. From the very start, Ryuko takes some things in stride that tell us we’re not in a setting that’s trying to make sense, so when they get to the weird aliens or perhaps more importantly the things like all the other major high schools having mystical fighting orders, we broadly believe that this is something that would take place in and fit with Kill la Kill’s overall setting. And in Dorohedoro, while the Hole might be said to resemble Earth, it’s pretty clear from the start that it has its own rules and culture, fully unbinding it from any pretense of familiarity. All of these are good choices, but you do have to choose.
Zvezda Plot kind of manages to patch over the disconnect with the dramatic shift in tone as Asuta and Renge see their town change and hear how West Udogawa is going to be taken over by Tokyo, but it’s still there as an issue, especially since the show doesn’t get comfortable in its first level of goofiness for several episodes at the start.
In any case, Kate naturally interferes with the signing ceremony that would let Tokyo dominate West Udogawa, since there’s only room for one conqueror here, and Asuta shows up both to help and to confront his father, who has the evil power of cigars and a giant robot on his side. Meanwhile, a KuruKuru breaks containment, freeing Natasha, Gorou mysteriously revives and ends up making up with (and making out with) his former sister-in-law, bringing her onto Team Zvezda. Even Roboko emerges, the broken parts we saw apparently having been some kind of molt as she grows (despite, you know, being a robot) rather than her ‘dead’ body. After a brief conflict in which the city is brought back, Kate conquers Asuta’s Dad and through that, much of Japan. Things go back to ‘normal’ as everybody reorganizes, until an attack by some weird American evil gang has everybody gearing up for the next adventure. The end.
So, there are both reasons to give Zvezda plot a pass, and reasons to watch. Why wouldn’t you watch it? It’s largely plotless, kind of inconsistent, and probably more strange and zany than actually does it any favors. Why would you watch? It’s got a few extremely personable characters (Asuta, Renge, and Gorou in particular) with good chemistry, and a decent sort of humor that doesn’t often go for laughs but will usually make you smile. It’s a silly show that you want to de-stress with, the random intensity of episode 10 (in which Zvezda is torn apart) and 11 (in which Renge and Asuta are on the run) aside.
On the whole, I give World Conquest Zvezda Plot a B-. It’s not the best show out there, but sometimes it’s the exact kind of show you’ll need, and it’s worth watching for those times.