Cute High Earth Defense Club Love Series Review

Cute High Earth Defense Club Overview:

Cute High Earth Defense Club Love is about the Earth Defense Club (so named because the room they hang out in has a sign on it that says that). They don’t really do anything except hang out and talk about incredibly random things. They also go to the baths, a lot.

Then a pink wombat shows up and gives them all magic bracelets and suddenly the boys become a parody of a magical girl show.

Cute High Earth Defense Review:

I figured with the second season being out I might as well review this (and I’ll get to season 1 of Food Wars soon as well). Cute High Earth Defense Club Love is a parody and for fans of the magical genre it will have you in stitches. For everyone else, it will simply have them looking bemused and wondering what on earth the writers were thinking.

Even fans of magical girl shows may find the humour wears thin about midway through the series. This isn’t going to be an indepth review because I found this show amusing enough but have only done one quick watch through and I’m really not compelled to go for a second viewing.

Like all good magical girl shows, the boys get their powers and instantly a villain of the week appears. The audience knows about the shadowy trio that are behind the villains but our heroes are just a little too apathetic at times and too quick to want to get back to the baths to actually ever investigate.

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What makes Cute High Earth Defense Club Love funny is the exaggeration of the standard tropes and the boys’ reactions to them. Though when compared to the more recent Fairy Ranmaru that takes the magical boy story and plays it straight, Cute High Earth Defense Club Love doesn’t really stand up.

The transformation sequences are over the top and the embarrassed faces as they look down at their outfits never gets old. The attacks are ridiculous and even the characters acknowledge this as early in the series they just shout out random attack names and things still work out okay (much to the annoyance of the pink wombat who keeps trying to push them into being a more traditional group of heroes).

There’s a lot that you just can’t question. The fact that the wombat did in fact kill a teacher and said teacher is only able to move while holding the wombat otherwise he is essentially a corpse is never really dealt with in a serious way. It’s explained, the boys react, and then we move on and we’re expected to accept that Mr Corpse is going to show up carrying a pink wombat.

All and all, it’s a fun show, but it doesn’t offer much more than some bright sparkly humour and boys who like to take baths. There’s some attempts at social commentary (particularly on reality TV) but it doesn’t really amount to much. There’s also some digs at the over-sexualisation of highschoolers, the motivations of villains and socail norms but again, they are throw away moments that don’t really progress to the status of a theme or message.

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My favourite moments definitely included the opening discussion dialogue between two of the boys, the episode where they got younger, and pretty much any moment where the wombat had to run to avoid being hugged to death (yeah the joke wears thin but it still made me smile even when you could see it coming a mile away).

I’m not going to argue that this show is a profound, genre defying must watch. It is a basic parody of a widely viewed genre and it does that well.

If you’ve never checked it out, try at least the first episode of Cute High Earth Defense Club Love. You’ll either laugh or just sit there totally stunned and wondering why such a thing was ever made and if you fall into the laugh category than you’ll have a great afternoon. If it stuns you with its stupidity you will then have something to write about.