At the top of MyAnimeListIts top anime rankings feature mediums classics like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Attack on Titan, but at the bottom of the list lies Skelter + Heaven. This anime is a short OVA from 2004, which at first glance seems like a typical Evangelion makeover. But those who force themselves to see through the whole thing will know that Skelter + Heaven is not your typical lifeless imitation. It’s even worse.
Before dissecting what makes Skelter+Heaven so special, it’s important to discuss what made its predecessor Neon Genesis Evangelion so great. Evangelion focuses on three young mechanic pilots Shinji, Asuka, and Rei as they battle mysterious Angels that threaten to invade Earth. Evangelion is a revolution in deconstructing the mecha genre, but its more artistic touches can also make the series quite confusing. Skelter+Heaven is also quite confusing, although it is not the product of creative intent.
Skelter+Heaven takes the last place in the rankings of MyAnimeList
Skelter+Heaven (now available on YouTube thanks to user Scrimgore) shows the adventures of an elite group of mechanical pilots defending the earth from an alien giant squid, rendered with some real CGI horror. Luckily, the mechs are made with the same horrible CGI and so the girls are able to defeat the monster and save the day. In the process, viewers learn more about their elite unit, which is actually created from man-made creatures in a storyline similar to Rei’s true nature in Evangelion. While clearly not clones of someone’s mother, all of these creatures are “cute” anime girls because otherwise the OVA wouldn’t be able to include as much fan service taste like that. It also won’t be able to interject an awkward romance between one of the girls and the team supervisor, both of whom have no emotion or all sorts of facial expressions to make this have any impact. any.
Surprisingly, no matter how bad the plot, the worst part of the OVA is actually its technical flaws. It’s extremely poorly edited, with abrupt jumps that cause jitter and never give the viewer a chance to invest in any of the scenes. It can also be extremely slow-paced, such as in the opening shots, where it spends a few minutes zooming in on Earth and looping through clips of a newscast. Overall, the animation is also lousy, with terrible 3D and 2D animations combined in an overall attack on the eye that’s worse than the 2017 Berserk adaptation. These technical issues almost keep the movie from crashing. classified as “bad as it is good,” but the work’s overall absurdity fortunately saved it from this fate.
The OVA ended on a cliff with a lot of alien ink invading but due to how terrible the first part of Skelter + Heaven was, it never got a sequel. However, those looking for an anime of the same genre can check out Hametsu no Mars, another anime at the bottom of MyAnimeList’s ranking with a similar theme and tone. People who watch these anime need to be careful because Skelter + Heaven and shows like it have really earned their place at the end MyAnimeListand not an easy watch.
Skelter + Heaven available for viewing on YouTube.
