Starring: Miki Itô, Emi Shinohara, Michie Tomizawa, Tesshô Genda

A sapphic love triangle between a super-powered schoolgirl, a cutie-patootie outer space princess, and a techno-powered rich kid gets way, way out of hand in Project A-Ko.

Bored of the luscious landscapes and tragic childhoods they crafted for Hayao Miyazaki and Mamorou Oshii, the Project A-Ko production team flexed on this flashy popcorn flick where they were finally free to animate the things they like: softcore nudity, excessively large spaceships, and elaborate fight scenes between robot spiders, mega-buff gender aliens, and three small girls. They go crazy with it.

A tiny bit titillating and quite funny, Project A-Ko made waves in the U.S.A. on home video and cable television, one of the first hits in anime’s global pop-culture conquest. For most of the last twenty years, however, lost negatives meant this animator’s anime took on a permanent lo-res haze. Happenstance struck in 2021, when the pristine material turned up in a mislabeled film can, allowing for A-Ko to kick a hole through our hearts in this beautiful new restoration.

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