Ah, El Hazard. Whenever Pioneer realizes that they're inflicting too much Tenchi on the public, they switch to El Hazard, which benefits mostly from a much larger, more mixed cast. The original El Hazard OVA series was a hoot, an engrossing mix of action and comedy that stole liberally from the works of Anthony Hope and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was followed by an unmemorable (and unrelated) TV series, an only mildly-entertaining OVA sequel in El Hazard 2... and now this.
Long after the insectoid Bugrom empire have been relegated to more of a pain in the ass than a real threat, Makoto and his friends continue to hang out in the kingdom of Roshtaria. The erstwhile, only vaguely-dashing inventor, Makoto Mizuhara continues his work on an invention that will help him locate Ifurita and get him and his friends home, while Nanami tends shop at her own restaurant. Meanwhile, ex-schoolteacher, superhero, and avid mountain climber Mr. Fujisawa has gone ahead and married Miz, and the pair are getting ready to go on their honeymoon. Since Miz is now a married woman, it's time for her to abdicate the title of Priestess of Water-- the replacement, Quawoor Towles, is late, however, as is her retainer, Parnasse.

Not surprisingly, Quawoor has managed to get herself ambushed by the few remaining Bugrom. Fortunately, a strange device Makoto is working on leads him to her, and she eventually joins our heroes. While Nanami and fire priestess Shayla-Shayla are distracted by this new threat to their romantic interest in Makoto, Jinnai bursts in with his army of one Bugrom, ready to thwart our heroes. (Jinnai is one of my favorite anime villains-- sure, he may have delusions of grandeur and frequent bouts of paranoia over what his assumed rival is up to, but at least he's usually shrewd and competent.) But before he can act, the entire group, including Fujisawa and Miz and Afura Mann and Fatora and Alielle and Parnasse, are transported to another world by a mysterious bug-eyed entity in one of Makoto's devices-- an entity who claims to be the ruler of the universe.

This Alternative World turns out to be almost as interesting as the world of El Hazard itself-- it's a cluster of large, forested islands floating in the sky. It's populated by humans, as well-- most of them are destitute people living in Creteria, a dreary neo-Victorian metropolis presided over by a certain Emeperor Dall. Dall is pretty funny; he's the typical spoiled royal idiot boy, who often tries to be magnanimous but just can't quite pull it off. Makoto, Nanami, and Quawoor end up in his care; while he's initially fascinated by the girls, he's ready to throw Makoto to the wolves until he realizes the boy is a proficient inventor-- then, Makoto finds himself set to the task of repairing the kingdom of Creteria's busted generator, the Spring of Life. The Spring of Life is very interesting to Makoto-- it uses dimensional energy, and seems to bear a more-than-superficial resemblence to the Eye of God, the weapon of mass destruction from the first series. All of these events in the castle are watched over with a distrustful eye by Gilda, Creteria's captain of guards.

Shayla-shayla gets trapped with Jinnai and his hapless purple Bugrom lackey. (Cultural note: In the English version, Jinnai calls his Burgrom pal "Groucho", and I'm sure we all know which Groucho he's referring to. In the Japanese version, he calls the critter "Katsuo", which is the name of a character from the long-running family cartoon series, Sazae-san.) Hilariously, Shayla bullies the pair mercilessly, wresting the device that got them into the mess in the first place away from Jinnai. For his part, Jinnai ends up locating Bugrom-- but they're not the same Burgrom that populate the world of El Hazard.

And Mr.Fujisawa and Miz and Afura Mann and Rune Venus? They end up trapped in the countryside somewhere, aided by a kindly farmer. This bummed me out. No Mr. Fujisawa heroics?! But I'll get to that in a second.

Despite the otherworldly setting, high action, and low comedy, El Hazard's best feature has always been its amusing, skewed romantic entanglements. We may have gotten past Mr. Fujisawa's droll courtship of Miz (or did she court him?), but there's still Nanami and Shayla-Shayla vying for Makoto's attention, there's still Alielle's only vaguely disturbing relationship with Fatora, and there's still Makoto's continued torch-carrying for Ifurita (which, despite her absence throughout the series so far, doesn't seem to have abated). But we're treated to a whole new slew of amusing misadventures in human relationships-- along with Alielle, we now get to see her slightly younger brother, Parnasse (who, fortunately, also likes girls-- I don't even want to think about a flamboyantly-gay male 11-year-old). There's a lot of romantic tension between the kindly, affectionate Quawoor and the perpetually-befuddled Makoto. There's the emperor's hilarious, almost psychotic lust for Quawoor. There's Fatora's altogether unwholesome interest in Gilda, who, for her part, has an intriguing history with Dall. There's even a brief, amusing little subtext between Bugrom queen Diva and Jinnai-- shortly before being sucked into the alternative world, you see, Jinnai is berating Diva for not repopulating the Bugrom by laying more eggs-- she agrees to produce some more, with "his assistance", and asks him to follow her into her tent. "What for?!" he asks, querulously. "That should be obvious," she replies, and the mixed look of consternation and temptation on Jinnai's face is priceless. That sort of thing is exactly why this show continues to be entertaining.

Not that it's without its faults, however-- El Hazard: The Alternative World suffers from a couple of big problems. The first one is, the population is just too large. It was easy enough, early on, to keep track of just Makoto and Jinnai and Nanami and the priestesses and Mr. Fujisawa and maybe Alielle. Now we've got all of the above, plus Fatora, Gilda, Dall, Quawoor, Parnasse, that farmer guy who helps Rune Venus and co... see?! I don't even remember that farmer guy's name. It's awful. The other big problem is, in the original El Hazard, each character had a lot to contribute, and it was a joy to watch all of them working together. Here, and I can't stress how annoying it is, Mr. Fujisawa is left out in the middle of nowhere. It's been ten episodes, and I still haven't seen Mr. Fujisawa's fists of justice in action! Dammit!

Finally, it's just too short. With 26 episodes, every character would have had a chance to stretch out. But no, this time there's only 13 episodes. The show retains a fairly nice pace at first, but it looks like it's all building towards a rather hurried climax. And where the hell is Ifurita?

Don't get too bitter, though. This show is worthwhile, a lot more engaging than El Hazard 2. It's really the wrong place to start if you're brand new to El Hazard (just go with the first OVAs-- you can't go wrong with them), but fans of the series should be pretty happy with it. It isn't everything I hoped for (Where's Ifurita? Where's Mr. Fujisawa?!) but it has its good points (Fatora's a hoot, and Quawoor manages to be slightly less bland than oatmeal). Also, Jinnai ably continues his incredible channeling of Daffy Duck in his early days-- I keep expecting him to jump up and down and go "Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo! Hoo hoo!"

Grade: B-