クラッシャージョウ

CRUSHER JOE

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
OTHER
RELEASE
March 12, 1983
LENGTH
131 min

DESCRIPTION

Crushers: intergalactic Jacks-of-All-Trades who will take on any assignment for the right price. Crusher Joe heads a small team of these outer space troubleshooters that includes the cyborg Talos, the beautiful Alfin, and the obligatory kid sidekick Ricky. A routine assignment escorting a cryogenically frozen heiress to a medical facility goes awry when the girl goes missing and Joe and his team are left holding the bag. It seems space pirates are trying to play the Crushers for patsies, but Joe doesn’t take kindly to the setup and tracks the pirates to their home world. The four heroes not only have to rescue their human cargo but take down the pirates in the process, which involves a heck of a lot of space dogfights, explosions, and good old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat.

(Source: AniDB)

CAST

Joe
Hiroshi Takemura
Alfin
Run Sasaki
Ricky
Noriko Ohara
Talos
Kiyoshi Kobayashi
Colonel Kowalski
Gorou Naya
Dongo
Issei Futamata
Killy
Kazuyuki Sogabe
Norma
Kazuko Yanaga
Big Murphy
Lt. Col. Bard
Dan
Akira Kume
Loki
Daisuke Gouri
Jonah Mature
Reiko Mutou
Kei
Meri Mizuhara
Yuri
Yuri Akitsu

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REVIEWS

thechewieone
100/100
"absolute space kino"
Crusher Joe is quite possibly the best and most ideal sci-fi adventure that only works in pure animation rather than live-action. It's something that I've been sleeping on for years and I’m absolutely stunned at how this movie isn't mentioned frequently in conversations when it comes to retro anime.

Drawing inspiration from the greatest of the era's mediums, including Star Wars, Space Battleship Yamato, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Dirty Pair, Indiana Jones, Dune, James Bond, and others. Some may even say this might have everything, and truthfully? They wouldn’t be wrong.

However, it’s certainly more than just nonchalantly paying tribute to this and that or whatever Yoshizaku Yasuhiko and his team could think of; it’s more of a confident flex and smart understanding and fusing of both Western and Japanese media of its time.

Crusher Joe doesn’t necessarily try to be innovative or bring the medium forward in any specific way; it’s definitely more on the lines of being a straightforward, easy-to-follow, very fun, cartoonish, swashbuckling rollercoaster ride set in the vast premises of outer space and alien planets where even the supposedly ragtag group of space mercenaries (or Crushers in this context) are far from being the ideal role models and the villains are just wickedly evil as one would expect, and it’s a group of baddies you want to witness losing so badly.

The movie’s runtime is filled with bombastic action, sometimes quite mesmerizing visuals, and snappy and witty dialogue. The attention to detail in all of the spaceships and planets of this fictional world, as well as the intention to mimic complex real camera movements, is simply impossible to ignore: it must have been jaw-dropping for audiences in 1983 and still holds up crazy well even in 2025.

Some reviews suggested that maybe the movie’s a bit long to maintain the viewers’ interest, but outside of the slower opening, once this show steps on the gas pedal, it simply both never slows down and shows any signs of fatigue. In fact, I was kind of surprised how quickly this wrapped up without any confusion or unsolved plot elements.

Hell, I can’t even recall when was the last time I actually burst out laughing at anime that wasn’t a straight-up comedy/parody. This shit slaps so hard.

Funnily enough, my friends keep saying that whenever I announce something for a group watch without prior discussion and voting, it usually ends up as a banger time for our group, and yeah, I think they are correct about this phenomenon.

and who wouldn’t want a bazooka gf coming to save your ass in space, hm?
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