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Please note that I am judging from the English dub VHS, which I was lucky enough to discover in a pawn shop. Phoenix 2772 was a movie by Osamu Tezuka, inspired by his "Hi no Tori" series of comics (which were a series of short stories spanning centuries which were connected by the concept of the legendary Phoenix), which features a young man named Gadoh who, after having a run-in with the law, escapes the earth in order to capture the Phoenix, and ends up going through a trial of self-discovery.

You kind of have to understand the author and have a really open mind (and a tolerance for less-than-stellar delivery--more on that later). Osamu Tezuka was not your average manga author: He wasn't content to just tell stories of heroes and villains, but of deep characters with human personalities. His stories usually had some form of moral to them, but he didn't hamfist it or deliver it in a package, like in a Disney cartoon, but rather told sweeping, epic stories wrapped around the point he was trying to convey, but delivered in such a way where it was never shoved down your throat. Moreover, he felt stories shouldn't be limited to feel-good adventures or comedy, and thus most of his stuff had a very emotional quality to it. I personally feel Phoenix 2772 delivered on that.

Yes, the film won't immediately make sense if you go in, expecting a Disney-esquire song and dance number with a lot of feel-good moments and a "good guys always win" message. What instead needs to happen is that one needs to forget how things "should" work and instead prepare for anything. With an open mind and a little bit of thought, the story of this film makes perfect sense.

The weak point is one that's not a fault of the story or the creator, but rather of the translators: The English dub is bad. Mouths move, yet no one is talking. The voice actors sound like they're trying to sound natural, but forget that they're voice acting for an animated movie, so we have moments where mouths are moving yet no one is talking, and things like that. One flaw I particularly noticed is that the Phoenix of the title is always referred to as "272" instead of "2772," and no one could quite decide how to pronounce the main character's name (is it Godah, Gadoh, Gardoh, etc.) But... if you can overlook this and you can stand films that require you to think instead of just delivering all the answers to you on a silver platter, then this one is worth a try, even if you can only find the English dub version (which DOES seem to have been edited).

I got into this show while the first season was in reruns, but before the second season began airing. The show had promise. It was amusing, the characters were fun, cute, charming, and seemed to have dynamic personalities. The plot couldn't be taken seriously, but then it wasn't supposed to be--the show was a comedy after all.

In the second season things started to change. Mainly I felt the writers began taking the show too seriously and trying to play up the more "serious" aspects, while the comedy became more tame and "forced" sounding, causing it to be less funny. Moreover, the characters began to shed their charm and personality in favor of adhering to some classic stereotype, and often the show loved to shove its "obviousness" down your throat. For example, Numbuh Four got the distinction of being "the stupid one." Afterwards, every last line the character spoke seemed meant to showcase his stupidity--even going so far as to misspell four-letter words. Numbuh Three used to like stuffed toys, but became a fan of Rainbow Monkeys in particular, and every episode she was in she had to mention Rainbow Monkeys at least once.

In the third season, things totally hit the dirt. The show became so full of itself that every little idea had to be beat into the viewer's head. Rainbow Monkeys were no longer Numbuh Three's private obsession--everyone except Numbuh Four liked them, and they were a key theme in nearly every episode. Numbuh Four's stupidity got shoved even more down our throats. Characters and ideas you were sick of by this point would recur on a regular basis. The budding romance between Numbuhs Three and Four was made so obvious that it became almost a torture to watch, making me just want to say "Okay, they're in love, we get it already!" Since then, not only have the above problems continued to get worse, but we've also had travesties such as musical episodes, and the show began making regular use of one of the most overused clichés on Cartoon Network: Random, out-of-nowhere child nudity. It went from being promising to being a trite humdrum brainkiller that talks down to its audience. It has lost its value.

As a child, I watched this show after school, but never found it really "funny." But I was a kid at the time, and I liked anything as long as it was animated.

Now as an adult, I can't watch this show. Not because I "outgrew" it--in fact, I still watch MANY of my childhood favorites--but because I now understand that, to me at least, this show was just BAD.

The problem, in my opinion, is simply that the show is too repetitive, and relies heavily on formulas and trademark gags and phrases. For this reason, if you've seen at least ten episodes of this show, then you've pretty much seen everything this show has to offer. Tiny Toons was better, but only because it didn't depend on a formula.