別冊オリンピア・キュクロス

BESSATSU OLYMPIA KYKLOS

TV_SHORT

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
24
RELEASE
November 2, 2020
LENGTH
5 min

DESCRIPTION

Demetrios was a young man in Ancient Greece who was a potter's apprentice, but also a rather timid otaku. Despite pursuing the arts, he was blessed with natural athletic talent. One day, he gets dragged into a village conflict. Demetrios contemplates how helpless he is, but then is struck by lightning! When he comes to, he is no longer in Greece, but a strange land where he can't understand the language and people look rather different. Yes, he somehow ended up 1964 Tokyo! Of course, Demetrios has no idea what Japan even is. What will become of him?!

(Source: Crunchyroll)

CAST

Demetrios
Daisuke Ono
Theophilos
Jin Katagiri
Asakichi Iwaya
Takashi Satou
Michiko Iwaya
Yuuka Nagasawa
Apollonia
Minako Kanou
Toshirou Iwaya

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO BESSATSU OLYMPIA KYKLOS

MANGA ComedyOlympia Kyklos

REVIEWS

Antimony
65/100
A charming Olympic-themed stop-motion animated short.
Where do we draw the line at "anime", exactly? This isn't about whether Western "anime-influenced" cartoons count, but something quite different--the niche realm of Japanese stop-motion animated shows, of which Bessatsu Olympia Kyklos is one. Some purists seem hesitant to classify these as "anime", but I'll defer to this site and the official English-language distribution. Now, with that out of the way...

Bessatsu Olympia Kyklos is perhaps one of the more interesting and unique professional productions of 2020, as well as a victim of the unprecedented events of this calendar year. Intended to coincide with the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, the COVID-19 pandemic caused both the delaying of said event to 2021 and the much shorter delay of the second half of this animated short by a couple of months, causing it to end midway through the Fall 2020 anime season rather than at the end of the Summer 2020 anime season. Thankfully, these unfortunate events did little to hamper a fairly enjoyable short.

The series centers on a mild-mannered and athletic man named Demetrios, who resides in the small village of Tortonia and, like all other Greek characters in the series, is depicted as a marble statue (though made of clay). Beginning in the first episode and at least once in nearly every episode, Demetrios is magically transported to Tokyo in 1964, on the eve of the 1964 Summer Olympics (and where all Japanese characters are depicted as paper cutout figures) while attempting to apply the things he learns to his village, culminating in a plot to create a competition to the (ancient) Olympic Games, known as the Tolympics. Each episode has a unique ending in the form of a humorous educational song covering a topic related to ancient Greece and/or the Olympics, making this one of the anime where I would suggest sticking around for the ED every time.

In practice, while the humor (despite having a fully-fleshed story arc, this is primarily a comedy rather than a serious drama) can be a mixed bag, the short episodes are both visually interesting and well-paced enough to be enjoyable, and the funniest episodes (which are generally in the second cour) are actually very funny. The animation and background art, particularly in 1964 Tokyo, are fun and well-put together, and while not a substitute for a book or class, there's a decent amount of educational value if you can ignore the time travel and sentient land dolphins as the story weaves together aspects of both Greek and Japanese history.

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Fotsuan
23/100
The biggest memefest I've ever watched
Warning! The whole review might be a lie. It also contains spoilers, not that it's worth mentioning anyway.

First of all, I have to thank mr. Yamazaki Mari (the original creator) for deciding to use a great cover of Lord Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald's theme as an opening song (a.k.a. Rossini's William Tell Overture opera). Original song music video link below:

link

Due to my Greek blood, combined with my impatience to watch the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, this show seemed irresistible for me. It was the real deal - it screamed "time for a sarcastic review vol 2".

The story is amazing - it's about 420 BC born statueman Demetrios (Jimmy in ancient greek, for those who didn't know) trying to write history. Trying to beat the damn dolphin in sculpture. Chasing dreams, dreaming of a perfect love story with Apollonia, running the marathon with Tortonia's mayor, side by side. Jimmy used Okabe's and Kurisu's academic material and managed to travel in time. He met some Spartans and Eleian guys, when he showed off the WWE skills he learnt in Smack Down vs. Raw 2007. Christopher Nolan is irritated because Interstellar's fans are now Jimmy's.

The artstyle was perfect to give the "don't take this anime seriously" vibes to the watchers, which was a fun addition to the show - appreciated. The appearance of Zeus was beautiful as well. It's also true that here in Greece, our bodies are sculptures created by the ingenious Dolphin God, because we're one of the most ancient men of culture on the planet. I daresay that the melancholic design of Tortonia's musician Honeuros was special, because it's widely known that many greek singers of this era had their balls cut, in order to keep their voices at a higher pitch.

Talking about Honeuros, the anime endings sung by him were amazing too (of course, not Kayneth tier but good). My favourite ED was the 10th one, called "Spartans are Scary". It made me and my friends realize that my country is the mother of metal music, too. Last but not least, I loved it when Honeuros wore sunglasses on his marble body (ED 20).

Character development: 10/10. Demetrios, who won approval points from all of us watchers too as the Tolympics preparations progressed, was approved my the mayor and married his daughter, Apollonia. The Spartans were scary-looking, but in the end they were cuties. Eleians proved to be true warriors, as they decided to run the marathon instead of fighting. Peace. I hope some political leaders took their lessons watching this show.

Enjoyment: I've waited to write this review since episode 1, so it was an enjoyable journey indeed.

To conclude, I'll quote Aristotle's words to express my excitement towards the continuous greatness of this two-cour hidden gem:

"Η ποιότητα δεν είναι μία πράξη. Είναι συνήθεια."
(Quality is not an act, it's a habit)

Of course I'm joking about everything you've just read.

"Δεν παίζεις με ποιότητα."
~Stefanos Tsitsipas
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