Nanananana, ZETMAN? Scowling Men: The Anime? In a world without irons, there are only CRUMPLED CLOTHES?
It's hard to be serious with a name like ZETMAN but the first three episodes give it a good stab regardless. The story of a boy born to to science and raised by a homeless Santa Claus tries its best to be affecting early on, but with no context to the death of a loved one, who could for all we know be the head of a child prostitution ring and prolific giraffe smuggler, it's hard to feel anything but mildly perplexed.
Voiced admirably by Edward Elric, the tribulation and tears of a young orphan has a genuine emotional core to it. Then tongue demons and an alternate reality Charizard are wheeled out and it all falls apart. The most cringeworthy of these is the rich best friend who does his darndest to emulate Batman with gadgets and chutzpah but, miraculously, comes off as more annoying than his demure sister who may as well wear a t-shirt emblazoned with "Monster Bait!" on it.
Things get muddied once the time skip happens and the two boys are old enough to have chiselled jaws and floppy hair-dos. At one point it would seem that orphan Jin has become a dark anti-hero with unfeeling pragmatism when saving some screaming children, then he's once again champion of justice and accepting deals from shady CEOs. The audience is expected to feel some measure of body-horror as to the transformation from Jin into ZETMAN but his confusion is fleeting and instead there's the pressing, jargon-heavy matter of him melting.
It would be incorrect to say that there's not much here: the story moves rapidly, character motivations are handled with all the subtlety of a howitzer and antagonists are neatly lining up to be thwarted. Events lack gravity and consequence though and the absence of a strong directoral lead to means the different themes - body horror, the woes of science, domineering fathers, what is your justice? - blur messily together.
Cues seem to have been taken from other sources like the foot-tapping opening lifting liberally from Xam'd: Lost Memories while what little fighting is present is bland enough to have been taken from any generic beast vs. beast anime - Guyver and Devilman did almost of this much better including the feckless teenage love interest. Credit where it is due though, the animation is slick but scrappy and while designs aren't going to be to everyone's taste, they are clean and have a modicum of personality to them.
There's a lot of places ZETMAN could go, but the structure and story so far lends itself perfectly to the "monster of the week" format with the plot noise of childhood friends facing off (JUSTICE CLASH!), a damsel to save and a hawkish interloper who could be friend (probably not) or foe. As a trashy pulp series there are certainly worse and it's to be commended for staying clear of the deviant, unhinged ultraviolence of series like Elfen Lied. At the end of the day though there's little to indicate that this won't end up a forgettable and thoroughly mediocre experience.