Actually, when my friends and I saw it, we’d just finished Escaflowne instead, and we were howling with laughter because of the (yes, superficial) similarities there. The mole man seemed a little odd - I mean, the rest all comes from the same pulp sources, right? But the mole man? Our appreciation or lack thereof of the movie didn’t have much to do with our almost being thrown out of the theater with the Mysterious Blue Light and Pendant appeared, however. 