Ranked #622

R.O.D OVA

I have been meaning to watch this show for ages. Now that I've seen it, I'm wondering what the hell exactly took me so long to get around to this. It's a fusion of some of my favorite elements--steampunk, books, history, music, and espionage. Yomiko is an absolutely adorable character, and her personality is well-established the moment you get a look at her house. The characterization for the rest of the cast is excellent as well. The artwork is lush and gorgeous, and the action sequences flow beautifully and intuitively. As a bibliophile and history buff myself, the inclusion of various random intellectual figures as villains was a nice touch. Though Beethoven gets no speaking lines, seeing him pound away at the keyboard with his archetypal wild hair made me far giddier than it should have.

I cannot recommend this show highly enough. It is well-worth your hour and a half.

I found it amusing how much the US president looks like Dubbya, and how much of an absolute trigger-happy pussy he is. He wets his pants at least three times when things get tough, and at one point he flips out and instead of proceeding calmly through a tight spot, tries to pound the 'nuke them all' button. Political commentary much? You must recall this vintage 2001, a very familiar year in his political history. read more

Yomiko Readman will probably be the cutest bookworm you will ever see. Obsessed with the philosiphy "reading first, hygine second" The viewers will be fully immersed in the life of cute but unkempt Yomiko. In this world, books are the prized posession of the world. Books are so precious, there is a world organized task force designed in protecting these books from 'the bad guys. You'll be imersed in crazy steampunk/fantacy/etc vs magic conflicts and edge of your seat madness through the eyes of Ms. Readman.

The story itself is very farfetched and out of this world, but its a story that everyone should experience at leat once. Reality may be limited as paper can stop bullets or take down giant insects, but the cute and clumsy Yomiko and her friends will keep you watching with great intent. Being a three episode ova, there is little back story to all what is happening and it leaves the backstory up to its viewers imagination. Which is fine because all that leaves room for is high quality action only an anime can portray.

When I mean high quality action I mean high framerate action sequences coupled with great coreagraphy and amazing attention to detail. Things like paper sticking to a hand or scouring an old bookstore littered with books and dust really show how much hatd work and effort it took the artists to make such amazing detail come to life. Nothing impresses me more than attention to detail esepecially in rooms/buildings. On top of the OVA quality artwork, this show just oozes cool from the James Bond-esque themesong and sexy girl credits to the crazy steampunk gadgets and flashy magic spells, its a pure sensory overload for me.

Speaking of sensory overload, the female supporting cast were quite an eyeful. All of them were either beautiful or cute, very easy on the eyes. And for the girls, the guys are all quite burly military men in stature and can give up quite a good fight. The enemies, on the other hand, are pretty outrageous incarnations of storytime characters (Genjo anyone?) Crazy badguys do lend themselves quite easy to some fun and crazy battles. Not much can be salvaged in terms of backstory information for most of the characters, but the chemistry between all the support characters and Yomiko are quite believeable in an anime sort of way.

Not much can be said in terms of negative aspects other than sloppy animations and some silly situations, but the overall experience is just too fun if you're really into the fantasy action genre. Don't get me wrong, its not the greatest OVA of all time but it is well worth your time (read: Good). If you're a sucker for a glasses-moe like I am (think Yuki Nagato or Miyuki Takara), you'll love this show. And if you love this show, I'm sure you'll love the R.O.D. TV series. read more