Ariel Visual

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: ARIEL (エリアル) VISUAL

Information

Type: OVA

Episodes: 2

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 21, 1989 to Aug 21, 1989

Producers: animate Film

Licensors: Central Park Media

Studios: J.C.Staff

Source: Novel

Genres: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Theme: Mecha

Duration: 27 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 5.56¹ (scored by 763 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #11433²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #10719

Members: 2,360

Favorites: 0

Available At

Official Site

Resources

AniDB

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Synopsis

To save the Earth from alien invaders and their giant monsters, Dr. Kishida does what any other red-blooded mad scientist would do: he builds a giant robot—the ultimate feminine fighting robot!

Unfortunately, his grand-daughters refuse to pilot it! Apparently, they've got more important things to do than becoming teenage super-heroes. Besides, how are you supposed to study for your college entrance exams while getting beaten-up in battle?

Fortunately for Dr. Kishida, things aren't too well for the invaders, either. According to their reports, the Earth was the perfect target: lush, peaceful, and relatively defenseless. Theoretically, the planet should've surrendered long ago. Now, the war is at a standstill, the dreaded Accounting Department is warning about the serious cost overruns, and the head of the home office has arrived from Galactic Headquarters to personally oversee operations. Has Headquarters decided to unleash, The Audit—or do they have something even more evil in mind?

The fate of the world rests upon two people: Aya Kishida, one of the doctor's granddaughters, who may have to give up prep school to pilot the mighty (and lovely) ARIEL; and a mysterious alien named Saber Starblast, who may have the power to defeat the invaders once and for all...

(Source: AnimeNfo)

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Background

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Ariel
Sequel:	Ariel Deluxe

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Kishida, Kazumi

Main

Hayashibara, Megumi
Japanese

Dr. Kishida

Main

Saka, Osamu
Japanese

Kawai, Mia

Main

Koyama, Mami
Japanese

Kishida, Aya

Main

Mizutani, Yuuko
Japanese

Torefan, Simone

Supporting

Hirano, Fumi
Japanese

Ragnus

Supporting

Suzuoki, Hirotaka
Japanese

Houser, Albert

Supporting

Shiozawa, Kaneto
Japanese

Demonova

Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Watanabe, Junichi

Director, Script

Matsuura, Noriyoshi

Sound Director

Hayashibara, Megumi

Theme Song Performance

Shounen Shoujo Gasshoudan Mizuumi

Theme Song Performance

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Opening Theme

"Ariel no Uta (エリアルのうた)" by 国立科学研究所合唱部(二軍), Shounen Shoujo Gasshou Dan Mizuumi

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Ending Theme

	1: "Mikakunin Girl: Good Innocent Ribbon Lady (未確認GIRL -Good Innocent Ribbon Lady-)" by Megumi Hayashibara
	2: "Mikakunin Boy: Best Oriental Young Man (未確認BOY -Best Oriental Young-man-)" by Yuuko Mizutani

Reviews

May 15, 2020

FinalReality56

Mixed Feelings

The 80s saw a large number of OVA releases, many of which fell into two general categories. Some were passion projects by directors and animators eager to create something, and others were made to serve more as promotional material for another product. Ariel is an OVA that falls into the latter category.

I'll be honest, the only reason I came across this OVA was because of the recently released Moderoid kit of the titular robot. It's also worth mentioning that this is based on a 20-volume long series of light novels, of which a grand total of 0 volumes have been translated to English. The ...

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Feb 8, 2020

glisteningsunset

Mixed Feelings

If you're looking for anything fun or exciting, this isn't it. I could tell things were off to a rocky start when this anime began with a 3 minute long narration, explaining things to the viewer like they're three years old. The show just reduces its characters down to their extremely barebones tropes, while ignoring anything interesting it could expand on (though, granted, that might be caused by length). The first episode was pretty boring, but the second episode was slightly better. The creature designs were super cool and the lighting during the fight scene at the end was sexy as hell. The music during ...

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Mar 6, 2022

Kamezuki

Not Recommended

“Ariel Visual” is a lighthearted comedy mecha OVA with some parody elements. Being based off of a long-running series of light novels, this OVA has an interesting premise. However, the story is not executed well, and most of the technical aspects are substandard.

It seems that the makers of this OVA tried to cram as much information as possible into the two episodes, each of which is less than 30 minutes long. Both episodes start out with a long narration explaining who the characters are and what’s going on, with the narration in the second episode being set to a “Star Wars”-esque CGI text scroll in ... romanized Japanese.

The gist of the plot is that there are aliens that are trying to invade Earth, but it’s not going well, and they're pretty much just relegated to orbiting the Earth in their spaceships and complaining about how hard it is to invade Earth because of the ARIEL robot. ARIEL stands for “All Round Intercept & Escort Lady.” It’s supposed to be piloted by the creator’s 2 granddaughters and niece, but two of the girls don't want to pilot it at all, and one is just mildly okay with it. The first episode mostly consists of repeated “comedic” attempts by the creator, the scientist Dr. Kishida, to convince the girls to pilot the robot, and them telling him “no” in various ways. And the aliens are having troubles of their own, with the head of their accounting department complaining to the captain that they don't have enough budget to continue with their invasion plans. Their commander, a longtime friend of the two (there’s a long flashback of them during their “academy days”), boards the ship and says he’s going to take over the operation. There are also a few references to some alien guy who lives on Earth who is apparently an enemy of these other aliens, but his background is not explained.

In the second episode, the aliens finally decide to invade Earth by sending giant monsters down to rampage around Tokyo (how did they have room for these on their spaceships?), and the girls have to get in the robot to fight them off. The robot looks like giant woman, and even has a full head of hair. Why does the robot have hair? It seems that the scientist modeled it after his late wife, so perhaps that’s why. The whole thing ends in a cliched fashion.

The two episodes have a multitude of redundancies and deficiencies in plot elements, dialogue, direction and animation. There are a few scenes that don’t make sense. Animation frames are repeated, and characters at times will have facial expressions that don’t match the voice acting. Supporting characters who are supposed to be important aren’t introduced well. Character designs are generic. The jokes fall flat most of the time.

The voice acting is pretty good; Mami Koyama does a particularly nice job as the leader, Mia. The two ending themes which are sung by the voice actresses of the other two girls are okay, but forgettable. The opening song is a full-chorus homage to/parody of the “Ultra Seven” theme.

As for objectionable content, while there are no human deaths, the giant monsters gush out lots of blood when they are killed. There’s a brief scene from behind of one of the girls getting dressed, but she has her underwear on. The name of the institute run by Dr. Kishida is a double entendre — its abbreviation, SCEBAI, is pronounced “sukebe” in Japanese, which means “pervert.” So every time a character says the name of the institute, it sounds like they’re saying “pervert.” Some examples include “The pervert is being attacked!” and “We have to go the pervert.” This is a running joke throughout both episodes, and while some may not find this objectionable, you may want to be careful watching this with Japanese speakers in the room.

Overall, while this OVA isn’t something that needs to be avoided at all costs, it’s not particularly worth watching due to its subpar execution on all levels. There was a sequel OVA that came out a couple of years later; perhaps it will be better.