eX-Driver: Nina & Rei Danger Zone

Rate a 7
English Dubbed
Note: The cover shot depicted here is not relevant to this particular anime. It might be from the movie or the Ova but not this.

Story
-How often do you find yourself cursing out? How often do you blare that horn? No longer will you worry about such matters at least not as much. Thanks to some improvements (which we are starting to see now a days in real life) we have self driving vehicles or a.i.'s. Although, even with this kind of luxury doesn't prevent certain issues from happening. For there is really no stopping improvements no matter how efficient the current ones ... are. Perhaps, that is due to the American way on how bigger is better.
-Intro is classy and somehow as a somewhat familiar intro song, can't seem to place it. Perhaps one you viewers will tell me why the start of the song sounds so familiar to me.
-Conclusion was okay but the art was clever.

Art
-no complaints
-In terms of how the conclusion are was clever the artists took what we see for almost everyday and tweaked it to suit their needs. A real clear approach. An example of this kind of approach would be a dead end sign only to have the car drive off thus ending the film. Not a very good depiction but understandable when you see the actual film.

Character
Each main character has what the other lacks. A good common match up. A good ideal scenario when one is depicting a partner scenario.

Enjoyment
While others may write this off as any ordinary action comedy show i beg to differ. Perhaps it was just this show but the writer and the director seemed to agree to save the audience the frustration. The frustration i am referring to is the headache caused by too much tension. We get the idea we behind it. On how it is good marketing and allows for character connection but in truth sucks. For what is stopping me from walking away from the annoyance. Here this animation is very straightforward. An understandable wait period from one point of the movie to the next.

Quick take: If you liked the series and the movie, skip this as you'll be disappointed. It's a waste of time and the only thing that saves it is good art and sound.

I could break this up and talk about each individual aspect, but I honestly didn't like this OVA enough to care. The only thing that saves this score is the sound. Acting is very good (English dub) and even better than many, car sounds are good and well done. The acting only suffers sue to the poor scrip writing and change of the two main characters when compared to the original series.

The ... story is bland and that's because it dumped the charm of the original series and movies by changing the main characters to Nina and Rei. Quite honestly, this would have served as a filler in a full fledged show and not even a good one at that.

I know both Nina and Rei are supposed to be quite a bit younger than they are in the series, but neither acts like was previously established or in any way consistent with how they would become.

I actually wished that this show would end at one point. Looking back, had you replaced Nina and Rei with the original crew, it might have been quite salvageable. Had you given me a reason to care about Nina or Rei, maybe I could feel different about the story. However since none of that ever was achieved, we're left with a stand alone OVA that had no bearing on the original series and is better off skipped.

-NO SPOILER-

I watched this before the original series as this is the prequel. This one-shot is based on the minor characters from the series named Nina and Rei. This was an 'OK' for me.

This feels like a buddy cop movie, we have 2 good looking girls driving in a tricked out Mazda Miata and an angry police chief. Personally I would've loved to seen Rei being a badass on her Ducati like her appearance in the main series but, they had her riding shotgun for Nina and being a techy (I love Miatas but, I'm a biker and love Ducatis more).

-MILD SPOILER-

The story and the ... villain are what didn't do it for me. I was hoping to see the villain from the last 3 episodes of the main series who was a former eX-Driver. I wanted to see his work as an eX-Driver and his relationship with the chief, Nina and Rei but, instead got a Nina fanboy.

I would recommend this if you have some time to kill and if you have already watched the main series and are curious to watch something else than rewatching the main series again, otherwise you're better off watching a new anime and exploring something else altogether.