Landlock

Landlock has really well designed and written characters, good animation and an interesting premise. Unfortunately the plot is subpar. The narrative is interesting but messy. There are many points that are not well explained or shown. Lots of things happen solely to further the plot with little explanation. The animation is well done and does not feel dated. The best part of the OVA is the characters. They are mostly stereotypical but done really well. There are moments that drag on a tad too long but they are not super noticeable. Overall Landlock is a ... rather average anime that has really well designed characters.

I'm always drawn to the evocative art stylings of Masamune Shirow, who is one of the very best at character designs and visuals, but if he had written Landlock, this could've been a much better movie that didn't simply just look really good. Instead of what should've been a pretty entertaining fantasy epic turns into a mildly contrived, relatively boring endeavor.
It starts off strange, with the protagonist speaking in an introductory monolouge, but then little is explained or told to you as things begin to immediately happen with little rhyme or reason. If this had been fleshed out over a course of ... one act as opposed to seven minutes, it would've been more effective. I was lost, but pieced thing together as events clumsily unfolded shortly thereafter. The plot is very simple, but so much vital information is either not given to you, or rushed so fast it has no impact. It's like if Green Legend Ran was hacked into bullet points, with people getting kidnapped every ten minutes.
The characters aren't that great, but I've seen worse. The problem relates to the plot, as everything regarding the mystique of relationship shared between the origins of Ansa, Luda, and Agahali. I wasn't given a lot of time to know these people that well, so it's hard to care about them. Stunning reveals don't pack the same emotional punch when you're not given much reason to get behind your heroes. The villian is predictable, and isn't built up to be much of a threat, quite honestly. He plays by the numbers with no surprises whatsoever. The other support characters don't add much, except for Volk. He rules. At least with Shirow's art, the cast looks very good.
Above all, the sound is probably the worst aspect of Landlock. It's old, but for goodness sake, the audio sounds like it was recorded through a pillow. And the English dub is atrocious enough that 4KidsTV dubbing sounds like an orchestra by comparison.
IN CLOSING: Once you get over the clunky hump of the goofy first act, it turns into a moderate adventure movie with some decent action scenes. It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for a mediocre fantasy title, just don't expect anything stellar.

STORY: 5
ART: 7
SOUND: 3
CHARACTERS: 5
RE-WATCH VALUE: 6
OVERALL SCORE: 6 out of 10

PROS: Nice artwork, C movie-level atmosphere makes it a little fun
CONS: Poor plot, bad English dub, weak characters

This is an OVA that showed a lot of potential at first. The problem is that the ultimate delivery was flawed, and the ending fell flat. It is a shame because the story as a whole wasn't bad at all. It simply wasn't done right and that's what earned it's low score on my list.

This is a mid 90's anime OVA, so the animation/art was pretty good for the time of release. It really looked fantastic considering when it came out. The sound however was kind of mediocre at best. It was poorly done, but the voice acting itself wasn't horrible. There were times when ... the sound effects were extremely off and improper for the action taking place. Some of the music did work, but it wasn't enough to recover from the rest.

The characters were average, but their connections to each other and they way they interacted was done pretty well. In fact, they did a good job in the beginning with ground work for the characters, but the ending was where it felt a little rushed. I think it's safe to say that they were developed ok, but it could have been a little better.

I guess it all comes down to the ending of this OVA. Had they done something a little more spectacular and better developed I would have given it at least a 7. I did enjoy parts of it, but it's not something I have watched repeatedly nor plan to in the future. I have seen worse, but definitely have seen much better. All in all it's safe to not see this one, but I wouldn't necessarily suggest avoiding it either.