Nayuta

This is kind-of a hidden gem. It presents itself and begins with heavy shoujo vibes, but fairly quickly in it becomes clear this is more of an artistic project with no real anime-conventional limitations. It's a fun action/adventure with some creative directing. The story's a bit convoluted, but it's an interesting take on an alien-invasion "They Live" type of story-line. The story actually draws many comparisons to John Carpenter's live-action movie "They Live".

The characters are grounded enough to feel dynamic in a consistent way, but not too interesting otherwise. However, it's interesting how the story tests them in a literal way and some concepts within ... the story actually have some very interesting ideas. The soundtrack definitely has those 80's vibes, a bit too strong for my tastes in this instance, but I'd say I was okay with it.

I'd give this one a watch.

This...slaps.

This OVA is one movie, but you can think of it in three parts. First, it's a shoujo anime about a tiara that grants psychic powers. Then it turns out that there's many tiaras and they are also the sunglasses from "They Live." And then it commits to the science fiction and keeps doubling down on being delightfully weird as fuck for the rest of it. There's obvious shojo romance overtones to relationships in this, which worked fine even if they were rushed and not the point. The transition to high-concept action from there was smooth, as was the consistent stakes raising.

If it seems a ... little slow at times, I recommend watching it at 1.5x speed or more, but that's not so unusual.

It starts out simply and innocently enough. The titular character is just your painfully-average high school girl, who happens to run across an ailing woman and her young son in the rain. And then at the hospital, the mysterious woman is taken away and NEVER SEEN AGAIN.

She takes the little boy home, and turns out he's more than he seems, as he's just all crazy with the extra-sensory powers. He's this little wunderkind with a mysterious past, and he's being pursued by a big bad evil ancient alien civilization. Nayuta takes his magical tiara to school, hoping ... it would give her powers as well, and while the little boy sleeps at home, he is visited by the bad guys and is NEVER SEEN AGAIN.

Pretty soon Nayuta is seeing green guys all over the place (They Live!!), and is befriended by another boy who also has one of those neato tiaras. He gives her the What's Up on the Down Low, and she's like, nope, not having any of it! I want to go home! So she heads off back home, but the big bad guys have set fire to her house, and her mother and father are NEVER SEEN AGAIN.

I think you see a trend here. The underlying theme is everyone Nayuta meets ends up in a bad way. Wonderful.

At this point, the story goes from your standard 80's-trope-filled-protagonist-gets-ESP-abilities (which were a dime a dozen during the decade), and turns the dial up to eleven. As Nayuta goes from average girl to Supergirl to Universe-level god supergirl, as the story elevates into fantastical worlds and realms and stretching all the way back to the Big Bang and...well, spoilers. But in short, it just goes to a crazy level.

It's a pretty wild ride, to be honest, but it just seems to reach levels of "over-powered-ness" that seem ridiculous. The character designs and artwork are what you might expect from an eighties shoujo story, which is fine enough for me, but your mileage may vary.