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Nov 7, 2022
“Ai to Ken no Camelot: Mangaka Marina Time Slip Jiken” is a shoujo fantasy movie (it seems that it’s not an OVA) based on one of the books in the “Mangaka Marina” series of novels. While its art, animation and music are passable, the story is rushed and full of confusing narrative decisions, and the dialogue is hackneyed. In addition, the characters suffer from a lack of background information that would help the viewer empathize with them and differentiate them from one another, making this a forgettable watch.
“Mangaka Marina” is a series of novels that were published from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. The series
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has never been translated into English as far as I know, and the books are currently out of print. The book the story comes from was published just a few months before the movie’s release, so I presume the goal of this movie was to increase book sales and give fans of the series a chance to see and hear their favorite characters on screen.
The movie starts out assuming that you already know about the characters and their relations with each other. Since this is based on such an obscure novel (and not even the first one in the series, at that), the majority of viewers will be confused. Who are these people? Why are they friends? How do they know each other?
The main characters are the titular Marina, a third-rate mangaka who looks and acts like a 10-year-old but is apparently an adult; Kazuya, a half-Japanese guy whom Marina likes; Charles, a super-intelligent French guy; Kaoru, a crossdressing woman; Bijomaru, your typical traditional Japanese guy; and some guy named Kirk.
The gist of the plot is this: Kaoru invites them all to a birthday party at her mansion, and tells them to bring their “present” of “what the meaning of love is.” The party is interrupted by a dragon that crashes through the window and grabs Marina. The others grab onto the dragon and are whisked away to medieval England, where Marina has been tasked with helping Arthur pull out Excalibur to become the rightful King of England. Why Marina? Who knows. She even has a hard time remembering what the dragon asked her to do as its dying wish. After lots of mishaps, the gang figures out the necessary conditions for obtaining the sword, but some of the most stereotypical and one-dimensional villains ever plan to get in their way.
The movie stuffs too much plot into its 48-minute runtime. It goes from beat to beat quickly, without giving much explanation as to what is going on or why. Also, some of the scenes don’t make much sense. For instance, when Marina chokes on her dinner, she’s immediately offered medicine to swallow. How can she swallow if she’s choking? And later, she uses a cloth as a makeshift balloon to glide through the air, and walks through a desert in England. Some romantic subtext, with overused dialogue, is shoved in between Marina and a number of other characters, particularly Arthur and Kazuya. What these guys see in her is beyond me. The “comedy” in this movie is also cringeworthy. There’s a nonsensical “twist” with the villain near the end that comes out of nowhere, and the ending itself is underwhelming.
Regarding the technical aspects of “Camelot,” characters (with the exception of Marina) are drawn in a typical shoujo style, with big eyes and upside-down triangle-shaped heads. The background art is unremarkable. The animation is decent; movement throughout the whole movie is fairly fluid, although some characters move strangely sometimes (like the dragons). The music is okay. Both the opening and ending are pleasant to listen to, particularly the opening, which is set to real-life pictures of Tokyo with Marina superimposed on them. The soundtrack isn’t memorable, but it’s not bad, either. “Camelot” has a strong voice cast, but the actors’ performances don’t stand out.
There isn’t too much potentially objectionable content in this. There’s a scene where Marina calls some wolves “perverts” for trying to bite off her shorts, and there are some minor scenes with blood, violence and death. There’s also a shower scene with the crossdressing girl near the beginning, but nothing is really shown.
Overall, unless you’re a fan of the novels, which you probably aren’t, I don’t recommend watching “Camelot.” It doesn’t have enough to offer that would make it particularly appealing to anyone else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 31, 2022
“Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned” is a 1980 TV special based on an American comic. And boy, is it “special.”
A wannabe Scooby Doo gang stalks a sort-of-reformed-but-not-really Dracula, who stole a bride offered to the devil and had a son with her. Their baby gets killed, but God later revives him, giving him an adult body and shapeshifting powers. The son has been tasked with killing his father, while the devil seeks revenge on Dracula for stealing his girl. Caught between God and the devil, what’s a vampire to do? (Mope around in a Boston cave and eat a hamburger, I guess.)
The plot, as you
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can probably tell from the above, is ridiculous. The meandering narrative introduces us to characters with major fanfare, only to have them fizzle out and contribute very little, if anything, to the story. None of the characters are likable. It seems that the intent is to have the viewers empathize with Dracula, but since he keeps going on killing sprees and acts rude to those trying to help him, it’s difficult to care about his fate.
There were so many things wrong with this anime, particularly inconsistencies and redundant dialogue, that it would take longer than its runtime to point them all out. That being said, I was entertained by it, and it kept my attention for the entire 1.5 hours. I couldn’t guess how the story would turn out, so I found it interesting. It felt less like an anime and more like a classic B-movie, like something that would be right at home on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
The art looks more western-style (think Hanna-Barbera) than Japanese. The animation is not that great. They use a lot of stills, panning shots, and scenes with zoom-ins/zoom-outs instead of actually animating stuff much of the time. Also, characters’ facial expressions can be odd, and sometimes they’ll be looking in a completely different direction from the character they’re talking to. The voice acting is subpar, probably due to the messy dialogue. As for music, we’re frequently treated to a funky disco soundtrack, usually whenever something dramatic or serious is happening. There are “songs” in this anime — 2 within the anime itself and one as the ending theme — but they aren’t memorable. They’re just some orchestral music with a female vocalist going “oooh” or “lalala.”
As for objectionable content in “Dracula,” it consists mostly of depictions of people getting their blood sucked, and frequent religious and cult imagery, which might bother some people. There’s one scene with mild nudity as well.
From relatively minor scenes such as a TV news station showing the body of a murder victim, to plot-crucial elements like the baby’s revival as some sort of adult godlike being with shapeshifting powers, just about everything that happens in this special makes no sense. You’ll be left thinking “huh?” after almost every scene. If that’s your kind of thing, then you’ll enjoy this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 18, 2022
As the title suggests, “Riki-Oh 2” is the sequel to 1989’s “Riki-Oh.” This OVA explores the titular character’s past and his quest to find his twin brother from whom he was separated as a child. While “2” has its fair share of gory violence, it’s toned down compared to its predecessor, and the stilted scenes, animation errors and jumpy narrative do it no favors.
Presumably, the events of this OVA take place after what happened in the first one, although it’s hard to tell. Riki-Oh is searching for his twin brother, Nachi, who has similar powers to his, except Nachi has a swastika on his hand,
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and Riki-Oh has a Star of David. (The reason behind the existence of these powers is unclear.) He walks around in northern Japan and talks to a psychic woman who almost dies but is suddenly okay just a few moments later, and then he’s in a jungle where some guy tries to kill him but immediately reveals that he’s a friend, and that guy subsequently gets killed by the main antagonist, who shows up in a tank. Then Riki-Oh gets imprisoned in a mysterious city with nuclear power plants that has death matches, where he quickly becomes best friends with a cyborg guy named Robo who lifts weights with his mechanical arms, and finally encounters Nachi. Is Nachi good or evil? (Well, he’s got a swastika on his hand, so...) Will Nachi ever forgive Riki-Oh for abandoning him during a game of hide-and-seek to become the adopted son of a rich old guy? (Yes, this happens.)
As you can tell by the above, the plot is all over the place. Rather than going from Point A to Point B, it beelines it to Points J, K and L, meanders down to X, and then zigzags back up again. Many of the introduced elements aren’t explained well, if at all. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s going on, and why it’s happening in the first place. The characters are flatter than the screen I watched this on. The dialogue is terrible and borders on “so-bad-it’s-good” material, but I feel like with how incoherent this OVA is, it doesn’t quite reach that level of entertainment.
The first “Riki-Oh”’s saving grace was its gory violence, but even that is toned down here. There are only a few truly gory scenes, but they happen quickly, and the animation quality isn’t good enough to make them look interesting. Also, sometimes a character will get seemingly mortally wounded in one scene, only to appear just fine in the next. The characters in “2” were designed by Akio Sugino, strangely enough, but even his character designs can’t save it.
The rest of the technical aspects are similarly bland or bordering on forgettable. The direction, the soundtrack, the voice acting — all dull. The ending theme is decent, although it doesn’t leave much of an impression.
As one would expect, this OVA contains significant objectionable content, but as I mentioned earlier, the goriest violent scenes are kept to a minimum. There’s lots of blood, bodies exploding, etc., but these aren’t shown in much detail. There’s also a scene of a woman breastfeeding and then getting executed. Additionally, the gratuitous use of religious imagery might make some uncomfortable. For those who are photosensitive, there are a couple of scenes near the middle with flashing, but these scenes are easy to avoid.
Overall, “Riki-Oh 2” is a narratively meandering and tedious sequel to the already lackluster “Riki-Oh.” It has some unintentionally funny moments, but they aren’t enough to salvage it. Not recommended unless you’re in the mood for something confusing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Oct 14, 2022
“NINETEEN 19” is a 1-episode OVA about the trials and tribulations of young love that’s half music video and half story. Featuring a nostalgic citypop soundtrack, aesthetic visuals and some innovative montages and scene transitions, this OVA has a lot going for it, but it’s bogged down by the uninteresting characters and plot. The sexually explicit scenes and dialogue also make it an uncomfortable watch.
The story revolves around a 19 (hence the title)-year-old guy named Kubota, who spends his days blithely hitting on girls on the street with his friends, and working at a cake shop under a boss who enjoys grabbing his butt. One
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night, he sees his old middle school crush, Fujisaki, in a club. Recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend, Fujisaki is aware of Kubota’s feelings, but she plays hard to get. She eventually reciprocates his feelings, but then she becomes aggressive, urging an uncertain Kubota to sleep with her ASAP. How will their relationship turn out?
The plot is rather simple, and the characters are similarly simple. The main characters get a few brief flashbacks, but that’s it. Since this is only one episode, the relationships between the characters aren’t explored or explained well, so one doesn’t get the full picture they might get if they read the manga. This is really more of a “style over substance” type of anime, so from here on, I’ll talk about those aspects.
The art is stylish, and the animation is mostly fluid, but there are lots of still shots mixed in. Many of the scene transitions are done in an avant-garde style. There are also montages set to music, in which the images range from standard animation to hand-drawn manga-like cutout figures and some other forms of art.
The soundtrack is full of catchy citypop tunes, plus the English song ”Boys! Boys! Boys!,” giving this anime a nostalgic feel. The voice actors are all famous, but their performances don’t stand out here due to the subpar dialogue. Fujisaki (Hiromi Tsuru) says “Kubota-kun” at least 26 times, for instance (I counted). That’s nearly one “Kubota-kun” for every 1.5 minutes of runtime! Also, if you’re familiar with some of the other characters these actors portray, the dialogue feels a little awkward. It’s basically Meryl from “Trigun” trying to get Vash to sleep with her — with Ranma and Dio encouraging him as Soun Tendo sexually harasses him at work. To top it off, the ex is Spike from “Cowboy Bebop.”
There is a significant amount of objectionable content in this OVA, but most of it is in the dialogue. There’s no outright nudity — just some stylized non-detailed nudity around the beginning, and then there are some scenes with a female character in her underwear and a towel. There’s also a condom shown. There aren’t any sex scenes, but there’s almost one at one point. There are several explicit sexual references in the dialogue. In addition to these, there are multiple scenes of and references to sexual harassment, most of which are instigated by an older male boss towards his younger male employee, and these scenes are treated as humorous.
In addition to the uncomfortable sexual content, the story and characters of “NINETEEN 19” are quite lacking, and I didn’t empathize with any of them enough to care about what they were going through. It would have been better if this OVA was either 70% music video or 70% story, not half and half. More story would give us more time to understand and care about the characters, while more music video would have made this feel like something akin to “Cipher.” As it is, it doesn't go far enough in either direction to leave a clear impression.
Overall, “NINETEEN 19” is good at evoking a late ‘80s atmosphere (although it came out in 1990), and as such, those who feel nostalgic for that time period may enjoy watching it just for the images and music, as long as they aren’t bothered by the sexual content or the bland story and characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 10, 2022
“Tengai Makyou: Jiraiya Oboro-hen” is a 2-episode OVA set in the universe of the game “Tengai Makyou,” but with an anime original plot. This OVA has an action-driven, although rather predictable story, and the art and character designs make it look more like an ‘80s western cartoon than an anime. It’s easy to watch, but due to odd character interactions, questionable narrative choices and an underwhelming ending, it’s not a particularly compelling one.
The gist of the story is that the thief Jiraiya has run out of treasures to plunder in his current town, and decides to travel to another area where there’s a legend of
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a mysterious treasure called “Hiruko.” Not much is known about Hiruko, except that it’s dangerous, and that it could even be alive. At his destination, he gets involved with a samurai named Orochimaru, who looks a lot like Goemon from “Lupin III”; the ninja girl Tsunade, who is obsessed with Orichimaru; and Yukihime, the local princess who holds the key to understanding the mystery of Hiruko. Coincidentally, at the same time, there is an evil cult targeting Yukihime for her Hiruko connection; they plan to use Hiruko’s power to awaken a giant skeleton samurai robot and have it destroy the world. (Why? Who knows.) Aided by members of Jiraiya’s thief gang, Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade become unlikely allies as they try to protect Yukihime from the bad guys and prevent the power of Hiruko from falling into the wrong hands.
The plot is relatively straightforward, and does go from point A to point B, but there are a lot of liberties taken in between. For instance, the way the characters come together doesn’t feel realistic. They meet each other and almost immediately decide to become allies and share the same goal. They try to put in a subplot to give Orochimaru’s character motivations a little more depth, but it’s not executed very well. The antagonists don’t have a backstory, and their goal is that they want to “destroy everything.” And in the end, we aren’t even shown or told what happens to most of these antagonists; they’re just forgotten about.
Speaking of forgotten about, there’s a scene in which the wooden tank/submarine that the protagonists are riding in starts leaking water in several places and sinks to the bottom of a lake. They’re all panicking and trying to plug up the holes, but this somehow magically resolves itself by the next scene.
There are also narrative decisions that feel like wasted potential. As an example, Tsunade gets caught infiltrating the antagonists’ lair. You’d think that the antagonists, with all of their magic powers and resources, would do something with her. Maybe torture her to get her to tell them some information about the protagonists? Brainwash her and send her back to the protagonists? Or at least search her and remove her weapon. But no, they just throw her in a dungeon, from which she easily escapes with the help of her allies.
The magic powers here are also ill-defined and contrived. The antagonists’ powers aside, the protagonists’ abilities mostly stem from 3 colored spheres they each have, which signify that they’re members of an ancient tribe. The powers seem elemental, but aren’t explained much at all. This could be something that players of the game would have a better understanding of, though.
This OVA has only around a 1.5 hour runtime, so there is little character development or backstory, minus the bit about Orochimaru mentioned earlier. At face value, the characters seem pretty stereotypical or annoying, especially Tsunade with her obsession with Orochimaru. Orochimaru is similarly grating due to how rudely he treats Tsunade. The titular Jiraiya is your typical rogue hero, and Yukihime is your typical damsel in distress. The villains have no defining characteristics, and the rest of the characters are mostly forgettable.
As far as technical aspects go, this anime is slightly above average. The animation is cheap, but fluid, and the character designs and backgrounds are interesting. They feature a distinctly 1980s cartoon feel to them, and wouldn’t look out of place if they showed up in, say, “He-Man” or “Thundercats.” While the insert song doesn’t leave much of an impression, the mid-tempo, jazzy ending theme is pleasant, although perhaps unsuitable for the tone of the series. The soundtrack has a lot of variety and is pretty good, actually — it was composed by Kouhei Tanaka, the person who does music for “One Piece” and many other iconic series.
Meanwhile, the voice acting leaves a lot to be desired. There are some major voice actors in this, but their performances are forgettable here and wasted on lines like: “I’ll send you to Hell!” “No, the one who gets sent to Hell will be you!”
There isn’t really any objectionable content in this, except for some apparent deaths (but nothing is shown or stated outright). There’s also a scene where the protagonist hits a bird with a rock to knock it to the ground, which might make some uncomfortable.
Overall, “Tengai Makyou: Jiraiya Oboro-hen” is watchable, and a rather harmless watch at that, but many elements of the plot don’t make sense or aren’t explained well, and the character interactions, motivations and backstories are lacking in depth. It looks and sounds decent enough, though, so I’d recommend watching if you want to see something that has the look and feel of an ‘80s cartoon. As of this writing, it’s available on the studio’s official YouTube channel (TMS Entertainment), although it’s only in Japanese. The full soundtrack is available there, too, which I recommend giving a listen to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 24, 2022
“A-Ko the Versus” is a 2-episode sci-fi comedy OVA featuring the 3 main characters of the “Project A-Ko” franchise in an alternate universe setting. The different setting allows for fresh insight on the dynamics between the three characters, particularly A-Ko and B-Ko (C-Ko remains annoying, but her role is less prominent here than in the previous installments of the series). The first episode is a fun, action-packed romp, while the second episode tries to make things a little too serious for comfort, and the tonal whiplash is significant. However, overall, the OVA is watchable.
Instead of being mortal enemies constantly at each other’s throats like in
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the movie and previous OVAs, in “The Versus,” A-Ko and B-Ko are partners who make a living as bounty hunters on an alien planet. C-Ko is the (adopted) daughter of the head of a major conglomerate, and due to a botched kidnapping attempt in outer space by the antagonists, she lands on A-Ko’s and B-Ko’s doorstep. A-Ko and B-Ko decide to fight the antagonists to save her, and uncover a nefarious plot about multiverses and an ancient witch in the process.
In general, the plot makes sense, but is driven forward primarily via the use of deus ex machinas, which makes story developments somewhat unsatisfying. The OVA also has characters with unexplained overpowered abilities, characters who should have died but inexplicably didn’t, out-of-character plot twists and confusing flashbacks. The second episode features the destruction of entire planets shown in a comedic light, and later tries to be serious but sorely misses the mark.
The main characters, the 3 “-Kos,” are similar to how they are in the rest of the franchise, but A-Ko and B-Ko are more like quarreling friends here, which is nice to see. Also, C-Ko is not with them as much, and most of the time she’s either sleeping or possessed by a witch, so the more annoying aspects of her character are toned down here. Due to the multiverse theme, we get a few glimpses into what the 3 “-Kos” are like in alternate worlds, including that of the first movie, which is interesting. The antagonists in this OVA are okay, but their motives are unclear. The main antagonists do state what they’re trying to achieve, but it comes out as a pseudo-philosophical jumbled mess. If they were to achieve their goal, it’s difficult to say what would actually happen. And the lesser antagonists’ motivations are even less understandable. Rounding out the cast are C-Ko’s doting father and attendant, and Maruten, a small, Doraemon-like ally of the protagonists.
The technical aspects of this OVA are all average to above-average. The animation is decent, but the facial expressions are a little cheap and static, and the art doesn’t look as nice as in previous installments. The background music is pretty good, and the ending themes, both sung by B-Ko’s voice actress, are pleasant to listen to, although not all that memorable. The voice acting and direction are good.
Similar to the previous OVAs and movie, “A-Ko the Versus” has a fair amount of objectionable content, particularly nudity and suggestive shots (about six or seven such scenes in both episodes). These scenes aren’t relevant to the plot and seem superfluous. There is also a fair amount of violence and even death in this OVA.
Overall, “A-Ko the Versus” isn’t a terrible OVA, and offers the chance to think of what the franchise could be like if it were rebooted in a different setting. However, the contrived and botched execution of the plot often leads to nonsensical outcomes at the expense of character development, and the dispensable fanservice does this OVA no favors. I would recommend watching this only if you are a huge fan of the “Project A-Ko” characters, or are in the mood to watch a superficial sci-fi action comedy and don’t care too much about character development or a solid plot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Sep 17, 2022
“Burning Blood” is an aesthetically pleasing, well-produced 3-episode OVA about a high school delinquent training to be a boxer to defeat his rival. After a rocky first episode, the story becomes solid and intriguing, although overdramatic and unrealistic at times. Unfortunately, it ends on an inconclusive note, and seems to have been made to advertise the manga (which had just ended around the time this came out).
The OVA’s story centers on a high school delinquent named Ryo, whose nickname is “B.B.” or “Burning Blood,” a nickname given to him by American servicemembers who got in a fight with him a few years prior to the
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events in the series. It’s set in Yokosuka, a port city with a large American navy base. Ryo plays the trumpet in a band, and they’ve entered a national music competition. Meanwhile, Ryo’s friends get caught up in some local gang violence, and one of the main members of the gang is a guy named Jin Moriyama. Ryo fights him, but gets beat badly. When he finds out that Moriyama is a boxer, he decides to go into boxing himself to defeat him.
The first episode is difficult to get through, mainly because there’s an implied scene of gang rape at the end, and the somber aftermath of that is shown. Also, there is no boxing in the first episode, so the lyrics and the visuals of the opening and ending themes don’t fit this episode at all. The mood is also a mismatch — it ends with a rape and a guy lying on the ground having been beaten to a pulp, only for the peppy “you can do it!” music to kick in immediately afterwards. The juxtaposition is jarring.
The second and third episodes are much better. Once the plot gets started and the characters work to advance that plot, the story gets interesting and I grew invested in knowing the outcome. However, unfortunately, to find out the eventual outcome, you have to read the manga, as the OVA ends part of the way through. Also, there are a number of issues with this series that hindered my suspension of disbelief. For one, Ryo exhibits the superhuman traits that are often seen in main characters of delinquent anime: he gets beat up to the point where any normal person would have died, but his doctor says that he miraculously sustained no lasting damage, and what's more, Ryo recovers to 100% remarkably quickly. At one point, he even swims the 2km stretch from an island to the mainland and back — in a typhoon, no less. In addition, despite all of the violence occurring in public places, we never see any police or security guards anywhere, which seems a little unrealistic.
The characters besides Ryo are memorable, but not necessarily likable. The teacher, Otobe, is your typical “tough love” coach. He beats up Ryo frequently, sometimes to the point where he knocks him out, and one time he even tells Ryo’s friends to take him to a hospital after he's done. Koyuki is Ryo’s love interest whose father conveniently owns the clinic that treats Ryo when he almost dies. Ryo peeks under her skirt and tries to convince her to sleep with him, but she coyly refuses. Kato (who goes by the nickname “Sorry”) is Ryo’s happy-go-lucky friend who often skips class to smoke cigarettes on the school rooftop with him. He’s dating Su, the naive, loopy manager of the school’s basketball team who is also somewhat involved with the local gangs. Rounding out the main characters are Waka, a former gang member who is now playing in a band with Ryo, and Moriyama, a boxer from an elite high school, who seems fated to be Ryo’s rival.
The technical aspects of “Burning Blood” are all quite good, especially the direction, art and animation. The unique and visually pleasing character designs were done by legendary character designer Akio Sugino. They look a bit glitchy in the first episode, but the designs are smoothed out in the next two episodes, where they look great. The detailed, realistic background art is similarly nice to look at. The variety of visually interesting locations in the city of Yokosuka are diligently reflected here. The animation is great — easily some of the best I’ve seen in an OVA. It’s fluid and the movement is natural. There are a few moments where lip flaps don’t match the voices, but most of the time everything is synched up properly. One unusual technique employed in this anime is the use of still images during action scenes. Normally I would chalk this up to a budget issue, but this seems to be the director’s style and therefore an intentional choice, and it’s executed well.
The voice acting is great, and the dramatic background music, which often features trumpets, leaves a deep impression. I didn’t like the opening and ending themes at first, due to the odd English in the lyrics and the fact that they didn’t match the tone of the first episode. However, the songs grew on me after a while, and now I think they’re pretty good.
The whole 3-episode series is filled with dramatic imagery and speech, mostly relating to “summer” and “the sea,” and also the tattoo of a hawk, trumpets, and red and blue glowing eyes. The dramatic elements and figurative imagery combine with the Akio Sugino character designs to give this OVA a decidedly shoujo feel, despite the content being far removed from that demographic.
As for potentially objectionable content, most of it is contained within the first episode. There’s some nudity and underwear shots, implied scenes of sex and rape, and lots of graphic violence. The second and third episodes also have a fair amount of violence (this anime is about fighting, after all).
Overall, “Burning Blood” is a good-looking and good-sounding OVA, but it ends before its promising plot can fully develop. The first episode is difficult to get through, but the second and third episodes are interesting to watch, although unrealistic at times. I would recommend watching this for the art, animation and music, as well as the dramatic imagery of the series, rather than for the plot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 27, 2022
“Nyancos: Hello! Our Brilliant Future” is a mesmerizingly delightful 1-episode OVA that offers a colorful glimpse into the lives of catwomen on an alien planet. The unique art, relaxing music and dreamy storytelling combine to make watching “Nyancos” a bizarre, yet comforting experience.
Separated into about 7-8 vignettes, this music-driven OVA has no dialogue. It follows the titular “Nyancos” — tall, slender women wearing sleek cat outfits and heavy makeup — as they descend to a planet in their UFOs, spend the four seasons inventing things that bring color and excitement into the world, and enjoy their success as they unwind at a cafe and interact
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with mystical creatures.
There actually is a plot, although you wouldn’t know it from just watching the OVA. The website for “Nyancos” (now offline, apparently, but viewable via the Internet Archive) explains the whole story, both in Japanese and English. The OVA cuts out the conflict part of the story, probably in order to make the OVA more relaxing, but this also makes it difficult for the viewer to understand what’s going on and why. It starts with the four seasons, but the following stories feature titles like “Marriage” and “Cafe,” and things get stranger the longer one watches.
This can be considered a positive aspect of “Nyancos,” though. It’s an audiovisual experience, and to best enjoy it, perhaps not thinking too much and just going along for the ride is best. And boy, what a trip it is. Giant mushrooms that become rainbow-colored and produce butterflies, hypnotically swinging matryoshka dolls, flying chairs that rain stars, frogs dancing in a flower crown on someone’s head... the list goes on.
Despite likely having a low budget, the technical aspects are on the above average side. The instrumental soundtrack, with electronic and ambient elements, is enjoyable. The character designs are bold and vivid, and the world they inhabit is similarly colorful and bursting with creativity. The animation appears to be done in Flash, and is rather limited, but it looks good for what it is.
Overall, “Nyancos” is a confusing, yet relaxing, ride into the beautiful unknown. Recommended for anyone who wants to see something different.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 21, 2022
“Record of Lodoss War” is a 13-episode OVA series that is part of the mixed media franchise of the same name. “Lodoss” was quite popular when it was released and influenced just about every anime in the fantasy genre that succeeded it; this series’ importance is not to be understated. However, while “Lodoss” has excellent music, nice artwork and character designs, every other aspect of this series, especially plot and character development, leaves a lot to be desired.
The gist of the plot is that a wizard is trying to resurrect an evil goddess to rule and/or destroy the island of Lodoss, and a traditional party
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led by a hero has to stop him. They are aided by a neighboring kingdom and a couple of rogue characters. On the villain’s side, there is some infighting, as a couple of characters don’t get along with the wizard. There’s also an “observer” whose alliance is left unclear, and seems to switch between the two sides. So, in essence, it’s a traditional good-versus-evil setup, which isn’t a bad thing, but the the narrative gets repetitive. It’s basically: fight the villain because they’re evil. Defeat them. Fight the next villain who is also bad just because. Rinse and repeat until you’re holding a half-naked elf woman in your arms.
The plot sounds simple, but the story jumps around a lot, particularly in the first half of the series, so it can be difficult to follow. For instance, the first episode starts in medias res style, with events that chronologically happen around the middle of the series. Then from episode 2, it jumps back to the beginning, and there are also some flashbacks here and there that aren’t transitioned into well. In addition, the series mentions various kingdoms around the island, and we see characters traveling to and from these kingdoms, but we never get a sense of where these kingdoms are in relation to each other, or the distance between them. It would have been helpful if they had shown a map once in a while.
The story does have a conclusive ending, but many key questions are left unanswered, especially regarding the fates of some of the main characters. One character, in particular, seems to have been forgotten by everyone else. A group of multicolored dragons is featured prominently in the opening sequence, and we start seeing some of them in the latter half of the series. However, one of them simply shows up and strikes a pose in the last episode, and doesn’t do anything after that. The significance of the dragons and their relation with the other inhabitants of the island are not explained well, if at all. We also never really learn much about the other races/species living on the island, or what lies outside of the island.
As “Lodoss” was based off of a series of novels that were in turn based off of “Dungeons and Dragons” roleplaying sessions, the characters are about as archetypal as you can get. They don’t have any personalities beyond stereotypes, and we don’t get too much background information on them. Character motivations, particularly for the villains, are simplistic, contradictory or simply left unclear. There is a hint of development for two of the antagonists, but it’s too little, too late. It’s suggested at the end that the main protagonist has changed somewhat (as stated by the narrator), but we don’t actually see him change.
As for technical aspects of this series, some of the artwork is good, particularly with regard to the character designs for Deedlit and the other female characters. The male characters, on the other hand, look rather plain to me. The backgrounds are also dull. The dragons have interesting designs, but due to the lack of animation, their fights are underwhelming. Regarding the animation, most of the time it’s not that fluid. Action scenes tend to rely on still shots and slideshow-type shots which use minimal animation. Occasionally, the characters appear to be off-model. About the only time the animation is actually good is during closeups of Deedlit’s face.
As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of jumping around the timeline, and the scenes aren’t transitioned into very well, so the direction is not that great. The voice acting is decent, but due to the cliched dialogue, none of the actors really have a chance to shine here.
The best thing about “Lodoss” is the music. I love the airy, ethereal feeling of the opening and ending themes; they really add to the atmosphere of the series. The insert song in the last episode, and all of the instrumental background music, are good as well.
Regarding potentially objectionable content, this series is full of fighting (it’s called “Record of Lodoss *War*,” after all), and a couple of the many scenes in which people get killed or seriously injured are rather grotesque. There’s a slight bit of nudity in the last episode, and some implied nudity in the ending sequence. Also, it should be noted that most episodes of this series, especially around the beginning and end, have frequent flashing light effects, so caution is necessary while viewing this if you’re photosensitive.
Overall, “Record of Lodoss War” is an important show that is watchable, but due to the confusing way the story is set up, as well as the lack of interesting characters, it’s not a particularly satisfying watch. The music and atmosphere of the series is nice, though, so if you don’t mind the lack of character development and having a bevy of key questions left unanswered at the end, you may enjoy watching this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 11, 2022
“Kennosuke-sama” is a short movie based on a one-shot Akira Toriyama manga that was shown in theaters alongside a Dragon Ball Z movie and another short film in 1990. Due to its length, the movie ends rather abruptly, but it’s pretty enjoyable for what it is.
This movie is about a kindergartner samurai boy named Kennosuke, who lives in an anachronistic world which combines elements from medieval and modern Japan. After school, a girl named Oden asks him out on a date, and he agrees to it, but there’s just one problem — he doesn't know what a date is. He asks his mother, who gives
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him a vague idea of the concept, and then goes to his pig ninja servant/friend, Shinobimaru, for help. Shinobimaru’s advice is misguided, to say the least, causing Kennosuke to get into various kinds of trouble. Will his date with Oden be successful in the end, or will he fail and be deemed “terrible” by his suitor?
The plot is easy to understand and follow along with, and ends on a decent note, although the ending is abrupt — I would have liked to see the aftermath of everything that happened. The characters, naturally, don’t get much development, but their personalities are distinctive and they are likable.
The whole thing looks and sounds like “Dragon Ball,” which makes sense given that this is based on a Toriyama manga. Two of the characters in particular closely resemble characters from that series, and one even has the same voice actor. The voice acting is good, and the music is cute and goofy, fitting the movie well. The setting is one of the best things about this anime — the world looks interesting, not just due to its anachronistic elements, but also because some of its inhabitants include talking animals. It would have been nice if there had been more time to explore it.
As for potentially objectionable content, although this should be a family-friendly movie considering what other films it was shown with, there are a few crude visual gags in it. There’s a scene in which a character briefly flips someone the bird; Shinobimaru is shown secretly rifling through a copy of “Playboy” magazine for date information; and, most prominently, there’s a villain whose clothing is emblazoned with the phrase “F*** YOU!!” in multiple locations instead of a traditional samurai crest.
Overall, the aforementioned crude humor aside, “Kennosuke-sama” is an anime that’s short and sweet — but too short to leave much of an impact. However, if you want something that’s quick and easy to watch, and the lack of a solid conclusion and character development don’t bother you, I’d recommend checking this little movie out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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