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"Hey, you got a revolutionary fighting story in my porn!"

"No, you got porn in my revolutionary fighting story!"

Mmmm, delicious - two great tastes that taste great together....

...except NOT SO MUCH.

I mean, first you have this grim-and-gritty story of factory workers rising up in resistance, fighting evil guys, with lots of smokestacks and gears and pulleys and rail lines and EVEN A GODDAMN STEAMPUNK GIANT ROBOT -- like something ripped right out of Laputa.

And then, you have a couple of full-on sex scenes shoved ... in the middle of it. Not really as any key plot element to the story, really, just...you know...for the giggety of it all.

Whoever's brilliant idea it was to throw these two disparate elements together needs to have their head examined, because you end up with the uneven piece of...I don't know what it is. Except it's about 25 minutes long, with a serious "fight the man" story and then the why-are-they-here sex bits added in. So, basically, pleasing neither the fan looking for a good story, nor pleasing the guys looking for the porn.

I mean, go full bore either way - all sex or all story. Because trying to meet somewhere in the middle (with such a very short story) means no one is happy.

Partially based on the classic 2001 Nights manga series, it's hard not to compare this anime with the manga. And for those who have read the manga, it does come up a bit lacking.

It's pretty much a straight-up hard sci-fi tale that falls in line with what you might expect from, say, Niven or Heinlein or Brin. Also the story is emblematic of the type of themes that were being explored at the time, as the grand hope of space comes crashing against the hard realities of humanity's foibles. And it's really three parts of a ... story that are interwoven together, across a span of about 400 years.

There are some nitpicky details to the story setup (which comes with the territory when you are dealing with the harder edges of SF). And also, hints of a much larger, broader universal story out there -- but clocking in at just under an hour, there's only time to focus on this one slice of that larger universe.

When I say this comes up lacking, it's because the manga itself was a masterpiece of artwork and storytelling that would be hard for *any* adaptation to compare. Hoshino's artwork is crisp and clean, and that translates into animated form somewhat unevenly. And the animation quality is a bit on the sub-par side, relying heavily on pans-and-scans of grand backgrounds and landscapes and less on movement. Takeuchi does his best, but it's a tall order to capture the grand scope of the manga.

Taken on its own, for someone who is unfamiliar with the manga, it's just "okay". But if you have the opportunity, choose the manga instead.

In short, it's a studio show-reel, where an animation studio goes "Durrr hurrrr look at all the neat 3-D CGI animation we can do!!!" Six short animation bits, around five minutes each, nobody really says anything but there is musical accompaniment in the background. Each one showcasing a different lithesome computer generated girl going through some sort of motion-capture routine, in different settings.

May have been state of the art level of graphics around 1999, but compared to what is available today (when I write this 2019), it does not age very well. Rather than marvel at ... all the neat things they can do, and how "realistic" the girls look, you spend more time spotting obvious animation errors, overall jankiness, or how "dead-eyes" or fake looking the characters seem. Not worth the effort to watch.

If you grew up during the seventies and religiously watched Sesame Street and The Electric Company, this is basically the same thing - only in Japanese. Counting from one to ten as some really psychedelic stuff happens around you. L-S-D and 1-2-3's!

It's just a series of very short videos that count numbers, ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu. With the type of far-out hand-drawn animation that you would get from the time period, and groooovy disco music to boot.

It's just a series of very short videos that count numbers, ichi, ni, san, ... shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu. With the type of far-out hand-drawn animation that you would get from the time period, and groooovy disco music to boot.

Joker is a special forces super-cop, able to shape-shift between man and woman at will. Along with his cop buddy, they are investigating a series of unusual crimes in the city where the hearts of victims have been cut out. Soon they are battling up against a rogue android creation that yearns for the one thing it cannot have.

And if that confuses you, then you are not alone. Clocking in at just over half an hour, there's not a lot of time to really develop all the twists in the plot. And not a lot of ... time to build up the characters, either, other than to ratchet up the strange sexual tension with Joker.

And yet at the same time, despite not enough time, it also seems like time drags as you are watching this. Probably because I couldn't get invested in the characters or the story, so it was like, yeah, whatever, let's get on with it.

It doesn't help with how corny it can get at times, either. At one point there's a prostitute victim lying in an alleyway, blood everywhere because her heart is cut out. And yet, her mouth is wordlessly flopping open and closed like a fish out of water as one cop shows compassion and the rest of them stand around all bored-like. ALL THE WHILE a totally inappropriate, upbeat poppy tune is running in the background, as if to mock the dying woman. Ugh.

Just avoid this one. Not worth the effort to figure it out.

This is a Satoshi Urushihara joint, which means you only have to know one thing about this: Le boobies.

I mean, they do try to wrap a story around the whole fan-service-y bits, but in the end its all just window dressing. In this case, Lemnear is a scantily-clad sword-wielding silver-haired beauty who is out for revenge, and ends up being at the heart of a prophecy.

However, that's all just an excuse to get to what Urushihara does best: Drawing nubile young girls in various states of undress. No, it's not a porno ... flick, but rather that teasing risque anime that gives fifteen year olds in the eighties all the titillating giggles. And in this day and age, that's not nearly enough to hold up as worth viewing.

As I was watching this, I could have sworn on a stack of pancakes that this was a story by Rumiko Takahashi. The character designs, the slapstick action and improbable set-up, the thematic elements and pacing all scream Takahashi.

But after finishing and digging around online, I was gobsmacked - I can't find her name anywhere on this OVA. It was so obvious to me, I couldn't believe it.

And yet, here we are. Everything about this is basically recycled Ranma 1/2. Swap out the characters from one to the other, change the ... setting just slightly, and you could run this thing almost entirely as nothing more than one better-than-average Ranma 1/2 two-parter. It's downright uncanny.

The artwork is decent, as is the animation. The story is over-the-top ridiculous, but that's part of the whole premise in the first place. But really if you want to short-hand this, all I can say is that if you like Takahashi's stuff, this will also be right up your alley.

Kousuke is just your average high school student...but with a secret. On the weekends, he jets off around the world as a super-secret spy! How can he manage to balance his James Bond missions with homework? (Example: He is ordered to head off to the Arctic Ocean to recover Hitler's secret gold, but that would mean missing out on his date with way-above-his-league-girl at Disneyland. Oh, and don't forget to finish that English assignment for class on Monday!) Wacky hijinks ensue!

Well, that's the idea, anyway. It would be best advised not to think ... too hard about the impossibility of the scenario, and how un-spy-like he acts. Adhering to strict reality is not the point of this OVA, but rather the point is to put a wacky high school student in these high-action scenarios (think as "viewer insert character") and watch him live out the fantasy.

Or, once again...that's the idea. Only problem is: they really did a terrible job trying to meet up with that story concept. The artwork and the animation are second-rate *at best*. The main character is utterly hopeless: he's not very bright, he's not very competent, he's brash and a little annoying, not good at following instructions, he's hopelessly naive -- in short, your average, everyday teenage boy. Always getting his neck saved by his minder (who also happens to be his teacher, wink wink), Kousuke is actually a terrible spy, even by the low standards set in these two stories.

Seems to me they were trying to set this up as a recurring series that never got off the ground. And just as well, because this forgettable little non-gem should remain forgotten.

Does it have a ridiculous story? Why, sure does! Don't spend too much of your brain juice trying to logically following along with the plot. Because you'll only get frustrated.

Instead, just check your brain at the door and drink in all the action. Because there's plenty of it crammed into this short movie. And it wouldn't be an eighties OVA if they didn't throw in some ridiculously gory carnage to go along with it.

And unlike many of its contemporary counterparts, the quality of the artwork is actually pretty ... good, and the animation is decent, too. What I like the most, however, are the character designs by the inestimable Nobuteru Yuki. (And also interesting to see Hideaki Anno playing third-fiddle in the rear end of the production credits. I guess the anime greats had to get their start somewhere, right?)

An uneven, and imperfect show, but to my surprise it does have a leg-up on many of the other power-up-and-fight OVAs that were a-dime-a-dozen during this time. And it gets better as it goes along too (I guess they were just starting to get into the groove just as it was winding to a close).

It's just a single episode story, and I just watched it maybe five hours ago.

I read through the story description/synopsis. I recognize some of the names. And that's about it.

In short, this anime was so exceptionally unexceptional, that even though I watched it mere hours ago, it's all a wash. I retained almost nothing from this. Nothing of interest -- at least nothing worth remembering.

At all.

Well, I guess the quality of the artwork and animation were decent enough. But what's the point if the story ... itself is so...bland and generic and uninteresting, that it's completely forgotten almost immediately after?