3x3 Eyes: Seima Densetsu

It would be too redundant to review both OVAs separately, so I'm going to condense a review for both right here. The first OVA was from 1991 and Seima Densetsu from 1995, and the series ran from 1987 to 2002, so this is far from complete and covers relatively early arcs of the manga. As a whole, this is a series with decent chemistry between the two leads, a generous animation budget, and an interesting twisting of Hinduism and occultism for the backstory and atmosphere.

I can't help but wonder if I should blame this series for being the main purveyor of what I've come ... to call Brock syndrome—named as such because Brock from Pokemon is probably the most famous character in Japanese anime to have this character trait. Brock syndrome is when the character walks around everywhere with his or her eyes closed, but seemingly they must be seeing through tiny almost-closed slits because they never bump into anything and ostensibly can see. Some characters NEVER open their eyes, but with others, they will open them during dramatic moments, as with Yakumo, the main character of 3x3 Eyes, and of course it's during the I luvs u UwU moments. It's a real eye-widening experience for the viewer, too, I guarantee you. My eyes widened when I saw Yakumo's eyes, and it's like a parent experiencing the joy of his or her baby speaking for the first time. Real precious moment.

Both are a joy to behold for the art and animation, and, as noted above, these have quite the animation budget compared to a lot of other OVAs at the time. Most of the animation is reserved for fight scenes, but there's also a big helping of character acting. I'd say the 1991 OVA has a somewhat more limited animation style that never feels cheap, but exaggerates the movement and saves frames in an appealing manner, while the 1995 OVA is more fluid and has much richer movement with fewer creative budget saving cuts.

While I think a lot of people prefer the first OVA, I'd rate it a little bit lower at 5/10, for it feels too rushed much of the time. It must consist of multiple quickly condensed arcs taken from the manga with most of the context and backstory stripped away. It's pretty much like one of those Hollywood blockbusters such as Spielberg's Indiana Jones in terms of construction and scope, only a lot messier. Seima Densetsu instead appears to take just one of those arcs and fleshes it out.

There's actually time for an atmosphere to be constructed, and Yakumo has learned and experienced a lot in the interim between the two series, which makes for a lot of great fight scenes. A battle animated near the end is especially notable. The chemistry between the characters is better here, partly as a result of a smaller cast, and they manage to pack a surprising amount of emotion into the ending—almost, the problem is, they just had to pull their punches and sugarcoat it...

Diving right into probably the only two loose ends from the first OVA series, mostly just kind of implies at first what's been going on since the last episode until a little bit into the first episode of Seima Densetsu. It takes very little time though before a minor twist or two is thrown into things, then keeping up the skillful balance between story telling and excitement, you get your first taste of some conflict. I enjoyed the music in this one as well, the characters still have some pretty good depth (as before, actually some great depth considering how little time there ... is to cover everything in only three episodes), and the creativity that went into the kinds of demons standing between the heroes and their goals was great too. The first actual fight actually felt kinda eerie. All said, 3 x 3 Eyes and its sequal OVA here are just awesome.

Quite a while back I did a review of the first 3x3 Eyes OVA from Toei Animation. It was a solid little series albeit with a few problems. So, how does the second OVA from Studio Junio hold up? Is it as good as the first, better or weaker? Let's take a look, My Dears, and find out. This is 3x3 Eyes Seima Densetsu.

Story:

Four years after the first OVA, Yakumo is wandering alone in search of the missing Pai. He finds her, but she doesn't seem to remember him and freaks out when he starts chasing after her, treating hi like he's some ... strange pervert. After speaking with the elderly couple that she's been living with, Yakumo finds out that Pai lost her memories. After fighting a monster that tried to reseal them, he sets out for Tibet to find an old monk who knows how to release the seal on her memories. She goes with him, curious about what secrets her past holds.

Let's start with the big problems with the OVA. The ending is a big one. They had a chance to have a really strong, bittersweet ending, but they screw it up at the very end and opt for something that would be better suited for a cheesy children's movie than a more dramatic series for adults. There's also still an issue with the romance elements being pretty weak and, given the amnesia and handling thereof, this OVA doesn't even ultimately do anything to advance the romance.

There are plenty of good things about the OVA too. The overall story is actually really interesting with a legitimately good twist. The Hindu influence is still strong in the series and it's still used in an intriguing way.

Characters:

Only a few of the major characters from the first OVA return, Yakumo, Pai, and Benares. We get an all new supporting cast for this one. I will give the series credit, most of the supporting characters are fairly interesting and fleshed out. The exceptions being the old couple who took Pai in and her friends from school who are just generic. Yakumo's character develops pretty well. He's become a lot more capable of things besides just being a human shield. He still has his moments where he takes enough damage that he would die if he was a normal human, but he at least manages to give a good account of himself. On the downside, Pai is actively annoying in this one. When I talked about the first OVA I said that the only thing stopping her from being an annoying character was the Sanjiyan personality. In this series the Sanjiyan has about five minutes of screen time before the very end when she takes over to wrap things up.

Art:

Studio Junio puts a real effort into replicating the style that Toei Animation used for the first OVA. And it does hold up pretty well. I will give them the proper credit on that account. It is, however, not as strong as the first series.

Sound:

The voice work is still really good. Hayashibara Megumi, Tsujitani Kouji, and Ootsuka Akio all give strong performances as they did in the first OVA. Ohtsuka Houchu, Canna Nobutoshi & Saikachi Ryuuji all give good performances as well. The one weakness is that the bland side characters have kind of weak performances to go along with them. The music is still pretty spectacular with Wada Kaoru returning to work on it.

Ho-yay:

There really isn't any.

Final Thoughts:

3x3 Eyes Seima Densetsu is not as good as the first OVA. It has some strong moments and it does advance Yakumo's character but it also has some real writing problems, some weak secondary characters and performances. It's worth watching if you enjoyed the first OVA and it's still pretty decent in spite of those flaws. My final rating is a 6/10. Next week I'll look at Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie.