Black Magic M-66

I was casually strolling through MAL and I stumbled upon this work by Masamune Nightow, who is the author of the acclaimed Ghost in the shell series.
Instead of watching this Ova first I read the manga to get the gist of it and it let me down so much. It was so random and hard to read due to huge text and unclear story. Didnt like that much. But when I started watching this I immediately knew this adaptation was better because its more in line with Ghost in the shell and its just a classic terminator esque robot kills everyone flick, It was good ... for what it was.
Obviously wasn't expecting it to blow me away, but considering when it was released I'd say it was good.
Not a must watch,but by no means a bad watch eother.

"My favorite anime of 2021 is Osama bin Laden Ranking."
- Neimaj, 2022

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I saw the cover art and the title for this OVA. Black Magic M-66 is gonna be the name of my new indie metal band; talk about a sick name.
Very straightforward anime here. Sexy, naked, tanned, anime lady Sybel is hoping to get a new big story or scoop for whatever news channel she's working for. It's never really clarified who she works for, but it doesn't matter. She discovers that the military is hiding some kind of secret weapon and tries to get more ... information out of the situation by spying on the military. She does this with the help of her not so helpful partner in crime. He's not important at all and you don't need to remember his name. Turns out, the military was hiding these robot assassins that go on an insane killing spree once they escape, and it was fascinating to watch. The fight choreography and animation of the robots were pretty damn good. The military stood no chance and it was a solid gold ass whooping.

If I could describe this entire OVA in one phrase it would be, "Discount Terminator." The robots have a specific target they must kill, which is the granddaughter of the man who created them. I can't remember why they're after her, but Sybel encounters her and protects her for the entire episode. It was a fun 48 minutes. If you just want to watch a stone-cold, cybernetic killing machine causing a lot of collateral damage to kill a single girl for 40 minutes with above-average animation, be my guest. It was cool. The robot is absolutely terrifying because of the amount of resources and tricks they had to use to actually put the thing down. Other than that, it doesn't have that much substance and is lacking a real story. It has no real rewatch value and everything I said in this review is the OVA. The OST is mediocre, nothing special. I'm not sure what compelled me to write this review. Definitely one of my shorter ones.

I would give Black Magic M-66 a light recommendation. 6 out of 10.

Well, the isn't much that can be said about Black Magic M-66. It's very short. One of those older little stories of the Golden Era. Do I think it's any good though? Well, not really.

My first point, animation is lovely. It's really difficult though to look at this Golden Era of animation style without unrelenting love. Every movement, every shade, every frame is just chefs kiss lovely. Is it as good as Demon Slayer? No. On a technical level it's not even close. But it's like comparing the raw analogue production of Led Zeppelin to the crisp digital production of Periphery. We know what ... technically sounds better, we don't have an issue with it, but we all know which we prefer deep down

Now then, onto the rest. It's really poor. There is barely any story whatsoever. You are taking into the story abruptly, so read the synopsis first, you'll need it more than ever. Something happens, two deadly androids are on the loose and their target needs to be saved. On paper, sounds great. In a series, probably would work, on a feature film, would also likely work. In this anime episode? Is it an episode? Or is a film? Who knows, in this....thing, it doesn't work at all, despite what it could actually have been. Now I've not read the Manga, but I'm very certain it could have been more.

Our main character Syble, we know nothing about at the beginning which is normal for any form of storytelling. We quickly learn she's a journalist, great, we are making progress. When the 'thing' finishes, we know literally no more than we did in the first 5 mins. This type of character writing applied to every other character, in most circumstances with less attention. As a result I had no connection with any characters and didn't care about any characters.

All in all, this is a poor piece of work and sadly, no amount of great animation and visuals can save it.