Dog Soldier

When one thinks of Dog Soldier ~Shadows of the Past~, quality isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Well, aside from "Quality" being with a capital 'q' and only in the instance where that indicates a mistake of real quality in a piece for irony. Looking at the scores assigned to this review, it's pretty mediocre with one shining moment; however, looking at my own personal view of it, it's an abysmal 3. One's final opinion is all in what is expected from the viewer, which is probably it's greatest strength.

If you're looking for a serious adventure about a man's fight against a military ... industrial complex, you're going to find an anime that rounds out to that 3 I assigned it. This anime is bad. The art style is decent; it's a bit clunky and it shows its age but it is not so horridly ugly or spectacularly beautiful that it'll leave you clamoring for more. When I viewed this anime, I viewed it on my Japanese LaserDisc release and I've seen the dub at anime conventions over the years. The OAV itself was from the late 1980s and was licensed in North America in the early 1990s - and hasn't been seen since on a retail shelf. The sound is what you'd expect from it; again, a decent rating but I'm not trying to devise the ultimate speaker set-up to watch this.

The story and characters are also fair, but I rated the enjoyment much higher. That's because I find these elements to still be more subjective than visual and sound qualities. Again, if you're looking for a serious adventure about one-man-versus-military-industrial-complex, you'll be missing out. If, you have a penchant for the absurd, though, you should be pleased. The characters are over-the-top and stereotypical of 1980s pop culture. The plot points, which shouldn't be spoiled, are a new level of absurd, you can only expect them from someone like Saruwatari Tetsuya (Riki-oh, Shootfighter Tekken). Just when you tell yourself "They can't be serious", they are. The stoic facial expressions used very liberally aren't like when Jimmy Fallon spoils a joke (in Fallon's defense, it's much easier to do in animation than live comedy). And because they are so serious, it is that much funnier.

If you can find a copy of this, then it's certainly worth checking out. Don't expect a cinematic masterpiece because you won't find it. This is something that has to be viewed through the same lens as you would a really horrible B-Grade science fiction film. The creators, both of the original manga and of the anime did their best to make something good, but it didn't quite come through this time. I say, enjoy it for the absurdity; get your friends together and have a good laugh!

Here's an anime you can ignore. It's weak and boring, it lacks action (yeah there is some, but it's quite lame), the plot is nothing special and the main character is a cheap Rambo knock-off, but not as cool and without the charisma of his genuine counterpart. So yes, basically the only things he shares with Rambo are the physical appearance, the attire and being a former special forces military guy.

Animation is quite choppy, art is ok on par with other obscure OVAs from the 80s/90s, characters are mostly flat and the soundtrack doesn't shine; there's really nothing in this OVA that makes it ... worth watching. I can't recommend it because you probably won't enjoy it, it's not good by any means but it's not awful enough to fall into the "so bad it's good" category. I've seen a lot of terrible anime that provided some genuine laughs because they were so poorly made to become fun, but this is not the case. It's just a barely acceptable OVA with little to nothing to offer.

“Dog Soldier” is an ultra-violent ‘80s OVA... without the ultra-violence. Sure, there’s fighting, and there’s a little blood here and there, but most of the 46-minute runtime is spent on dull conversations or flashbacking to scenes multiple times without rhyme or reason.

The gist of the story is Hiba, the main character who used to be a Green Beret but quit and is now a construction worker in Japan, gets forcefully recruited by the government to stop a shady arms dealer from weaponizing the vaccine to the AIDS virus. He refuses, but once he finds out that his childhood friends are involved, he’s suddenly all in, ... along with his fellow soldier-turned-construction-worker friend, Fudou. Their involvement takes them to Tokyo Dome, and later to a remote tropical island. There’s a lot of shooting and explosions. Truth serum is used. A room full of gold bars is shown hidden behind a painting. The damsel looks more disinterested than distressed. This is that kind of anime.

The main issue with this OVA is that the main characters’ backstories are integral to the plot, but they are barely explored. There are flashbacks to their pasts, but in one case, the same flashback gets used several times without explaining what’s going on in the scene. Other flashbacks are similarly given little context. Naturally, character development also suffers from this lack of storytelling. By the time the OVA is over, we know very little about the characters, and thus it’s difficult to empathize with them.

There is a lot of dialogue, but no one’s really saying anything. The conversations just drag on and feel inorganic, and do only the bare minimum to drive the plot forward.

As for technical aspects, the direction isn’t good. The animation is subpar; sometimes characters would be drawn in a cartoonish style as an attempt at showing comedy, but the scenes weren’t funny at all. The character designs are okay, but they don’t leave an impression. The music (both the background music and the ending theme) is fair, but forgettable. The characters are voiced by a strong cast, but their talents are wasted here. Due to the stilted dialogue, it feels like they’re phoning it in most of the time.

Regarding objectionable content, there is some violence, blood and death, but no gore, and the violence depicted is surprisingly muted.

Overall, this anime is subpar on just about every level. If you want a “Rambo”-esque violent action thriller, there are better anime out there — most notably “Riki-Oh,” which is created by the same person.