Gensou Jotan Ellcia

This one belongs to my VHS anime old days . I don't know if I still have the VHS somewhere, but I certainly know that I don't have my VCR, so, upon seeing the OVA upped in the net, I went ahead and downloaded it for a nice rewatch and of course, for the sake of nostalgia.

Ellcia, is a fantasy anime of the beginning of the nineties, so you can more or less know what to expect if you are familiar with sci-fi fantasy anime from that late eghties/early nineties. The tale is set in a very far future where civilization ended how we know ... it and started again from point 0. Some "ancient" technology has been rediscovered but things stayed with that distinct and usually "Japanese" balance between technology and medieval culture (in this case since it portrays a more occidental people.).

Story;
Our hero Eira is the leader of a small boat of unusual pirates on a land conquered with blood by the greatest nation of earth, Megaronia. Somehow Eira and her pirates find themselves involved in trouble with the Megaronia army. Megaronia princess is in search for a mythic great God ship that according to the legend will bring destruction upon Megaronia if it ever falls in the hands of the "chosen one of royal blood" of that particular conquered country. It happens that the king and queen were killed while Megaronia was conquering the country and the prince, the supposed sole heir, was imprisoned ever since. What they didn't know was that the queen was pregnant of a child during that rampage and that she gave birth to a princess.

You can guess what will happen next, as this fantasy tale, though entertaining, it has no particular clever plot nor does it have great twists. But still is a nice viewing. What impressed me more, was the good animation it had, the character design was kind of different too than the usual and very pleasant, the animation was top notch, I wonder if they used computer and in which scenes. I would like to compare the use of computer in some scenes and todays scenes.

All in all a good and entertaining watch. Recommended for a good dose of 90's fantasy.

Rate: 7.3/10

This is one of those ova´s back in the 90´s wich u see an commercial about on another anime VHS, and wether u like it or not, U WANTED IT. And honestly i was a bit suprised when i had my first view about it years ago ,i had no idea it was soo funny ( the trailer only showed the bloody action scenes and scary monsters). And as a kid i got WAY more than i bargained for (saw it in 1996) especially with the violence and dark twists in the overall storyline, that around that time fantasy action genre's like this one popped ... up out of animestudio's like there was no freakin tomorrow! aside that i really had a big laugh seeing the 1st episode, maybe the animationstyle is not the best made, with some bad habits from 1980's animation but u can look past that, Charachters overall have an funny or serious look on them, about the minor and greater heroe's ofc there are a bunch of kids that make u laugh throughout the show the way i sadly miss these days. background, model and shipdesigns i had no problems with cus it was handdrawn that give's a almost oldskool flow to feel i are in the story, but differs for fans that are known with this. I really would like to see an pick-up of the story to make new mangabooks out of it, and later an 30 part serie's or so.

As far as early 1990 anime OVAs go, Ellcia is exceptionally well-rounded and entertaining. This is a simple fantasy story, and there's never anything unexpected thrown your way: you know, plenty of rambles about a chosen one with a hidden past, ties to royalty, a creation myth, four gods the heroes have to seek out to unlock powers, good versus evil, and the fate of the planet hanging in the balance. The big bad evil poopy-head empire unearthed ancient sci-fi gadgets, granting them supremacy over the rest of the country bumpkins—all of that, of course, suggesting a civilizational cycle and collapse, and it provides a ... cool archeo-futuristic atmosphere, mixing high and low tech weapons and settings, along with magic and a non-human race, the Selkies (surprisingly, there's little fetish content to be found, considering Yasuomi "Panty-Chaser" Uemetsu is involved as the character designer).

Even with 40-minute episodes, this is paced pretty quickly. Eira and Elluri barely spend any time together, the characters don't have enough time to be fleshed out and there are so many of them, and the ending's attempt at an emotional climax falls flat. This is one of those shows where the main character is not really Eira, but it's the whole pirate gang, as they engage in a kind of homogenized blob of slapstick and banter, carried along by nice character design and pretty consistent character animation. For what it's worth, I never felt they needed much more depth than was presented as far as a solid action fantasy OVA goes, but it would help to polish the series.

Character writing is fine as far as a cliche adventure work goes, and I've seen much worse. The dialogue never weighs down the pacing, and many of the characters have fairly clear motivations and small snippets of backstory, along with some very basic themes. This is not going to be the main reason anyone would ever want to watch this, but it's not a huge detractor, either.

The character design, backgrounds, and animation are the main attraction. Uemetsu's art tends to stand out amongst anime, and... yeah, the characters look a bit like a gaudy theater troupe or clowns before they put on the makeup and rubber noses, but they have a lot of personality. The character designs look a bit dissimilar from other works Uemetsu is more well-known for, though Sara of course looks very much like the girl from Kite, and Eira and some of the other characters are familiar looking as well. The show has a very distinct look, and I can easily recognize it amongst a sea of generic OVAs. Of note are the designs of Phelkis' ship, and the ancient ship Ellcia. Bizarre designs, and they make for nice set pieces. The city of Megaronia also has many striking design choices.

Admittedly, I sought this out for the animation, and it delivers quite solidly. According to MAL, Shinji Hashimoto, Hideki Hamasu, and Satoru Utsunomiya provided key animation, among many others—including Koichi Arai and Yasuomi Uemetsu. Like most OVAs, this series will minimize the amount of animation required by careful direction and editing, and time-saving techniques, but these are kept to a minimum. The animation is typically consistent, but you'll see it spike during sword fights or other action sequences involving explosion effects, gliders, etc. Anytime the animation isn't doing the heavy punching, the art more than makes up for it.

A few of the sword fights have incredible choreography and fluid animation, and I'd love to know who was responsible. The most obvious animation comes from Utsunomiya's segments with free-flowing spirits, which look like swirling fire. There are a few moments like this throughout, involving the Selkies, Maeyard, and... the bad guy that looks like a giant seal demon...

Once we get to the ending, I definitely know of one scene Uemetsu animated. There's an unnecessary panty shot. Uemetsu would go on to direct hentai scenes to fund Kite and Mezzo Forte, and he acts like he didn't really want to do this, but he obviously loves showing panties and breasts, which are in everything he directs. I can imagine the director being busy one day, and Uemetsu is hovering over him, and he can hear the heavy panting, feel the hot, sticky breath against his neck.

Uemetsu: P-p-please, just o-one p-p-p-panty shot. Just one!

Director: Uemetsu... didn't we already agree to only use the slutty top on the one female character? Isn't that enough?

Uemetsu: *His eyes bug out.* MY PRECIOUS! PRECIOUS! YES, MY PRECIOUS!

Director: Okay, okay, just a quick panty shot at the end. Keep it brief. But you'd better not add the pointless rape scene of the main character (that wasn't anywhere in the script in the first place) that you pitched to me, only to reveal it was a dream all along, so none of it ever mattered!

Anyway, despite the cliche story, it's a lot of fun, well-paced, has solid art, animation, and action, and the fantasy world is relatively interesting, with what little of it we get to see. It's of special interest for fans of the key animators on the staff, as well as early 1990s high fantasy OVAs, of which not very many are good. Utsunomiya went on to do similar work on the Crystania movie and OVA, and the Hakkenden OVA, but from what I've seen he hasn't had many outlets for this specific kind of animation.

Schizo tech is not a stranger to fantasy anime of the 90s, Windaria conjures iconic imagery of crossbowmen fending off assaults from trapezoid Stug-esque assault cannons; and its enthralling. In contrast, Ellcia's unashamedly gratuitous schizo tech sticks out in the most jarring way. This might have something to with the similarly jarring tone, which alternates like prog rock time signatures between slapstick deformation, bog standard high stakes epic fantasy to defeat a great evil and child friendly adventure tale moments.

The problem with this is that immersion immediately goes bust; and the whole thing isn't quite stupid or parodical enough to laugh off like many ... other forgotten 90s fantasy ovas.
Without immersion, Ellcia can't be anything more than utterly mediocre. Only its art direction and some surprisingly well directed and energetic swordfights are its saving grace

Though by art direction, I don't mean art in the sense of things such as Angel's egg, Rintaro's substance riddled visual trips or Nausicca's pastoral beauty. By art, I mean that the battleships in this anime look Gurren Lagann esque and have Lego Bionicles for a face. They then go on to absolutely nuke a diesel punk city with glowy orb things. I'm admittedly part of that tiny niche who would watch stuff like this. You can now join this niche too with just a few hours of time and a tolerance for very very forgotten old ovas.