Reyon Densetsu Flair

Shallow corporate attempts to pander to the otaku market did not start with "-tan" anime girls, Teen Titans, and US-made manga in the 2000s. They began in Japan in the early 80s with the likes of Reyon Densetsu Flair, a hentai produced by a professional JAV company, Uchuu Kikaku (now a subsidiary of JAV company K.M. Produce), to cash in on the then-nascent market for pornographic animation in Japan.

The sci-fi/fantasy blend in here is interesting by today's standards, but exceedingly common in the 80s. It was often a lazy copout so that niche, uncertain, experimental anime like Birth and Cool Cool Bye could be ... marketable to both sci-fi and fantasy otaku. Unlike Birth, Greed, and Cool Cool Bye, Reyon Densetsu Flair squanders its opportunity for an interesting plot for sex.

The first episode is just a giant alien robot landing on a fantasy-era planet, blowing everything up (with a stable of small spaceships on standby, as was common in 80s tokusatsu), and then chasing around girls with a tentacle (that has a mouth) protruding from its crotch. In other words, this is tentacle rape porn, made before Urotsukidoji's manga launched. There is no story, and the mechanical design is mediocre at best.

Sadly, this first episode was popular enough that many years later, a second episode was released. This episode does have a decent ending, but it's ultimately an overly dramatic "the evil has been vanquished" ending, with none of the weirdness or existentialism common in old sci-fi anime endings. The rest of the runtime is just a young girl begging evil aliens to stop tormenting her people. It's nihilistic, oppressive, and boring.

Animation is extremely poor. The average episode from Zeta/ZZ Gundam or Dragonar looks better than any episode of Reyon Densetsu Flair. It reminds me of a low-budget Ashi Pro mecha series, without any of the charm or good writing.

Reyon Densetsu Flair is the nadir of 80s sci-fi OVAs. Even if you think you've seen every good 80s OVA, Reyon Densetsu Flair won't give you any of the coolness you've come to expect.