Ai to Ken no Camelot: Mangaka Marina Time Slip Jiken

“Ai to Ken no Camelot: Mangaka Marina Time Slip Jiken” is a shoujo fantasy movie (it seems that it’s not an OVA) based on one of the books in the “Mangaka Marina” series of novels. While its art, animation and music are passable, the story is rushed and full of confusing narrative decisions, and the dialogue is hackneyed. In addition, the characters suffer from a lack of background information that would help the viewer empathize with them and differentiate them from one another, making this a forgettable watch.

“Mangaka Marina” is a series of novels that were published from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. The series ... has never been translated into English as far as I know, and the books are currently out of print. The book the story comes from was published just a few months before the movie’s release, so I presume the goal of this movie was to increase book sales and give fans of the series a chance to see and hear their favorite characters on screen.

The movie starts out assuming that you already know about the characters and their relations with each other. Since this is based on such an obscure novel (and not even the first one in the series, at that), the majority of viewers will be confused. Who are these people? Why are they friends? How do they know each other?

The main characters are the titular Marina, a third-rate mangaka who looks and acts like a 10-year-old but is apparently an adult; Kazuya, a half-Japanese guy whom Marina likes; Charles, a super-intelligent French guy; Kaoru, a crossdressing woman; Bijomaru, your typical traditional Japanese guy; and some guy named Kirk.

The gist of the plot is this: Kaoru invites them all to a birthday party at her mansion, and tells them to bring their “present” of “what the meaning of love is.” The party is interrupted by a dragon that crashes through the window and grabs Marina. The others grab onto the dragon and are whisked away to medieval England, where Marina has been tasked with helping Arthur pull out Excalibur to become the rightful King of England. Why Marina? Who knows. She even has a hard time remembering what the dragon asked her to do as its dying wish. After lots of mishaps, the gang figures out the necessary conditions for obtaining the sword, but some of the most stereotypical and one-dimensional villains ever plan to get in their way.

The movie stuffs too much plot into its 48-minute runtime. It goes from beat to beat quickly, without giving much explanation as to what is going on or why. Also, some of the scenes don’t make much sense. For instance, when Marina chokes on her dinner, she’s immediately offered medicine to swallow. How can she swallow if she’s choking? And later, she uses a cloth as a makeshift balloon to glide through the air, and walks through a desert in England. Some romantic subtext, with overused dialogue, is shoved in between Marina and a number of other characters, particularly Arthur and Kazuya. What these guys see in her is beyond me. The “comedy” in this movie is also cringeworthy. There’s a nonsensical “twist” with the villain near the end that comes out of nowhere, and the ending itself is underwhelming.

Regarding the technical aspects of “Camelot,” characters (with the exception of Marina) are drawn in a typical shoujo style, with big eyes and upside-down triangle-shaped heads. The background art is unremarkable. The animation is decent; movement throughout the whole movie is fairly fluid, although some characters move strangely sometimes (like the dragons). The music is okay. Both the opening and ending are pleasant to listen to, particularly the opening, which is set to real-life pictures of Tokyo with Marina superimposed on them. The soundtrack isn’t memorable, but it’s not bad, either. “Camelot” has a strong voice cast, but the actors’ performances don’t stand out.

There isn’t too much potentially objectionable content in this. There’s a scene where Marina calls some wolves “perverts” for trying to bite off her shorts, and there are some minor scenes with blood, violence and death. There’s also a shower scene with the crossdressing girl near the beginning, but nothing is really shown.

Overall, unless you’re a fan of the novels, which you probably aren’t, I don’t recommend watching “Camelot.” It doesn’t have enough to offer that would make it particularly appealing to anyone else.

It's been awhile since I actually reviewed something so... while looking for an old 90s anime to watch (I've already watched the more well known 90s animes like Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Dragon Ball Z), I stumbled upon a one episode OVA called Ai to Ken no Camelot: Mangaka Marina Time Slip Jiken, but from here on out, we'll refer to it as Camelot because the title is a mouthful.

So, what drew me to watch Camelot? Well, from the title cover that's shown on MAL, it kinda reminded me of the Fushigi Yuugi manga, or in the least mangas like it and ... I thought that the premise sounded a bit interesting, especially since I'm a big fan of the Arthurian Legends. But I kinda dreaded watching this because while the premise is interesting, I don't think the adventures of a girl and her group of 5 guy friends (I think one of the guy friends is actually a girl?) can be told and completed in an hour long episode, at least not without rushing the plot.

Story: 6/10
What's the story about? An aspiring manga artist, Marina is invited to a friend's birthday, along with four of her guy friends. When the whole gang arrives a freak storm happens that transports Marina and her guy friends all to the anime's version of Camelot, and with it, Marina is chosen by the very dragon that transports her and her friends to Camelot to save it. To be honest, while I liked the story well enough, but I was right when I thought that it'd be bad to try and cram a whole fantasy plot like this into just 50 minutes. Everything was rushed and I was kinda confused as to what the heck was going on and how the characters all know each other, and I kinda wanted to see and know more about the anime's version of Camelot. But alas I couldn't because of the time constraint and the plot being rushed. It's too bad because I'm sure if this anime were to be given a lot more episodes (maybe roughly about the same amount of episodes in modern animes--10-26 episodes) it would've been a good one. Because I enjoyed the story enough I'm gonna be lenient on it and give it a 6.

Art: 7/10
While I watched the anime on a site that looks like someone uploaded a VHS rip (that they managed to clean up some), I will say that the art and animation were probably it's best quality. I mean as far as that 80s style transitioning into the 90s style goes, it's pretty good. Everything was smooth and detailed despite the weird vhs quality of the video I watched.

Sound: 5/10
While this anime did have some good voice acting and music, the fact that you can hear the buzzing sound of whatever device was used to record and rip the video from a vhs tape kinda messes with the audio quality, which is why I knocked off some points.

Character: 5/10
The characters were all... okay. The art and animation and designs of all the characters were what you'd expect of your typical shoujo anime. You have the long haired flirty pretty boy, the princely character, the rash kind hearted male character you know is gonna end up with the heroine anyways, the laid back cool guy, etc. Basically all of Marina's guy friends are the typical character tropes you would find in a shoujo anime/manga featuring a girl with a bunch love interests. Marina herself is as she appears, childish and naive and only thinking of food (What is with all the female leads in all of these Shoujo animes and mangas being in love with food?). Her design is cute but my only question is if she's supposed to be the same age as her guy friends, why does she look like a little kid? What is her relationship to her guy friends? How do they know each other?! Also, I can't remember any of the character's names, that's how much I didn't really care for them. I only remembered Marina's name because her name is in the title and she's the main character (even though she's not in the cover art).

Enjoyment: 5/10
So, I didn't enjoy this that much, it's not because of the vhs quality of the video or the annoying buzzing sound of whatever was used to record the video. It was the subtitles. They were distracting because the subs were a literal translation of what the characters were saying so I couldn't pay any attention to what's going on with the characters because I was too busy trying to make sense of the English subs. But I did enjoy this anime to some extent.

Overall: 6/10
SO what are my final thoughts? Well, while it's highly disappointing that this ova wasn't fleshed out more (I can only guess this was an ova that was used to try and pitch a new idea for a new series), the anime isn't that bad, it's more or less average. There are still some things to enjoy about it, but don't expect a cohesive story with a lot of character development because while there are some minor moments of characters bonding with each other (ie when one of Marina's guy friends actually kisses her after he gets injured or all the friends having a laugh after teasing her a little) there's not enough time to actually get to know the characters and to feel their bond. You're just left with a straight to the point story that leaves you with the feeling that there could have and should have been more. And it doesn't help that there's hardly any information about this anime anywhere. I can't even find who made it outside the production or publishing company, some of the story writers, and the director. In the end, this is an obscure mediocre/average OVA that was probably someone's failed pitch for a full fledge shoujo series and it's a shame because I did see some potential to the story. Maybe in the future, the person who originally came up with this OVA or someone who enjoyed it enough will give this anime the full fledged series that it deserves. Until then, all I can say is, if you're planning on watching it, go in with low expectations and don't expect it to be something similar to Fushigi Yuugi despite what the summary/premise of the OVA says.