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If you really loved the Sola anime you might disagre to my review and love this short OVA as well. Hovever if you thought it average or havn't seen the TV series I'd recommend skipping this one.

The OVA consists of of two side stories taking place at diffrent times of the original series. The first almost anytime during the first half of the series and the second is the day before episode one. It doesn't add anything new to the story nor does it dive deeper into any side story or character.
All the characters are from the original series and none is left out but ... there is no character development or any deeper look into any part of the story from the original series

The art and animation is the same as in Sola, very nice, esspecialy the photos. The same goes for sound and music. Nothing new but nothing bad either.

If you wathced Sola and want more of the same this OVA isn't a bad choice but it won't last long or give you anything new. As stated in the begining I think that unless you found Sola to be one of the best animes you've seen in a long time you are better off looking for something else.

Orphen is not something that will leave you thinking you just watched one of the greatest animes of all time. It's a good fantasy story presented in a nice way. The opening statement might sound negative but it's better to be blunt about it, it's not.

The story is enjoyable and the best thing about the anime. Some nice changes to pretty common story elements make Orphen get a story that is good and solid. The mix of humorus sceens and action and battle scenes it done very well and in a way that helps the story along and doesn't feel like it has been put ... there just for the heck of it. There are fightscenes but they are generaly not long. They are far from the battles of animes such as Dragon Ball or Bleach where they stretch on for several episodes with one episode dedicated to the yelling needed to power up. If you are a fan of these battles I whould not recomend Orphen to you for it's fight scenes. The battles mostly over after a few strikes. If you have read the Lord of the Rings trillogy you can expect the battles to be much in the same way when it comes to presentation. More focus on what happens before and after a fight than the actuall battle. They are not overly short but no longer than they need to be since they are not the main focus of the story. That is the hunt for the relics needed to transform Azalie back to her normal form before the Tower of Fang (called Talon`s Peak in the story synopsis) can kill her.

I like the art style of this anime. You can see that it's not a very new anime by just looking at it but with a fantasy story it doesn't hurt to think old. The backgrounds are detailed without having any real details. It might sound odd but it's the best way I can describe it. Everything has a good amount of colours in diffrent shades. Grass and stone are not one colour with another shade for shadows and highlights. They are done in the same style as paintings or the old disney films.
The characters are done in the three shades way mentioned above with the addition of another colour for lighting effects and fit very good onto the background.
The magic spells could have done with some more detail, they are very simply drawn but then it's pretty hard to add shadows to something that glows strong enough to make make all other shadows look weak.

The characters fullfill their roles very well even if they are very sterotypical in most cases. Despite that they are fun and fit into the story and they don't feel to sterotypical untill you start to analyze them. It whould have been fun to see a bit more character development from Majic and a bit more so from Cleo. It whould have been fun looking back at the anime but nothing I found myself thinking about while watching it. The others are done nicely enough.

The soundtrack did what it's supposed to. Be in the back but wasn't very intresting with the exeption of one track which was great. I also liked the opening and closing songs especially the closing ones. More personal taste than anything else in this case I'd guess since they are pretty standard. You'll like or love them while you watch but forget them after a while when they get replaced by the next thing you watch.

I whould highly recomend it to people who want to watch a good fantasy anime that has a good mix of story development, action and humor.
If you want a anime with lot's of actions and battles or a very deep and serious (in terms of theme) anime you should continue your search.
If you are looking for something good to watch in general, you could could easily do worse than watch Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

Also for those who are not to elitist to watch dubbed anime. The english dubs are good.