(this is a rewritten review of a previous one)
There may be spoilers ahead--(but does it really matter? It's literally only fifty minutes long)
L;DR: Where do I begin?
In my quest to consume as much Rumiko Takahashi media as possible, I stumbled onto Fire Tripper. The synopsis peaked my interest, and after finding a low resolution, muddled audio version of it on YouTube I thought, heck, why not.
With an interest in vintage OVAs anyway (you know, Cipher the video, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, and so on) I thought that what was pitched to me as an "80s Inuyasha" would be right up my metaphorical alley. And to that extent... it was. As of writing this I've rewatched this OVA a whopping four times. But is it because it's a good OVA? No... not really...
First of all, it's time-travel-historical-japan-isekai. I eat up that kind of stuff the same way I do dinosaur chicken nuggets. It's a genre that's a definite guilty pleasure of mine. Plotwise, we follow a high school girl who's name I've genuinely forgotten get involved in a gas explosion that teleports her into the past. There, she meets a guy, and typical Takahashi antics ensue.
You can definitely see some of the foundations of Inuyasha, but there were more than enough differences for me to separate the two in my mind. The story is rather interesting itself, as it combines a sense of mystery with a tiny bit of action, a large dose of romance, and just a smidge of ~incest.~
Wait, incest?
No, don't worry, we can pull out the "no chromo" card here since there is no technical incest in this OVA! Hooray! Still, that did make for a very awkward couple of minutes in the middle of the runtime. Well, whatever, I'll take what I can get. (If you watch this OVA you will see what I mean).
Setting aside that factor, the romance is weirdly kind of cute in that 80s-Takahashi-way, and I was genuinely intrigued. And since there wasn't too much going on plotwise in the first place, most things get wrapped up by the end of the OVA in a satisfying way, leaving me content at the end of my viewing.
So what's the rundown? Do I recommend Fire Tripper? Eh, sure, why not.
