Category: OVA Impressions

Okay, so I’ve been a bit lazy for the past days so I’ve got a pretty big movie and OVA backlog right now. First up is a 10-minute OVA that I’m really really late with, Yondemasu, Azazel-san. Do give it a chance though if you’re looking for something funny. The episode is only 10 minutes long, but quite funny.

It’s an OVA that pokes fun at demon summoning. It’s a practice that’s usually very serious business, and you can see that this OVA has the time of its life making this look as ridiculous as possible. And it does so with an actual sense of humor. While turning fierce demons into cute animals is nothing new, this show does it with a number of awesome jokes, especially when the deadpan Moloch appears halfway through. The comedic timing and delivery is just awesome here.

Still, this remains an OVA that was shipped with manga volumes, so don’t expect any background or explanation behind everything. In fact, some of the things said at the beginning of the episode are only explained at the end of it. Nevertheless, if you want something short to laugh at, this does the job.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,25/10

So, Black Rock Shooter has finally aired. It was a bit underwhelming, but still a pretty decent slice of life OVA about a middle schooler and a friend she makes at her first day of school. Not a lot of stuff happens throughout these fifty minutes, but it was pretty good at fleshing out its main character, and showing the progression of their relationship over a bit more than a year’s time. In the end, the drama gets a bit cheesy, but it works. It’s a pretty decent way to spend 50 minutes.

Oh yeah, and it has random girls who fight each other.

Now that’s the part I’m a bit iffy about, because it was supposed to be the selling point of this OVA. Instead, you get to watch some pretty neat animation, but the story itself just feels tacked on at best. Its purpose only gets revealed at the end of the OVA, and even then I feel like the creators should have put more effort into either combining these two, or just splitting them apart entirely. As you can see from the screenshots: it really looks awesome. It deserves much better than being some flimsy background for a story that doesn’t even need it and would actually be better off without it.

I guess that the creators originally intended the slice of life parts as a sort-of background support story for those “black rock shooter”-scenes and all, but they ended up spending so much time and effort on the high school part that it completely dwarfs out these action scenes. What I rather would have seen was just fifty minutes of those girls who fight each other, and see what they’re doing when they’re not fighting, where they came from, and what is up with the interesting locations in which they fight; that kind of stuff. They don’t need a bunch of middle school girls for that.

Pros: Neat fight scenes, good soundtrack. Pretty good slice of life.
Cons: High school part completely dwarfs the action part. Action part doesn’t really fit in.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,5/10
(Yes, I’m still experimenting with what kind of format works best when reviewing OVAs)

I’ve been thinking lately about how to cover OVAs lately, especially after Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu, Tono to Issho, Kaichu and Darker than Black’s OVA. None of my review systems really seem fit for it, because especially with one-shot OVAs (that in a lot of cases don’t turn out to be one-shot at all), I’m basically just reviewing episodes. In a lot of cases I’m not sure whether to put them under “reviews”, “quick first impressions”, or to just write an episode post about the episode in question.

That’s why I decided to add them into a new feature: OVA impressions. Under this category I’ll cover all of the OVA episodes that come out throughout the year (and it also seems like a good place to put reviews of movies like Halo Legends and Genius Party). When enough entries have been written I’ll create some sort of index that lists all of the episodes I reviewed with their rating, and in the meantime I’ll think of something on how to include some of my older OVA posts.

Now that that’s out of the way: Hen Zeni. Oh boy. In this year, after Chuu Bra, Ladies Versus Butler, Seikon no Qwaser, KissXSis and Mitsudomoe, I didn’t possibly expect a series that would push the boundaries of taste any more further. I was wrong; the depths that this series reaches into are unbelievable. This series chronicles the lives of a bunch of university students… and it’s just wrong on so many levels. The length at which some of these characters go with their fanservice jokes is just unbelievable. One guy in particular… do yourself a favour and don’t watch this OVA right before eating. Seriously, you will lose your appetite.

Xebec… these guys baffle me. They’ve showed by now that they can deliver their share of excellent series, and yet they continue to dabble in these tasteless fanservice shows lately. The thing is however that this episode was quite well directed. The way in which the creators play with emotions (no matter how disturbing) throughout this was actually quite well done. The animation was quite excellent in certain scenes. The creators really managed to keep your interest here.

Anyway, as for the rating, I’m experimenting a bit with how to correctly rate these OVAs, since my regular rating system for series doesn’t really work with most of them (especially rating a one-shot OVA for its setting is just pointless). Here is how I’d rate this episode:

Storytelling:	** (Excellent)
Production-Values:	* (Good)
Creativity:	* (Good)

Combined Rating: ****
(Yeah, I’m really using the ratings I use on regular episodes on purpose, right now I’m really trying to figure out what kind of rating system would work best on OVAs). The combined rating is nothing more than the rating of these three categories added on top of each other. In the next weeks I’ll try to think of a better system here…)