Category: OVAs and Movies:

OVA Impressions: Buta

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Young Animator Training Project

This year we too get an installment of the Young Animator Training Project. Again, four studios have been granted a decent budget with the assignment to create a TV-special. Buta is Telecom Animation Film’s entry. They were the ones who last year delivered the best short for the Young Animator Training Project with Ojiisan no Lap. Buta is clearly inferior, and mostly suited for children, however. Kids will be kept busy for these 20 minutes, though.

This episode is a traditional ronin story, only really childish. The characters here are all animals, and aside from the titular pig, every single character is an idiot, the same type as the standard generic Saturday morning cartoon. The story also isn’t anything noteworthy either, and the only drama revolves around “stealing is bad”.

But what about the animation, the thing that this entire project was about? Well, the simple character designs allows for easier animation, and the characters indeed move around a bit. In that way it’s a good way to get rookies to actually animate things. The art looks pretty good and crisp as well, but there are some shortcuts taken compared to the fighting episode of last year’s Young Animator Training Project (Kizuna Ichigeki). I wouldn’t recommend this episode overall: none of its areas are the worst, but it also doesn’t stand out in any way compared to the other YATP-series.
OVA Episode Rating: 7.5/10

OVA Impressions: Black Jack Final – 02

by psgels, posted in Black Jack Final

Well, Rest in Peace, Osamu Dezaki. This very likely was the last episode you ever worked on, and what a great episode it was. This was the last time where his unique sense of storytelling could be exhibited. The subject for this episode is wars. Black Jack has dabbled in this area before, but with a setting that so closely resembles Northern Korea (remember that this originally was written at a time when Kim Jong Il wasn’t even leader yet) does give it a slightly different load than usual.

Once again though, this episode captures what makes the Black Jack OVAs so incredibly good. It makes optimal use of its 45 minutes of airtime to play out and come with twists and turns, plus as usual it also puts in a lot of time into its characterizations. The lead character in this episode didn’t just have one issue, but instead she had a wide range of issues, who at the same time were all related to each other.

Also, I didn’t expect to see this at this point, but Black Jack actually regretted saving someone’s life. In all of the stories of him I’ve seen so far, he has always been very passionate about saving lives as soon as he set his mind to it, but this really pushed that boundary here.

In terms of the visuals, it’s a shame that the budget of this episode left some things to be desired, because things were a bit sloppy in that era. The cinematography still was wonderful, though. This episode still managed to pull off a ton of visual effects that are so typical of Osamu Dezaki, in which he really tries to get the biggest emotional reaction while using minimal methods. Even in this episode, these scenes still are full of energy.

I personally love it when a director, writer or artists manages to put a lot of his own style and ideas into his (or her) work, and there are very few series directors whose style is as immediately recognizable as Osamu Dezaki. I really hope that a lot more young directors pick this up and start to let their own styles flow into their works more freely. That’s what provides variety and diversity.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,75/10

OVA Impressions: Black Jack Final – 01

by psgels, posted in Black Jack Final, OVA Impressions

In case you haven’t noticed: the final Black Jack OVAs have finally been subbed. Yes, two episodes of 50 minutes, which were the final things that Osamu Dezaki worked on before his death. I’ve been waiting more than a month for these to come out, because even though I sometimes watch raws, there is no way in which I’m going to try that with a series that’s so chock full of medical terms as this one.

And holy crap, this first episode was worth the wait! I was a bit weary at first when the episode immediately started by promising that it would center around Pinoko, but seriously: her background is amazing. This episode seriously gave me a totally different perspective of her. This is much, much more than just another nostalgia remake.

The whole concept of having her be a Zyst who for more than 20 years lived inside this actress’ body, which was afterwards taken out and reassembled by Black Jack. Holy crap, now that’s something else. At this point I thought that I couldn’t be surprised by Osamu Tezuka anymore, but this episode did it.

And yes, this episode was 50 minutes long, and told in the same style as the other OVAs. Because of this we got a long and detailed look at the actress in question and who she is, and what the impact of her illness was on her life. This lead to an amazing ending and I loved the bond between her and Pinoko.

And yes! This really still has Osamu Dezaki’s influence all over it. The graphics and especially the multiple drawing son one screen are really typical of his, and I’m really glad that we can see them for one last time. He was by far one of the directors with one of the most unique styles out there. It’s something that I’m missing with a lot of debuting directors nowadays: they seem too afraid to put a bit of their own style in. This really shows that you can very faithfully adapt a story, while putting plenty of your own style in it as well.
OVA Episode Rating: 9/10

OVA Impressions: Tales of Symphonia – 09

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Tales of Symphonia

Apologies for the lateness. I thought that this was one of the earlier OVAs.

In any case, with this we’re continuing with the Tales of Symphonia Story again, and this definitely was an interesting episode here. Again it had things that it did better than the game, things that it did worse, and things that are completely different.

The big difference really is that the creators cut out the entire storyline for the second half of the games. Seriously, from what I remember the games had this epic storyline that involved firing this giant mana cannon and an out of control world tree. All of that was cut out here in favor of the characters. An interesting decision here.

This episode was about the half-elves of the story: Genis, Raine and Yggdrassil. This however is one point where previous design decisions come back to bite this series, because from out of nowhere it suddenly introduces the themes of racism that were prevalent through the entire game. So yeah, the creators had to catch up to a lot of building up here in just forty minutes. And speaking of build-up: with all of the hints at Zelos’ betrayal, I thought that he’d get much more airtime in this episode, but he showed up just at the end of this episode. My guess is that the final episode will focus a lot of time on him.

Zelos’ betrayal was really well done by the way. And with this, the creators also neatly avoided the single biggest face-palm of the game (seriously, there were two paths in the games: one where he betrays the party, and one where he doesn’t; the latter reveals that with one heck of a Deus ex Machina). In the game, the small version of Mithos was also acting really weird. I mean, he’s acting really weird here, but there he did the strangest stuff, and nobody really questioned this. Here, his actions make much more sense. This episode was a tad too angsty for my tastes, but they did flesh out this guy pretty neatly and explained why he ended up as the main villain for this series.
OVA Episode Rating: 8.25/10

OVA Impressions: Yozakura Quartet – Hoshi no Umi – 03

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Yozakura Quartet - Hoshi no Umi

I have no idea who found it a good idea to give Ryousuke Sawa an opportunity as a main director. But what an awesome idea it turned out to be. This guy is absolutely brilliant, and this was one of the most entertaining action episodes that I’ve seen in a long, long while. I mean, hell. This was the climax of the arc that the previous two episodes had been building up for. Arguably it was even better than the previous two episodes because of how it constantly kept going. The previous episode may have been much more epic, with the barrage of planes that were thrown at the enemy monsters, but this episode kept things much more personal. But that caused the characters to stand out even more. Just about every scene was animated with such a force that not even a second was wasted here. It may not be the deepest story or anything, but this still is animation at its finest with a simple, yet very engagingly told storyline. This show doesn’t just have great animation, it also uses this brilliantly. Even if other series may have a bigger budget, few actually manage to bring so much life into their characters. Last time I complained that the dialogue was perhaps a bit uninspired, but this simplicity also has its charms. And simple as the dialogue was, it definitely wasn’t uninspired, and got some good stuff out of the characters. Unfortunately, this looks like it’ll be the end of this little OVA. In a way it is a bloody shame that this OVA can’t be a full fledged TV-series with more time, but this shortness also has its charm: this way you have about 70 minutes of awesomeness. And that’s the thing with these OVAs: they can take more risks than regular TV-series, and I’d wish that more producers would realize this. And in the meantime, I’m just hoping that with this, Ryousuke Sawa will get even more opportunities to direct. OVA Episode Rating: 9/10]]>

OVA Impressions: Yozakura Quartet Hoshi no Umi – 02

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Yozakura Quartet - Hoshi no Umi




Yes. This is EVERYTHING that the original Yozakura Quartet TV-series should have been. Holy crap, talk about amazing action here. This was quite possibly the best action of this year so far. The dynamics and animation are… just totally something else. The fight against the giant golem in particular was just absolutely stunning. It’s not just the awesome animation, but also the creativity that went into it. I mean, how many others have characters summon a legion of stealth fighters from out of nowhere?

The direction really does wonders at bringing the cast alive. They’re all fun to watch, even outside of the action and this episode did not forget to insert some nice drama. Standalone it perhaps wasn’t that spectacular, but the way in which it was delivered worked out really well. The cast of this OVA is surprisingly large, but this show even makes the characters that it doesn’t spend any attention on stand out.

My one point of criticism is that sometimes the dialogue feels a bit uninspired. During the fight the characters just kept talking about special powers and who is stronger than who. I feel like there they could have tried a little harder but then again, the simple dialogue also has its charms.

And thankfully, there will be at least a third OVA in about half a year. Let’s hope that there will be more others to follow after that, because this show deserves a lot of airtime in order to fully tell its story.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,75/10

OVA Impressions: Tansuwarashi

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Young Animator Training Project



Tansuwarashi is Production IG’s entry in the Young Animator Training Project, and it it absolutely adorable. It’s the only one of the for that I can really see work as an actual series: Ojii-san no Lamp was perfect with just 20 minutes, while Kizuna Ichigeki and Bannou Yasai Ninninman would have gotten really annoying if they were any longer.

A slice of life series about an office lady who finds a group of spirits in her closet though, I’d love to watch that. All of the characters just have this natural charm to them, even though there are many characters who are all pretty one sided. This OVA shined at making an entire happy family from them. And besides: when was the last time where we got to see an anime that featured an actual female lead who was neither a teenager nor a student? Those characters are even rarer than male adult main characters.

As for the animation, it wasn’t as impressive as the others, and instead it was very down to earth. The in between animation did get quite good at times, though.

Overall, the Young Animator Training Project was at its best when it combined its childish charms with adult issues. Especially Ojii-san no Lamp and Tansuwarashi were good at this. Meanwhile, the animation was particularly impressive in Kizuna Ichigeki: we can expect some great things from them in the future, as soon as they manage to get themselves some good sponsors and scriptwriters. It’s definitely been an interesting experiment.
OVA Episode Rating: 8/10

OVA Impressions: Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn – 03

by psgels, posted in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, OVA Impressions



The adults in Gundam Unicorn… are actually portrayed really well. Their maturity works quite well. And like I said before: the execution here is incredibly solid and if this wasn’t bound by Gundam cliches, I definitely would have liked it even more than I am now. There are plenty of characters here who take themselves seriously, are intelligent and make for a great war drama.

What annoys me about Gundam Unicorn is something that annoys me about a lot of other Gundams as well. They’re certain ideas and tropes that just continue to run throughout all kinds of Gundam Series that I just can’t get behind, and seeing those repeated over and over… I have to admit that those are killing my enjoyment of this series a bit.

To take this episode:
– The main character is the vehicle for a lot of “war is bad” drama.He inherently believes that killing is evil… and yet he flies around in a giant killing machine.
– There also is that mentality of “oh, us adults are old and fail. Let us sacrifice ourselves so that the youth can shine” that I just can’t get behind, even though the adults are portrayed as far more useful and reliable.
– Then it also suddenly brought up the skilled minor bad guy who does nothing but frantic yelling. Especially Gundam 00 abused this one heavily.
– Oh, and let’s not forget the lead character unlocking his hidden powers once he sees one of his friends killed. Realistic warfare? Hah.

Nevertheless, this all could have been much, much worse. You can see that Char actually is aware of all these tropes around the lead characters, and has constructed a pretty solid plan around them with much more details than you usually see. Meanwhile, while the main character isn’t the best advertisement for “war is bad”, his romantic interest is actually trying to resolve conflicts using diplomacy as the “Relena” of this series. That’s one cliche that I don’t have any qualms about: it’s good to have a voice of reason in Gundam series: someone who doesn’t constantly think about fighting.

Also, I have yet to see my to biggest annoyances of the Gundam franchise: the endless yelling and angsting, and the long strings of monotone battles that they tend to devolve in. If Gundam Unicorn can actually avoid these in its second half, then it can really get quite good. However, this episode already contained a hint to the former (that guy who just kept yelling). As for the second annoyance, though: those usually are the result of this series remaining too long in space, where there really isn’t much to do apparently. The end of this episode showed the characters descending to earth.

A descending scene that was really good, by the way. The song behind it was ridiculously cheesy, but somehow the direction made it all work all the characters finally taking a break between all the fighting in order to actually get through the atmosphere safely. That’s good build-up here, to end the episode with a completely different mood.
OVA Episode Rating: 8/10

OVA Impressions: Bannou Yasai Ninninman

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Young Animator Training Project



Bannou Yasai Ninninman shows off the junior department of PA Works. After watching this third installment of the Young Animator Training Project, I find it interesting to see that all installments have their own target audiences. Ojii-san no Lamp was meant for an older audience, while Kizuna Ichigeki was food for animation fans. Bannou Yasai Ninninman is targeted towards children.

Remember how Bugs Bunny always gnawed on carrots? Or how Popeye used Spinach as steroids? These things were all done in order to get kids to actually eat these things. I can only imagine that that was the inspiration for Bannou Yasi Ninninman, in which a little girl gets haunted by a very annoying carrot, paprika and milk spirit because she faints after eating them.

This OVA does a fine job of portraying the lead character as a little girl with her own problems, but where it really drops points is at how badly it wants to shove its message down the viewer’s throats. I mean, to go back to Bugs Bunny: he never outright told kids that they should eat carrots. Instead, what kids saw was this cool and cute animal with an unforgettable catchphrase that really liked carrots. In comparison, Bannou Yasai Ninninman goes: “yeah, you can save your friends lives if you eat your vegetables. It won’t taste nice, but it’ll solve all your problems!”

It also doesn’t really help that the titular Ninninman tries desperately to be funny. You know, that guy who keeps overacting in the hopes of being liked, only to end up as really, really annoying.

Like Kizuna Ichigeki, Bannou Yasai Ninninman only has one thing that makes it worth watching. For Kizuna Ichigeki this was the animation, for this it’s the characterization of the lead character: that is one thing that the creators nailed, and they did put forward a cute and innocent lead character. Oh, and that squid of her mother too, I guess.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,5/10

OVA Impressions: Tales of Symphonia – 08

by psgels, posted in OVA Impressions, Tales of Symphonia




Okay, so episode 6 was all about Regal and Presea, episode 7 took Sheena under the loop and now episode 8 comes probably with the least interesting couple: Lloyd and Collet. And don’t get me wrong, this episode still was pretty amazing, but the two of them just are the least interesting and received the least interesting upgrade from the game.

What I mean by that: in the games Collet got kidnapped quite a few times, but it’s not as extreme as here in the OVA where she was pretty much out of the picture for more than two episodes (especially considering how they were both 40 minutes). Lloyd meanwhile had to become a less strong main character, in order for the side characters of the anime to shine. In the games, he always was the one who pushed the story forward and carry the rest of the cast along with him. Raine pretty much was the only other character who could also do that. Here though, it’s the other way around: every side character takes you along in order to tell his or her story. In exchange, Lloyd needs to angst once in a while. He’s still matured, but he’s definitely a weaker character than in the games. Even in this episode that was supposed to focus on his development, we had characters like Zelos, Yuan and Kratos stealing the show.

Also, the comedy around Sheena was surprisingly good. And no, I remember none of the jokes she used from the games. Again, this really is an excellent adaptation. This episode only loosely followed the plot of the games; even less than the other episodes. Especially the fight against Rodyle was done nicely. In the games he just transformed himself into a monster because the characters needed someone strong to fight. In the anime, he instead uses this trap that allows him to nicely tease the characters in front of him and it also gave Presea another crowning moment of awesome.

And thankfully, this isn’t the end either. There’s a final batch of OVAs coming to detail the finale of this story. At this point the only characters that haven’t been taken under the loop are Zelos, Genis and Raine, and I’m really glad to see how much this episode kept hinting at how their stories will not be ignored: this episode really established that Zelos is working for Cruxis, and the end of this episode introduced Mithos, who will have a major impact on Genis.

I really wonder how the creators will handle Mithos here, though. I always found him a bit flimsy in the game. The characters never really questioned the really strange things he ended up doing (and thankfully the creators indeed did cut away the scene in which he [SPOILER] from Rodyle’s Human Ranch) and it was so obvious who he was and yet the characters never even questioned it.

the one thing that I really hope for in that final OVA is for the characters to pay a visit to Exire. I know that it has absolutely nothing to do with the story and all, but it really would be a wonderful addition to a certain character. I mean, this character just won’t be complete without it.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,5/10