So, I’ve been told to check this one out because of how notoriously bad it is. After watching it, I can understand why this show is so notorious. It’s not the worst anime I’ve seen, I mean it’s not at Himitsu Kessha Countdown or Gundoh Musashi levels, but still: seriously, don’t watch this. If you want an OVA that’s so bad that it’s good, go for the Garzey’s Wing dub. Mars of Desturction is the kind of bad that isn’t enjoyable at all.
The biggest reason for this show’s notoriety is its ridiculously poor direction. The way that the scenes move follow each other is downright amateuristic. Scenes have this tendency to always go on for a second longer than what feels comfortable, and none of them really mesh well together. Added to that is also one hell of a small animation budget: there is hardly any movement and most of the faces are off-model.
The story itself is simple, but doesn’t make one iota of sense. Especially the big plot twist at the end was just painful: here we have an OVA that tries to be a simple action OVA (very poorly directed action), and right from out of nowhere try to make things not as they seem. You need build-up for that dammit.
To the OVA’s credit, it has brilliant music. But then again, that’s what you get when you blatantly copy and paste some of the most famous pieces of classical music. To the characters’ credits: they could have been much more annoying. If I for example were to have to choose between this and Goulart Knights, I’d label Goulart Knights as the worst. These characters here are simply one-dimensional and not particularly abysmally written. Nevertheless though, there are so many alternatives to this series, it has simply no value at all. Onyl watch this if you really don’t know how to spend 20 minutes.
OVA Episode Rating: 4/10
Reviews of this show are always classic. Haven’t seen it but I’ve read so many glowing reviews that I feel like I have. 😛
Look forward to more reviews (of better shows please!)
What exactly do you mean by “it has brilliant movie”?
I’m guessing you meant music there but I just wanted to make sure. :p
You should check out the OVAs from the 80’s and early and middle 90’s, yeah none of them are any masterpieces but many of them are incredibly fun to watch. Here are just a few I remember watching: Goku Midnight Eye, Cyber City Oedo 808, AD Police Files.
Definitely one of the more decent reviews for this anime. And by that I mean you’ve been really decent in not cussing the entire studio for this horrible, horrible excuse for 20 minutes of entertainment.
But I’m curious with “brilliant movie”. As ninroc said, are you referring to the music? I could hardly pay attention to the soundtrack thanks to the tone-deaf voice acting by the seiyu. Really, no excuse.
Ack, yes this review was written in a bit of a hurry, so I missed that typo. Sometimes I can get my words jumbled up, I indeed meant music. ^^;
The music was good, but the rest was just a piece of…well, you know. As soon as I saw that girl get her head blown off, I know this anime was gonna suck (even with my low expectations).
The irony behind the the soundtrack of this OVA is the fact that by taking the music of classical composers, it makes this horrible OVA have one of the best soundtracks an anime has ever had.