I have decided it would be best to put this as an audio file, so I hope you guys enjoy it!! Sorry for the delay.
Here is the first Sol Bianca OVA review I did (and my official first review).
[audio https://www.aaapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Anime-of-Yesteryear-Presents-Sol-Bianca-OVA-2-Review.mp3]
I know its been a couple of months since I have posted anything on this site, so I apologize about that. To sum up (if anyone cares), I have been busting my butt to finish everything up in order to get my Certificate in Digital Rendering and Game Design from my local Community College this summer. Of course I am not done with school since I am staying for another year to get my Associate Degree in General Tech., which is just another full year of school. Then after that, I might do more school, who knows, except me. The point is I have a break between now and the fall semester which will kick off in a couple of weeks which gets me some time to do something quick for you guys.
This time, I have no anime to talk about, but I’ll kick that off in the next review I do. I am going to post about something that a lot of people either used to read these or heard about in the ages of the 90’s where many of us never had the internet, but for a few bucks, you could get your anime knowledge once a month in the form of print publishing from “so called” experts. I wanna talk a little bit about anime magazines from the late 80’s/ 90’s and so forth.
Like I said, “back in the day” (goes to show how old I am getting), when it came to information on media that Generation X/Y was into, we would work up saving our allowances to get the hottest information on what we wanted to know about in the form of letters on glossy magazines that let us know of upcoming video games, movies, comic books and for the other brand of nerds, Japanese cartoons. Our only source of this information came from people who would have contacts with other people and companies across the pacific to let us know when Japan will release Mononoke in theaters, or the opinion of a badly dumb 90’s fanservicy show, or who would win in a fight with one Capcom character vs. another SNK fellow, the convention coverage that made Otakon look like a gathering of American otaku at a Suncoast, that paying 20 bucks for a Manga Ent. Dub copy of Mad Bull 34 was the best deal you were ever going to get, and how you can score Crystal Triangle on Laserdisc for 100 bucks was totally worth all the money you saved working at your fathers dealership polishing Dodge Durago’s during that summer. Yes, this is the truth that anime fans back in “those days” had to look forward too, and it was kickass.
I have become a bit of an up-and-coming aficionado of these publications of yesteryear, since I have this fascination with learning the past and what were some titles that never made it over to the states. Here is one publication for starters that covered anime series that either never came over to the states, or came over 15 years later:
Animag:
Animag seems to come off as a fanzine of sorts, but it is something I consider to be the prototype of what Animerica came to be. Animag had the credit list of two main people that have done a lot in the anime industry back in the 90’s, Toshifumi Yoshida as translator/assist editor/all around cool guy and his current wife/editor/early VA, Trish Ledoux. These two have credits in early Viz titles from the 90’s, and Toshi has been on manga-to-comic adaptations credited as the translator for titles such as Genocyber and about a dozens others. They are both on the US Renditions VHS cover for Giant Robo as “Consultants” just to throw out an anime title that they have both been apart of. I have had the pleasure meeting the two of them back at Animazment ’09 and I met Trish again at AZ ’10, basically to say “I have more stuff I want you to sign, is that cool,” and we talk about anime and other stuff for a few minutes. Trish is a cool gal, and if she is at any convention in the near future, you should talk to her or go see a panel she would be hosting, or something.
Now that I have quelled my fanboyner, I will talk about the magazine a bit. Remember just a paragraph above I mentioned about how a certain anime publication printed reviews and covers on series that either never saw the light of day in the states or did a decade and a half later, that would be Animag. Animag did episode synopsis for the well known Zeta Gundam series that aired a few years earlier, because people at that time wanted to know more about Gundam before Gundam ever got any popularity about a decade or so later. The only thing that came out about the time of those issues is the Frederik L. Schodt translations of Tomino’s Gundam novels (which were re-released back in April if you guys want a copy). These magazines also had ads for stores that sold Gunpla at the time of whatever the current Gundam series was out in Japan at the time that you could conveniently buy though money order or over the phone. And if you wanted to buy Gundam/anime soundtracks/laserdiscs, there was Laser Perceptions.
Speaking other anime series that never got released in the states (although it came close about 10 years ago which Tim Eldred worked on) was Blue Comet SPT Layzner (now available on /m/ subs). Animag did a whole cover/episode synopsis of the series which had character bios, suit designs/details and episode summeries in detail. There is something I want to point out about these summeries, they may or may not be as accurate as they might be. I bring that up because I had the chance to talk to Trish the first time at AZ and mentioned how her and her staff know about the anime they were doing reviews on. She pretty much told me that they translated “the best they could.” when the people would watch the episodes. So chances are, the episode summeries they wrote about might not be all that “accurate” to begin with. But hey, this was the late 80’s / early 90’s, people were learning this stuff as they went. And who would complain, its not like someone else out there had the same information as they did.
I am going to move on to what became of Animag in the future:
Animerica:
Animerica had a really good run as an anime publication that lasted through the 90’s and part of the new millenium. The first issue was officially released in March of 1993 (which I was in first grade at the time) that carried over some of the staff from Animag, particularly Trish Ledoux. Animerica had more to say and cover as time went on, and even did high profile interviews with people in the industry such as Ryouske Takahashi, Mamoru Oshii, Toshimichi Suzuki, Masamune Shirow and dozens more. They even did manga chapters in the magazines to promote to the consumers (kinda what they did in Newtype USA with its manga) before it hit shelves. And when it came to ads, it was mostly covered by anime company distributors on some contest to win MD Geist stuff or something, but there was ground for the smaller ads as well. Animerica now has been defunct as of 2005 (due to Viz involvement of course), which if you can get a hold of some of these issues for yourself, they are worth looking at, especially if you like to collect older series stuff such as me.
Here is another smaller publication that seems to still exist:
Protoculture Addicts:
I only have issues 7 and 14 of this magazine publication, but this is another one of these magazines that has lasted a good while, lets say 20 years. As a matter of fact, they still exist today, just not in the distributing way. Issue one came out in 1988 and really only put out issues when they were able too. The title came from, well, you Robotech fans know, so this might appeal to you guys. This magazine seemed to have started out as a way for Robotech fans to talk about Robotech stuff, but that seemed to lead on to more and more as time went on, kinda glad really.
It seemed that I got into collecting these magazines when I found an issue of Animerica with Priss from BGC on the cover, which kinda spiraled into my blogspot site that I run and post content on occasionally. With those three anime publications posted plus the links added, I think you get the idea. The only anime publication out there now that seems to do really well is Otaku USA, which its writers are just internet celebs/podcasters that talk about the same thing they talk about on their podcast/blogs. As debatable as the reviewers might be, they do know what they are talking about, to some extent. Just goes to show what podcast/internet fame can get you in life, and for the rest of us, it seems nothing is out of our grasp.
Well, I think that is going to wrap things up for this post, and thanks for reading/checking this out. If you care to share your thoughts, just comment below. And make sure to check out my new podcast over at The CyberNauts Cast, we just did 2 months of Gundam UC coverage, so that should wet your apatite for you Gundam fans out there. See you next time, hopefully not as sober.
SUP PEOPLES!!!!!
It’s been like, a while since me and the AAA Bloggers sat down to talk about stuff. But we have quite a lot to talk about in this segment. Join in with me (Zeonic Freak), StoptheHumens, ZComix and Devil Survivor as we discuss our main topics such as:
-Music in Anime
-Animation Types
-Toonami Coming Back on the tube
-What we were currently playing/watching
-Digital Downloads/Stream discussions
-And what kinda Camps we are on: (With Digimon vs Pokemon and Zoids vs Gundam)
Of course, we discussed about other stuff, such as:
Mysterious Girlfriend X
Evangelon talk
Gundam
Cowboy Bebop
Bubblegum Crisis
Initial D Music
AMV talk
Macross fight clip
Macross talk
One Piece
Legend of the Galatic Heroes
Talk about old Toonami shows
Gundam talk again with Gundam 00 somewhere in there
Gundam games
Ghost Recon game talk
Diablo PC talk
Koreans and Video Games
WoW talk
Pokemon TV Show talk (which consisted of like 50 percent of the podcast)
Regular Show
Tamagochi toys
Pokemon Crystal Vietnamese:
Then mentioned Digimon
Gunpla talk
MORE GUNDAM TALK
We hope you enjoy this episode, and catcha round the next time we got something to say again!!!
So, those fools over at the ANNCast think they can just make up their own top 10 list and leave it at that, when we all know darn well any monkey in front of a computer with DSL internet can do the same. Regan from the Anime 82 Podcast wanted to go ahead and do a “Top 20” list just to one up them ( I would imagine that would be his reason, but I could be wrong), which where does that leave me you say? Well, getting back from hitting up the rec room while burning some calories off (but now finding thats pointless since a box of M&M’s is near me, darn it) and listening to those so called “experts” at the ANNCast ramble on (I wouldn’t say ramble, it was pretty good, but I didn’t finish the episode FYI) about their list of anime, I decided to put together a list of my own, IN A SOBER MOOD FOR ONCE!!
This took about maybe an hour I would say between thinking of what I have, looking at what I have, and cheating by looking up my Anime-Planet account to see what I have again, I was able to compile a list of my “notable” top 10 that I think most people can agree with. So with this, ill state the anime and give a brief piece of dialogue about the show. So, where we go!!
#10:
Macross: Do You Remember Love
I am not much of a Macross fan, I mean I like it an all, but it has never really been a big fascination for me. But, I do enjoy this movie quite alot, even after seeing both versions of it (The Japanese version and the “Celebrity JUST FOR KIDS ENGRISH HACK DUB of it” aka “Macross: Clash of the Bionoids”). I’ve only seen half of the original TV series (the Robotech version) so I knew the characters and the setting, but the movie is a retelling of the TV series, in which I have to say it did a really good job of it. The action, battles, soundtrack and characters are enjoyable to see, and this movie gets all the praise it receives from fans over the years. This was also directed by Noboru Ishiguro, who recently passed away, but will not be forgotten. Speaking of Ishiguro’s works…
#9
Megazone 23 OVA’s
With the passing of Noburo Ishiguro, this is one series (0ther than Macross) that fans have come to know and love over the years, especially fans that saw this in the Regan era. It is without question that of the 3 OVA’s made, part 3 is the black sheep of the series, and the other 2 are REALLY GOOD!! Part One is the classic for me, its enjoyable, entertaining, and overly 80’s in its own right. Part Two I have to say is probably my most favorite, but by a hair. It is more 80’s (no doubt) than the first one, but has that same energy as the first one in terms of story, characters, you name it. This does however tie to the first OVA and completes the story in a pretty good way I should say. So, lets move on to number 8…
#8
Gall Force Series
If you are familiar with 1980’s sci-fi anime as much as I am, this is something I could count as an “essential” to see. The Gall Force series is pretty much 3 movies-OVA’s-ish, followed by more OVA’s in separate series that depict a world where women fight aliens trying to destroy them in some galactic battle, and its totally kick-ass to see!! They each got their own character traits, problems, female bickering, you know, how girls really are, but all included in space with robots and aliens and stuff. I found this out by starting out as a Kenichi Sonoda fanboy (still am today) and I am glad I did. So, let’s move on to number 7…
#7
Project A-ko
Originally to be part of the Cream Lemon hentai series, this stood out as one big entertainment-fest of high action animation into 90 minutes of your time. With little inside jokes to anime series and movies along with giant robots, your typical cat-fight around a city wide Humans vs Aliens battle, it has everything you need to enjoy this piece of 80’s treasure to your hearts content. It is so wacky and crazy I just don’t want to spoil anything about it for you, just check it out yourself.
#6
Crying Freeman
There is no other anime I have seen so far that has made me cry in sadness over an almost naked assassin and his almost naked assassin “to be” wife fighting other assassin clans in this 6 part OVA series (based off the manga). When I finished this OVA, I wanted to cry out of sadness into a pair of boobs because this OVA taught me to cry when killing your foe when you really don’t want too. The animation and story changes per OVA (some of which has great animation and others kinda “ehh”) but my god, I felt so sad watching this, and it felt so great. You may take this as a depressing anime, when in reality its like every other action anime out there with knives and blood, only this time, you can feel ok to let your manly tears roll down your cheeks when seeing Freeman decapitate some guys head off, because he was doing it already. Not to spoil this, but go see it. Ok, so what do we got for our number 5…
#5
Goku: Midnight Eye
You know, in my last review, I have already stated my love of this OVA. To be honest, I only have this on here because I want to represent Kawajiri somewhere on this list. Sure, I could have added something else, but you know what, I didn’t want to. If you read my last review, you know already know about this and how great it is. But for those of you who didn’t, this has CYBERNETIC-MOUTH-LASER-SHOOTING-MOTORCYCLE-HANDLEBAR-PINKHAIRED-EXOTIC-DANCERS!! Oh yea, and tons more stuff, that I kinda forgot, because the girl is all I can think about at this time. OOOOKAY, number 4 is…
#4
Gunbuster
Without a doubt, this has to be Gainax’s best OVA/possibly anime ever made. This was a project that Anno worked on, but guess what, it was not like Evangelion at all!! This is however, more of a somewhat prototype of what Evangelion would be one day, which some characters you see in this do resemble the personalities of Shinji and Asuka. But this ain’t Eva, because its in space, and with giant robots, and people find the courage to get their butt’s in gear and make a difference in their lives to save the freakin galaxy!! And there’s some nice boob bounces in this, just FYI. Yea, go see this, its 6 episodes, you can’t go wrong there. So whats for number 3…
#3
Golgo 13: The Professional
This is the man that should have won that stupid character battle that AAA podcast made up, heck, every list forever as matter of fact. It is said that if Golgo isn’t killing someone, he is having sex with tons of ladies, and if isn’t having sex with tons of ladies, he is killing someone. He is the man that make James Bond look like a pussy to the world (and with Roger Moore, more like an newborn at an infant ward), the man that has been involved in every major event in history from the past 40 years, and then man that can re-populate the earth after he killed everyone on it if he got paid too, of course with dozens of women ready to take his “special weapon” with glee. But none of that happens in this movie, when its about him taking down a bizillionare oil tycoon dude. So, number 2 is…
#2
Fist of the North Star: The Movie
Fist of the North Star can be debated as probably the second best story ever told (or maybe the best, who knows). This is really about a guy who was out to take revenge when his douchebag “karate master best friend” took his girl and left him for dead in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the future year of 199x. The movie turns out to beso much more when our hero Ken”Mad (as hell) Max”Shiro has to fight his fellow brothers in arms of Hokto-Shinken to get his woman back (its totally different in the series). But if you want an introduction to the series, this movie is it. Its an hour and a half or so of your time well spent. So, were down to number 1, and I wonder what that could be…
#1
Bubblegum Crisis
I am not going to lie, this is my favorite anime series as of now and hope to be down the road. Call it favortism (shoot, it totally is) but this has had a soft spot in my heart to rock me to the grave. When the Japanese made this in the 1980’s, they thought the future would have betamax tapes, engrish letters on signs, and robots running amok in this cyberpunk future. Despite this series flaws (yes it has them ill admit), It is my true love, and I cannot hide that fact from anyone. The music, characters, fans, people, toys, other side series (that all depends really) has made this OVA series unique for me in many ways. I will get around to reviewing this on here one day, but that will come at a special time.
There are some honorable mentions, because this was a hard list. So here they are:
Zeta Gundam: It seems to be getting hate now, but it took me a long time to watch/collect/finish this series, and I was pleased how it ended. But truth be told, the 0080 OVA is the best Gundam out there (well until Unicorn finishes).
Armored Trooper Votoms: This is a great series and good OVA side stories to add with it to keep the series very engaging. I wanted to add Armored Hunter Mellowlink to this list, but it does belong with Votoms IMO, even though it has such great potential to be more well known.
Akira:”HOLD ON NOW, WHY DIDN’T YOU ADD THIS ANIME ON YOUR LIST ITS THE BEST ANIME EVER ARE YOU INSANE OR SOMETHING YOURNOTANANIMEFANBLALLKASSDLFHALSKDJFOALSSDFLWEUIRYUOIWQWHR,BNXV,HBHIUAYKJQBWERIUJ!!!!”
– My expected response from today’s anime fan.
If you are one of these people, shut up ok. Akira is something that is on everyones list, forever, till its forgotten about or till the world blows up. I like Akira, shoot I have the movie on BluRay and on VHS (from Pioneer) and have seen it a few times in the past decade or so. But this is my list, and adding Akira just seems so generic these days when it comes to “BESTAHNIMEZEVAR” list. But, the manga is better, so read that instead.
MD Geist: … its not that bad, honestly. If you have heard my comments on the bloggers review podcast I do on this site, then you know where I stand on this. I like MD Geist, I enjoy how bad it is, and I enjoy the entertainment I get from it. And there is nothing wrong with that in my book, because it’s not hurting you or anyone else.
Riding Bean: This is one of my favorite OVA’s out there when it comes showing people anime. I feel I could show this to people who don’t know to much about anime or think they can’t get into it to see that this isn’t any different from any other movie they have seen 1098798079876 times over. Its 45 minutes of an animated “exploitation” movie, that is all that it is. If Bean Bandit was black, it wouldn’t change anything other than the name to “Chocolate Bean Brown: Mutha of a Bandit”.
Dirty Pair: I haven’t finished this series, but this is something that is essential to anime fans from that time. From what I have seen, pretty good, its all about 2 girls that destroy more than what they can save while working for a company that hasn’t fired them yet. Hey, it makes the show even better, so check it out.
So that is my list, and I feel pretty good about it, and I got something in this month so that is always good…kinda. See yea guys next time!!
After having a quiet (yet secluded) Friday night full of countless hours of playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the occasional Panzer Dragoon Saga, it was time for me to take my binge drinking feat to the next level, watching yet another old school OVA from the day. After popping in the one of many random tapes I encounter on my near endless VHS shelf, I parked myself on the couch and the world began to spin around me. When I came too, I found myself face to face with quite a catch when it came to the female species. She had a lovely mane of pink 80’s metal hair, lushes lips and a half naked body to die for. This of course wasn’t all perfect, as she was fitted with motorcycle handlebars on her back as… an accessory? She gave me the most lustful of looks as her mouth began to slowly open up, which I know what your thinking guys, I was going to get some right? Well, I was going to get something, as I noticed a pink light began to grow the more her mouth opened. This freaked me out and I quickly kicked her away, which to my luck was a good thing or I would have been BLASTED BY A MOUTH LASER AT THAT MOMENT!!!! Scared out of my wits in the predicament I found myself in, a figure from behind her appeared and a silver rod stabbed her in the back. As I looked up at the shadowy figure, I saw a small red light lit up where the figures eyes would be, which made the sound of a bird cawing. He told me his name was Goku, an regular dick you could say (ie. Private Investigator) and he needed my assistance. Oh good, its another one of these Jack Daniels fueled adventures again I thought to myself, as I was now in the world of Goku: Midnight Eye.
Let me make this as perfectly clear as I can, I. Love. Yoshiaki. Kawajiri. Anime!!! And when it comes to everything this man makes, I have about all of them in my collection. There are somethings you can expect when watching a Yoshiaki Kawajiri anime, things like creatures (human or animals) having the ability of shooting lasers from there mouths, the main protagonist female companion dying or getting raped, women in the most awesome and ridiculous 80’s outfits, some women naked, a really cool weapon of choice that the main character uses, stuff blowing up like everywhere, an insanely crazy story plot, a “bad-ass” main character, some vampires, and more stuff that doesn’t make a lick of sense but you don’t care to analyze it further. This is all the key components that goes into a Kawajiri flick past 1986. It is because of these components that I will always add one or all of them if I was to make my own animation anything, or these are things I look at in any anime I want to watch period. Goku Midnight Eye is no exception to anything that I listed, because its is literally a tsunami of everything coming at you, which is why I chose to talk about it in this review.
Goku: Midnight Eye is a two part OVA that takes place in the future year of 2014 in Tokyo (and by God, everything that happens in these animes better come into view, especially the fashion sense of having girls with motorcycle handlebars on there backs, YEAH!!!). The first OVA starts out with a man on the run from our protagonist Goku, all because he has a key to the mob bosses mistress which he’s having an affair with (because he is their accountant). The man tries to fight back using a “mechanical robot Mazinger Z style” hand to fight Goku, which back fires on the guy. After Goku drops the key off to the mistress of the mob boss and turns her advances down, we see him give his intro about how bad Tokyo of the future has become corrupt by the the people who run the place and how they are destroying the city, one small earthquake at a time. We then cut to a night club where the main attraction is the only kind of girl I want to know (but no way in hell it would ever work out) who is grinding up the dance floor on all fours as her body moves rhythmically with the generic 80’s dance synth techno music blaring in the background. We see a man monitor another man in the corner of the night club who goes by the name of Genji Hakuryu. The man monitoring Genji is in a trance when he sees many eyes glow behind Genji, and pulls out his pistol and blows his brains out. This is met with Genji giving a toast to the dead man. Goku decides to see his old boss at the police station because of the recent suicides of Goku old partners through the police station and gets himself dragged in to the case, with the help of an old friend, Yoko.
Yoko explains that the business man is an arms dealer and known as the merchant of death, and the police are trying to get a case against him to put him behind bars. After two more officers decide to take there lives thanks to the naked women in peacock feathers (yes, a naked woman in peacock feathers is the cause of these suicides) Goku and Yoko decide to investigate the tower of Genji and figure out what is going on. Once inside, Goku meets the biker girl who is sleeping on the dance floor in the club (from earlier) and shows him she is more than what she appears, by SHOOTING LASERS AT HIM FROM HER MOUTH!! Almost getting roasted by the exotic woman, he gets knock out by a burly security officer and gets to meet Genji on his knees. After Genji explains his plans to Goku of how bad of a guy he is while petting the (PINK HAIR, CYBERNETIC, MOUTH SHOOTING LASER EXOTIC DANCER!! SPOILERS!!!!) exotic dancer like a domesticated pet cat, he lets Goku be stung by wasp who have been genetically altered to sting people with a sleeping toxin (not kidding) and leaves Goku on the side of the road in his awesome Chevy Corvette. Goku is then collected and drives along when the peacock woman decides to use her hypnotic powers while standing on a moving semi-truck tanker. The only way Goku can resist the powers is by stabbing out his left eye with a knife and drives off the bridge into the water.
We then cut to Goku on an operating table where a mysterious man inserts a cybernetic left eye into Goku, which grants Goku the ability to access ANY COMPUTER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!! After waking up on a park bench and playing around with his eye to take out two street punks who are armed with machine guns, we find out Goku has a new weapon, an extended silver staff (like the one Goku uses in DBZ, just not silver). Goku then realizes that Yoko might be in danger and rushes to get to her place. Can Goku defeat Genji and put his reign of exotic laser shooting dancers to an end, and will he be able to save Yoko? You know what I am going to tell you, so go find this and watch the rest. You still got a scene where Genji half Mexican midget assistant rides on the dancer to attack Goku and, by God, just see the darn thing already! I haven’t even explained the second OVA to you guys, where its full of cybernetic flying robot Pterodactyls, a rapist/pedophile M. Bison clone and inter-dimensional rockets that come from a flying space car. I cannot ruin the rest of this for you, even though I went on a pretty long rant regardless.
The OVA’s is actually an adaptation of the manga done by Buichi Terasawa, who is more well known for doing the Space Adventure Cobra series and a few other things too (I have the Goku Midnight Eye manga that was released by Comics One, which I have not read the whole manga series as of yet, yea shame on me) to add to his long list of things Terasawa wants to do. The fact that these two entities of Japanese creative genius didn’t make the world explode when they shook hands is something I am grateful for, and Kawajiri decided to put his own spin of things on the adaptation of the manga when he took on the project. Kawajiri also did the character designs for this (as most of his stuff) which the faces seem very unique and almost non traditional anime/comic book looking way you could say. Terasawa style is to have hot, half naked chicks everywhere, who either fight against or side with the macho main protagonist. You may call it mind numbing 80’s anime trash, but I see it as pure great, macho-ish, anime story telling nostalgia. It’s content like this is my answer to why I just cant get into current anime, because it has none of these things in it. And if it does, its very few and far between. If Kawajiri decides to adapt the rest of the manga (trust me, there is SOOO MUCH more to cover), I will be on board, waiting to see the day of the next OVA. Bottom line, why are you still reading this!
If you enjoyed this review, head on over to my personal blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. See you next time!!
Final Remarks:
Merry (late) Christmas to all you good little boys and girls out there. It has been a while since I wrote well… anything for the site. But now that I got some time off before school starts again (and jobless once more), I have all the time in the world to waste away at drinking and watching cassette based anime, oh what a joyous waste of time and life that is. So, there I was Christmas Eve, munching on cookies served with spiked egg nog that made my heart glee. As I was getting half wasted, my butt firmly glued to the couch, I heard a large “thud” on the roof that awoke me into a drunken grouch. Getting pissed off from the footsteps up on top of the roof, I reached for my .44 Magnum, hoping to put a silver bullet in this dudes tooth… and his head. With the barrel pointed at my chimney, gun fully cocked, saying to my self “Let’s get ready to Rock!”At the bottom of the chimney, I saw a red and white hat fell, when the next words I heard echoing was “Ah, what the hell!”It was the fat man himself, stuck in the stack, who had a hard time moving, because his butt was a bit fat. And in a flash he landed head first at the bottom, getting himself together where he’d had fallen. I said “Hey Santa, you doing ok Bo’?” As he looked at my TV and said “Hey, whats this show?” I told him I was watching an anime called Madox 01, a show about a dude in a robot suit, reeking havoc in Tokyo for fun. Santa sat his huge butt down on my couch, pouring some Egg Nog and nodding “I gotta check this crap out!” So Santa and me chilled out to some Japanese cartoons, which takes us to our tale of what our adventure came too.
Ok, that is enough rhyming for one paragraph, there is no way I can keep that up for the rest of this review, but I at least tried to do something cool. So yea, Madox 01, to sum up, is a guy who wants to meet his girlfriend at the edge of town while being stuck inside a military mechanical suit. Cool premise isn’t it? And to be honest, this OVA isn’t that bad. It’s down right entertaining to see, from the easy to follow plot to the action scenes involving our protagonist trying to avoid the military from getting in between him and his girlfriend since he has their property that he just can’t seem to get out of. Well, that right there is the “easy plot,” dead serious. But if this tickles your fancy, I’ll give you my brief lowdown of what happens. So, let me and Santa cram in our robot suits while going down Tokyo in this review of Madox 01.
Madox 01 starts out with some cool looking animation with wire frames of robot legs, machine guns and rocking synth 80’s OVA music. We then go to an abandoned backwater town, filled with nothing but dirt, sand and isolation. But before you know it, 3 tanks are coming into the town and split up upon entering. Within a couple of minutes, a lone military mech suit takes out each tank one by one with set traps while demonstrating its raw firepower of its arsenal of machine guns and missiles. Once the last tank goes down, we see it was nothing short but a computerized simulation. We then hear the disappointed growl of one Lt. Kilgore, the tank commander who was completely humiliated by the military mech and, none the less, the woman piloting the machine, Ellie Kusumoto. Kilgore later approaches Ellie to not only give her his personal congratulations, but states ,in a since that in real combat, she wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and walks off.
Later that evening, we see the military transport truck driving along the Tokyo highway when a drunk driver in front of the transport losses control and crashes, which causes the cargo on the transport to somehow fly off the highway and land in a transport truck down below, which belongs to a mechanic on his dinner break. We then cut to our main protagonist Kouji, who likes to spend his days working part time at a mechanic shop fixing cars and staring at military planes that fly over, when we get introduced to his boss (or co-worker I guess) by the name of Onose. Ono gets Kouji to check something out in the bed of his truck, which turns out to be the cargo of what the military transport truck was carrying last night. So, they both get the great idea and take it over to Kouji apartment to figure out what it is.
While that is going on, we go back to the military base to get an idea of how everyone in the military is handling this, which is not very well as you could imagine. Ellie is wanting to retrieve her robot mech, but not if Kilgore has anything to say about it, since he is in charge of finding and bringing back the robot in one piece, presumably. While the military is in a fit, Kouji and Ono load the the cargo into the house, where Kou looks at the instructions on the side, and the label listed on the box, that read “Madox.” Ono sees a picture of Kou girlfriend, Shiori, and begins stating that she will be leaving for England for school and that she left a message for Kou to see her at the NSR building 8pm that evening. Ono decides to head back to the shop while Kou begins to fiddle with the box. After unhooking a few giant screws and pressing some buttons he obviously should not be pressing, lo’ and behold, the box transforms into our robot, Madox. I am pretty sure you guys saw this a mile away, I did say paper thin plot now did I? Kou decides to hop into the mech to satisfy his curiosity, which he finds out the mech has locked him inside, kinda like walking into a lions mouth, only it has pretty lights to look at, and its a robot really not a lion.
But chaos ensues, as the go go gadget robot begins to activate and starts to jets through a bath house and some residential blocks of the city, giving a debris ensued path right to the culprit, in case you wanted to know why there is a hole in your crummy apartment all of the sudden. Kou and his robot land in a convenience store, which Kou only save to get him out of trouble is to buy microwavable shrimp. I am not kidding, he buys vacuum sealed shrimp and rice and that’s it. No cops, no angry mob, no consequences for what just happened to him, as he tries to enjoy some shrimp while in his robot suit sitting on a bench in the park while he considers seeing his girlfriend at the NSR building by 8pm. Oh trust me, it gets even better from here folks. Back at the base, we find that Kilgore is going all out to get the Madox, as his intent is to destroy the machine than to capture it. Ellie confronts him, but he let’s the tank cannon of his gun get his point across, as he he points it at her point blank in her face as his way of saying “Piss off, this is my show now!” Ellie decides to take matters into her own hands and suits up to go into a prototype Madox unit to get ahead of Kilgore and capture the unit herself before any damage can be done to the city.
We then get back to Kou who stops at a gas station to fill his robot suit up with diesel fuel, asking the attendant for assistance. Of course, other than a hand full of on lookers, he gets help in fueling up his robot suit and is off to the NSR building. Of course on the way there, a bunch of no good punks want to drag race with Kou and his robot (oh dear god, this is just gold) which ends with Kou using the chainsaw blade feature of the machine to chop the car roof of the punks car. But not before the military stops in to use there way of putting and end to Kou, by shooting at everything around him while trying to shoot him. With the military hot on Kouji’s butt and with Shiori headed to the NSR building, can Kouji get his chance with Shiori before she leaves for good? Can he get past Lt. Kilgore and Ellie as well? Your just gonna have to see that for yourself now.
I will admit, this show has its dumb moments when you put into context of what is really going on, but it is highly entertaining in its own right. This is a Shinji Aramaki anime, so you can either love or hate his directorial pieces, coming from someone who is a master mechanical designer. The character designs are more or less alright really. Its like I want to like Ellie character design and I do at some points, then at others it just seems a bit off depending on the close up or the angle. This was also the first release title (or license actually) from AnimEigo back in the early 1990’s, sometime before they got Bubblegum Crisis. And also to note, there has never been a dub track for this anime, since all the releases have been sub only, including both for VHS and DVD.
But yea, all in all, I do like Madox quite a bit. It’s not to be taken serous by any means, its just a nice little fun show to sit down and relax too for about an hour. But yea, hopefully I should have some more reviews ready since I am out of school till the next semester starts in mid January, so I should have ZERO excuses to write more things by then, which I should… which I better do anyways. Well until next time, Happy New Year!!!!!!!
If you enjoyed this review, check me out at Anime of Yesteryear!!
So, back again at this I see. I should really see some sort of therapist or go to an AA meeting because these lonely drunken Friday nights are starting to take their toll on me I think. So, there I was, on a booze binge of picking something random from my VHS collection and chucking it into the VCR player, when the minute that Play button gets hit, my mind starts to go out on me once again. When I came too, I see myself in the middle of some sort of psychic battle between two space guys shooting lights out of there hands, with one man in a black space suit sporting a pencil drawn moustache shooting blue beams from his fist at the other man in blue spiky hair and a white space suit teleporting around to avoid the ongoing attack, as both parties duke it out on a random chuck of rock in space. The man in white gets the upper hand by getting behind the man in black and putting a psychic sleeper hold on the man or something. As I look in awe at the battle, which looked like something out of a rock concert light show, the man in white comes over to where I am and orders me in his space cruiser to take me over to the Galaxy Patrol HQ. On the trip there, he begins to tell his story of hunting down the worst of the espers in the known galaxy, to protect and serve as a Cosmo Police officer. His name, is Justy Kaizard… and I realize another journey has begun for me… again.
This time I am going to tackle the 1985 OVA of Cosmo Police Justy. To sum up, this is just another “popcorn” anime to spend 45 minutes of your time on, it’s not grand in any scale, but in some ways enjoyable to watch. So, let’s gear up and learn to teleport, as we psychically dive into this OVA world.
Cosmo Police Justy starts off with a space battle between two parties with our main man in blue Justy, blocking the attacks by a guy who has a black space suit on with some hoses hooked up and the deadliest of pencil moustaches at his arsenal. Justy is able to get the upper hand by getting behind the man and grabbing his shoulders, which somehow… knocks him out, or kills him… not sure? But, that’s not important, because we get a basic verbal back story of Justy Kaizard, a “hunter” for the Galaxy Patrol System Cosmo Police, who goes after the worst of “esper” criminals in the galaxy. Espers in this show are beings who are able to fly in space with no helmet on, teleport and shoot light from their hands, as well as deflect lights too. We then get to some city in space, somewhere, where we see a group of people who want to take on Justy to end his string of arrest. Back at the Galaxy Patrol HQ planet (I guess), we get to meet the “adopted” sister of Justy, a completely dumb and ditzy redhead by the name of Astalis. To point out the facial expressions of this character in pretty much most of this show, she has the same two, dumb and “whaa?” We then get a random flashback of Justy fighting a man by the name of Magnum Vega, a wanted esper criminal, that Justy is able to take down with a powerful enough psychic blast to obliterate him in one shot. We then hear the cries of a child who is a younger version of Astalis, who is crying for her father Magnum. As Justy’s partner Bolba is holding her back, the flashback ends there, and Justy and Astalis decide to head back home. Back at home, Justy and his “other sister” Jelna, talk about Astalis condition in dealing with her being adopted by Justy after the events of the battle between him and Magnum. Then, we get another flashback of the mournful Astalis crying over her fathers lower half of his body, as she vows for revenge for her fathers death at Justy by saying “when I get older and bigger”… which, happens. Yea, who would have thought as a kid you can say to yourself “ I wanna be big and kill you” and within seconds actually happens. With the change taking in effect, she grows into the body of a teen girl, as pieces of rock around them start to crumble. We then see her in a rage mode and about to attack Justy when… the flashback ends again with current day Astalis running to Justy because she is in the mood to “go for a walk” like she is a dog of some kind.
While this is going on, we get scene from the bad guy esper in the beginning and his crew hijack a space shuttle. There reason for their actions, which is to get the daughter of Magnum Vega being their only request. While this is going on, we see Astalis having a difficult time trying to walk on a 4 foot wide platform that anyone with two working feet can do with no problem. While we see this display of special ed, Justy gets a call to report to HQ and tells Astalis to go on home. Once at HQ, Jusy is given his next assignment regarding the terrorist demands to hand over Astalis. This triggers yet ANOTHER FLASHBACK to Astalis literally stabbing Justy with a sword made of light in his chest, which then goes back to the current scene with Justy taking the mission, while bringing along Astalis with him. Once they reach the shuttle, Justy decides to send off Astalis to the shuttle with the security of him parking his butt in the cockpit and stating “holler if you need me” in a sense. But while in space, the villian esper is able to telepathically communicate with Astalis by using matter in space to play back Justy killing her father, which then triggers her to go all Hulk mode and shreds her helmet and space suit off her body. So then we get to the point of this show that, there must be freaking air in space, because guess what, she is completely fine. Justy sees this, and… goes out in space without a helmet on also. With the fate of the shuttle and Justy love to protect his adopted sister, how will Justy get out of this mess? That is something you will have to find out for your own.
So yea, that is our halfway point of describing Cosmo Police Justy for you guys. There are some things I do like about this as in the visuals and of course the ultra 80’s ending theme. The esper battles kinda reminds me a bit from Zone of the Enders how you can use Zero Shift to move your Runner around and get behind enemies like how Justy does with the espers he has to take down. Also, there is a reason why Astalis is so… handicap in the head which was caused by her having a mature body but the mind of a child, which they do show and you can tell off the bat why she acts that way. It’s got some dumb stuff, and the beginning is a bit slow, but it does pick up at the end for the final battle. There is very little story other than Justy fighting other espers and having a mentally challenged Astalis. I gotta tell you, her dumbness will get the better of you.
So yea, if you wanna check this out, be my guest, its over at Anime Classic Reviews as a Laserdisc rip. If you enjoyed this review, you can check out my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear. Till next time folks!!!
Final Thoughts:
First and for most, Happy Halloween to you readers out there. Most people trick or treat for candy, gummy worms and some rotten apples they want to give to kids on this giving day, while people like me at my age happen to do the same… at our local liquor stores. So after a full evening of Sake in my system and using my airsoft guns to shoot at punk teens who wanna egg my apartment, that put me into a good Halloween drunken coma as I happen to jump into another adventure in my VHS collection. When I came too, I met a young man with a school uniform and a sword like object in his hands, as he began to go full force into a monster like being. After the fatal swoop of the sword, the monsters neck began to geyser out blood as the young man became drenched in the red liquid of his victim. He began to tall his tale (like they all do… and here we go again) of his past of being a half human / half ogre himself and is destined to be human once he has eradicated all ogres on the face of the earth. Here is the world of Ogre Slayer.
I am going to make this a bit short since I did a review of this anime already on the podcast I am part of (Cool Kids Club Podcast) back this past summer. Ill go ahead and tell the events of the first episode, then give you guys a link if you want spoilers for the rest. All in all… this OVA is a bit of a stinker too. So let’s dive into this pile shall we.
We start off with a monologue of the main protagonist brief back story, Onikirimaru, which translates to the name of the sword he was born with, the Ogre Slayer. As I stated, his goal in life is to wander the same (it seems) two local cities in Japan to rid the world of ogres so he can be human himself. The first episode starts out with a girl being chased by an ogre, and it pretty much (almost) turns into rape, as we see clothes being torn off to see some pre-teen boobies. We then see a young man appear and slay the monster, or “Ogre”, before him and tells the girl that she will not remember anything till 3 years later when she “gets a feeling in her stomach?” Yea, you confused too, so am I, so lets keep trucking. The next scene shows the girl waking up, which goes by the name of Moeko. Moeko spends her walk to school by groping her friend making boob jokes and chats about typical high school drama “girl stuff.” Later that day, she and her friend are walking by the ball field when a pop fly goes up and Moeko looks at the ball, which we then see be charred and shredded like it was skewered on a flaming grill in mid air. No one knows why that happened, but that little “incident” is quickly forgotten about, as Moeko has to get to class. While in class, Moeko thinks about one girl who threw acid on her some time before hand, but the plan backfired and went on the girls hand herself and wonders why that could have happened. We then get to some dream sequence where we see Moeko talk to the Ogre Slayer, when the Ogre Slayer mentions that it has been 3 years since the incident and the pains she has been feeling is a result to what he told her at the time of the incident. The dream ends when Moeko gets called out by the teacher for “day dreaming” in his class. Moeko then goes to lunch with her friend, but is interrupted when the girl who threw acid on her decides to try to take Moeko out again by pushing out a window a few stories up. The window is deflected from Moeko, but her friend seems to get the worse of the window fall, which causes her to get the injuries. The Slayer shows up stating that the ogres inside her are the ones protecting her outright and she is unable to really protect anyone else without causing some harm.
Feeling under shock from what happened, Moeko goes to the Nurses office to rest for a bit, when the bully girl comes in and mentions to her she is a cursed being for the events that has happened so far. The bully girl then brings in some “help” and proceeds to gang up on Moeko in a good ol’ “beat down.” During the beat down, the awaking of the ogres finally happens, as she gives birth to them INFRONT OF EVERYONE!!! To the point that you wonder how loose her vagina is from what is coming out. But not only does she have one ogre come out, but there are two total ogres, which then proceed to completely decimate everyone in the nurses office. The Slayer shows up to let the girl know what is happening and that she cant keep the ogres inside her, as he’s gotta do his job regardless. But Moeko decides that she is unstoppable to anyone who tries to mess with her when she has the ogres, and then goes on a “go ahead and try to mess with me” spree. She then decides to have fun by “playing in traffic” and a local gang gets their bikes and cars messed up from it. The next day, Moeko’s friend shows up to tell her how she has changed and is concerned for her safety. Just then the gang she “took to school” last night shows up to abduct her as revenge, but she doesn’t mind the company, as she gladly jumps into the car of the gang members and drives off.
Just up ahead on the civilian overpass walkway, there is the Slayer, ready to take action and to stop the ogres from wreaking more havoc in the town. As the car drives by the overpass, he proceeds to jump down off the walkway onto the hood of the car yelling at Moeko to stop her actions and to let go of the ogres. Just as the driver of the car is experiencing his “WTF is going on” moment, Moeko then spreads her legs and out comes the ogres arm to reach to the front seat and crush the driver’s head, which crashes the car on the freeway and causes quite the pile up. We then get to see the Slayer doing what he does best, by taking some ogre names down with his sword of slaying. The Slayer finds out that the sword doesn’t seem to be doing its job too well, until Moeko states pretty much, verbatim, “Kill me and the ogres are gone.” Really without much thought or remorse, the Slayer gives Moeko the “slice of death” and both ogres disintegrate. The remorse (sort of) kicks in for the Slayer and states how no human should be killed to kill ogres…or something. And that’s the end.
So, pretty much from just what I wrote, that is how the rest of this OVA will turn out. This was just episode one of four of this OVA, so it gets pretty crazy from there on out in regards to poor writing logic, superbly, awesomely bad VIZ dubbing (this was licensed by VIZ, which ment that everyone’s favorite dubbing group from the 90’s, The Ocean Group, was part of this title) and where there is vagina’s, so there is some guy trying to rape that, sometimes even in groups. This anime isn’t all that fantastic honestly, even with the crazy stuff that is mentioned in my review, it’s really nothing but an average anime to watch to be quite honest. It’s entertaining to see, but nothing beyond that.
If you want more of a spoiler, the podcast I stated earlier did a review of this and ill post up a link to anyone who wants us to spoil the rest of the OVA for you guys. Though I do want to warn you, this is probably our worst episode in terms of quality, because even one of our reviewer’s pets wanted to try and stop us from reviewing this atrocity, but we kept on going regardless: Ogre Slayer Review
Well that is going to be for this segment, see you guys next time. If you enjoyed this make sure to check out my blog over at Anime Of Yesteryear
Final Thoughts:
Hey everyone. So its another Friday night for me filled with my plastic, boxy, large cassettes with images of japanese cartoons from the past with a glass of Jack Daniels by my side as I use to transcend time and space with the man made invention dubbed “blackouts.” When I came to, I found myself by facing two fierce female warriors, with binding spandex and eyes of a tiger, pouncing on the prey of some butch looking women, with missing teeth and bad 80’s hairstyles. Looking around the area, I found myself on the sidelines of the grand gladiator brawl of Japanese woman’s professional wrestling. Welcome to the world of Wanna-Be’s folks, lets get ready to rumble.
Wanna-Be’s is an anime about woman’s “wraslin” with high tech power armor training equipment, butch ladies, evil corporations and moves from pile drivers to “The Vag’ Slammer!” This anime starts out really entertaining and ends with “…why?” It had a good and simple premise even with the evil corporation thrown in to the story, but how they bring in and execute the final boss is just… gah, why? Well, let’s elbow drop this anime into submission then go in for the count.
Wanna-Be’s starts off with a match between the Dream Angels and the Foxy Ladies, battling for the glory of the ring. Unfortunately it’s pretty much a one sided fight as the burly Foxy Ladies dominate the Dream Angels between choke holds, suplexes and being thrown into turnbuckles in there shear dominance in the ring. With the Dream Angels out, its up to the Wanna-Be’s to step in and avenge their sisters in the ring with Miki Morita and Eri Kazuma. The coach is able to set the Wanna-Be’s up with state of the art equipment (some say may rival what Dolph Lundgren used in Rocky 4) to get in top shape to take on the pro wrestling circuit and soon to exact revenge against the Foxy Ladies.
While all this is going on, we find that the corporation, the Kidou group, was funding the manager for the Dream Angels, now Wanna-Be’s, from the hi-tech training equipment to getting other “enhancements.” Turns out the Kidou group is putting in certain types of drugs into the female athletes to improve their stats for research and testing to… make them the ultimate fighter, or something.
Fight after fight, the Wanna-Be’s are able to finally get a match with the Foxy Ladies to settle the score from the slaughter of the Dream Angels. The fight is introduced by the main singer of Seikima II in an Undertaker style introduction with him throwing a coffin on stage and telling the crowd that the Foxy Ladies will make sure this coffin is the fate of the Wanna-Be’s. Talk about class man, and that is something I can totally dig. They have their showdown with the Foxy Ladies in a 3 bout match which is really entertaining to see. Full of kicks, holds, chairs and the Wanna-Be’s hulking out at the end to make the match a tie (due to them not getting the credit for the pin since the Foxy Ladies knocked out the ref like 5 minutes before hand. Yea it got pretty crazy after that).
After the match, Miki and Eri find that they are nothing more than guinea pigs for the Kidou group, just like the Dream Angels before them, and decide to go to the company HQ to put a stop to it once and for all. But, they find there is more to these experiments than what meets the eye, and to see the ultimate horror of the project. What will they find in the depths of the Kidou group? You’ll have to find that out for yourself.
Wanna-Be’s starts out with a promise of a somewhat sturdy wrestling anime, but ends with something that I just cant imagine why the people who worked in this thought it would be a good idea. I’m not going to spoil it for you because I want you to see it for yourself, but I am sure your going to ask yourself when watching this “wait, why was that in there?” I have to admit, this anime is entertaining and ridiculous, especially for animes that I seem to enjoy the most give or take. You must also realize, this is just 45 minutes of mindless entertainment that you have no reason to put any thought or action into making it more serious or deep than what Wanna-Be’s shows you.
What got me into watching this was the character designs are done by none other than Kenichi Sonoda, the man who made the lovely women of japanese cartoons in the 80’s with Gall Force, Bubblegum Crisis, Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean just to name a few (these titles I just named will be reviewed in the future at some point in time). I am a HUUUUUUGE fan of Sonoda’s work, and I hope to meet the man one day, and just show up with a truck load of crap I want him to sign, and possibly take him out to eat or to hit up a bar just to get the know the guy. I hope by then I have a acceptable ride like a ’67 Shelby GT 500 that would suit him to take him to one of these places.
All in all, if you wanna check this anime out, be my guest. And if you like wrestling in some way, its entertaining to see. But man, that ending will get you, I tell you what. I sign off my saying, have yourself an apple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APcAK0c9OJU
Well, this is my weekly review, and you can check me out on my blog at: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/
So I’m back on this again, as I happen to dig deeper in the past, as far back as my binge drinking and obscure anime vhs collection can take me. When I came too, I found myself looking at some punk kid, who reminding me of what all of us seem to be at one part of our lives, that part where we don’t know what and where to go in life. Enter the world of 17 year old Akihiko Nomura, or what we’d like to call him, Bobby.
Bobby’s Girl (or “Bobby’s in deep”) is one of Madhouse early works from the 80’s, and this kind of anime just has the right heart and soul to go with it. From the quality of animation, a very simple story to understand, and very talented people all make this anime stand out for its time, only to fall into obscurity later. But, lets dive into Bobby’s world a bit and find what makes this unique.
The anime starts off with Bobby on his bike, because Bobby is all about his bike. He cleans it, tunes it and lives for it. He takes pictures of his ride one day and sends it to a motorcycle hobby magazine, which in turn gets a letter from a girl. The girl sends detailed and often romantic letters to Bobby, which he responds to answers that can be summed in one sentence, such as “My bike is blue” to answer the girls question about when she wants to see him again on the road. Bobby is just a simple guy, and answers like that are part of the binary response that guys use most of the time when answered a question. He’s not doing it to be rude or he’s shy, but I would have to say that is just his personality.
But things at home and life are different for Bobby. His grades are dropping due to the simple fact of “not-giving-a-crap” about school, and his dad is hounding him to get his act together and get his butt in gear for life, which Bobby just doesn’t seem to understand if it has nothing to do with bikes (I am sure there is some tech college in Japan where he can work on bikes, even in the 80’s). This causes him to drop outta school and get kicked out of the house to live with a friend. He then gets a job from a biker bar owner (and by coincidence the bar is named “Bobby’s”) who shares his passion for bikes too, and his past as a racer.
At one point Bobby’s “girl” stated she will call him on a specific date/time and wanted to make sure he is by the phone to talk to him, which has Bobby excited and waiting for the day. On that same day, Bobby’s boss takes him on a ride along the country side of Japan to a motocross track which it seems to give Bobby some options to his outlook on life, at least that’s how I looked at it. But then Bobby realizes that his phone call is coming soon and hops on his bike in a race against time. Can he make it back in time to talk to his mystery girl? You’ll just have to find out.
I’d have to give this OVA credit, despite its flaws. To sum up this OVA, its just a fun anime to sit back and watch, with no effort to put in any thought into trying to interpret the story or to look for anything further than what is provided. Its a simple cut and dry story about a boy who likes his bike and the events that unfold from there. What makes this OVA so special to me is the fact that it can relate to anyone. Everyone has been at a position like Bobby at one point in time, or multiple times. That is just how life is, even if it is unfair to us, and all we can do is learn and move on.
What steals the show on this is the animation by a long shot. This was Madhouse early works in the 80’s before they hit it big, and this was during the period that near infinite money was thrown into the booming OVA market where it seemed a lot of creative talent came from that we see today, both good and bad. The final scene to this anime can only be compared to breathtaking as the animation goes to stencil style as Bobby is riding on his bike to get to the phone in time with every detail to backgrounds, the bike, gear changing, you name it all. Its something out of a A-ha “Take on me” music video, minus the 80’s mullets sadly. There is also the attention to signs, logos and just American products in this show from cars to cigarettes.
I first heard about this anime from Gerald review of it on Anime World Order over a year ago along with his story on how he tracked this down, and I would recommend checking out that review. His review had me looking into this, which I’m glad I did. The anime is now online and finding a copy from those “sites” and the fansub group ToY-RC are the only accessible ways at this time. Your best bet to getting a physical copy is either by yahoo or amazon japan sites and to see if someone has it available.
All in all, if this is something you wanna look into, by all means please check it out. Its not perfect, but its definitely unique to see. But all in all, I wanna be Bobby’s Girl, because that is the most important thing to me: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xajs92_bobby-s-in-deep-ed_shortfilms
If you liked the review please leave feedback and to check out my blog at: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/. Well until next time.
