OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Lily C.A.T.

Where in the 80s alot of OVAs were inspired by blockbuster American films, like Black Magic M66 is a blend of Predator and Terminator, Lily C.A.T. is a fusion of Alien and The Thing. As one of the first OVA ever made, it was largely created by the makers of several 70s anime shows, including Vampire Hunter D character designer Yoshitaka Amano, Gathchaman producer Hisayuki Toriumi, and Gundam writer Hiroyuki Hoshiyama. The anime itself gained early success in America when Robotech founder Carl Macek released it dubbed on VHS through Streamline Pictures in the 90s, and then several years later on DVD by Discotek Media who specialize in reproducing older anime titles.

In the mid-23rd Century, a mining company sends a crew into space for 20 years to break ground on an alien world. The ship is made up of the crew itself, and several company employees that volunteered to help found the new planet, but at two of the volunteers are reported to be using false identities. Suddenly, one-by-one, the crew ends up getting mysteriously killed off by an alien bacteria that takes the fresh corpses into a combined Cronenberg-nightmare. It's also revealed that one of the crew's pet cat is really an android feline that has taken control of the ship, which is also slowly being taken over by the bacteria forming a techno-organic mess. The last two survivors manage to get off in the captain's old space shuttle which he kept around as a deus ex machina.

Lily C.A.T. makes for an interesting bit of 80s nostalgia, and its homage to American theater makes it a good watch for non-otaku. American fans should also recognize the character designs by Yasuomi Umetsu who worked on cult hits like Kite and Mezzo Forte. This was ultimately created by Studio Pierrot, an animation studio that had started the OVA market a few years earlier with Dallos, but it demonstrates how a good portion of the 80s OVAs were space adventures as their an easy sell to most fan audiences. The quality is above average for late 20th Century anime, and is a short but still dynamic watch.