OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Appleseed

Although most people might be familiar with the 2004 CGI movie, Masamune Shirow's manga series was turned into this feature-length OVA one-shot from 1988. The original comic was similar to Shirow's later work of Ghost In The Shell dealing with special police forces in a high-tech future and was one of the founding Japanese contributions to the cyberpunk genre. The OVA, along with several other anime adaptations of Shiro's titles, the director took a sci-fi cop story and turned it into a stage for social or political commentary. Kazuyoshi Katayama director had previously worked on 80s hit movies like Space Adventure Cobra and Nausicaa, but the 1988 OVA does lack the financial backing and high quality of his former productions, but this nostalgic gem by the legendary Gainax studio still maintains a place in anime history.

After the third World War, a good portion of the Earth lay in ruins, with the metropolis of Olympus acts as a shining beacon for refugees. Most of the citizens are either cyborgs, or bioroids, artificial humans. There is also a large population of regular humans, alot of which were former wastelanders. Two of these former road warriors are the sexy blonde SWAT team member Charon, and her cybernetic partner Briareos who has most of his outside replaced with mechanical parts, including a noticeable pair of antennae which makes him look like a big metal bunny. The city is being targeted by a terrorist cell set on bringing Olympus' down because they believe the utopian lifestyle is inhuman, and they kidnap the bioroid Hitomi whose DNA can bring down the entire computer network. This allows the terrorists to pull a grand theft mecha with one of Olympus' giant mobile battle towers to wreck the city, all while Charon and Briareos try to figure out the traitor in their midst in their mission to rescue their friend Hitomi.

The Appleseed OVA does steer slightly of the manga plot from a cyberpunk crime story to more one of soapbox for mankind's struggle between elitism and basic survival. The quality is above the norm as far as other OVAs from the time, but you can still see where alot of corners were cut, infamously with examples of Engrish like "Red Alart". There's alot of inconsistencies between the cybernetics lore from the OVA and the original source material including other cyberpunk titles, like having the entire city's defense being carried around in the DNA of a random girl, or the huge cyborg Briareos being able to consume human food which is never used in any of the other Appleseed adaptations. It's a token in the library of standard anime viewings, but still a great look into the 80s era.