OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Crimson Wolf

The 1990's were a smorgasbord of insane OVA pitches of which Crimson Wolf is one of the largest smelly chunks of cheese taking up space at various Blockbuster Videos and comic book stores. This one-shot was an original idea by Shoichi Masuo who also directed bombastic anime like Baoh and Otaku No Video. As it wasn't based on an existing property like an ongoing manga, Crimson Wolf desperately suffers from trying to shove too many characters, insane ideas, and unrelated plot complications into a single hour-long feature as if it was planned to at least be a multi-episode series. This incoherent mess of martial arts, government conspiracies, artificial intelligence, and supernatural forces is borderline being one of those "it's so bad, it's good" titles.

Some archeologists do like all archeologists do in these stories by unintentionally releasing an evil curse upon the world from Genghis Khan's tomb where ancient spirit declares that mankind will engage in a catastrophe within a thousand days. The only thing that can prevent this prophecy are three individuals each marked with a wolf-shaped scar, one of which being a street fighter wannabe who can make people's heads explode, as well as a frequently naked female window cleaner. The two of them are brought together by a mercenary who is inevitably revealed as the third member of their trio. They all put their differences behind them to stop a dark organization operated by a supercomputer posing as a politician. The evil AI is really the living embodiment of former Chinese tyrants like Mao Zedong, and they all morph into a giant four-headed dragon that our chosen ones have to bust out all their latent Super-Saiyan powers to battle this kaiju nightmare, or at least for the next millennium.

Crimson Wolf is stuffed to the gills in cluelessness and a total lack of having any real plan. It is difficult to keep up with the constantly shifting plotlines where people go from being common fighters to full-blown superheroes at the drop of a hat. The animation itself is fair enough, but trying to figure out where the story is going will just give you a headache. This was dubbed under the eye of Robotech's Carl Macek through Streamline Pictures which helped crack the door open for American audiences into exploring anime. The VHS and DVD releases weren't as numerous as 90s blockbusters like Ghost In The Shell, so finding a mint condition copy of it will take an otherworldly effort if you think it's worth the pain of watching such an exhausting brain fart.