OBSCURE O.V.A.S: Raven Tengu Kabuto

Buichi Terasawa is the mastermind by such outrageous manga like Space Adventure Cobra and Goku: Midnight Eye continued this in the short 2-volume series Kabuto, a sci-fi samurai epic where heroes struggle against demonic horrors in feudal Japan, or at least an alternative history version of Japan. The manga was adapted into a TV anime that ran in the early 90s, and a year later was given a one-shot OVA that was released in America by the long extinct Dark Image Entertainment under U.S. Renditions. As one of the few anime titles available at Blockbuster Video during their heydays, this one was probably rented frequently along with Black Magic M66 or Outlanders as part of their library. Buichi Terasawa directed the OVA out here sold as Raven Tengu Kabuto which was considered a retelling or reboot of the original manga shrunk down to a 45-minute feature.

A solo swordsman named Kabuto enters a kingdom taken over Snow White-style by the deceased emperor's wife Tamamushi who has imprisoned the only heir, Princess Ran. Tamamushi feeds off the beauty of young women captured by her mechanical soldiers designed by the pervy genius Jinnai and lead by his robot commander that looks like a rejected He-Man figure. Ran is rescued from her loyal friend Kazuma of the royal guard who are both helped by Kabuto, but only for the two to get recaptured by Jinnai. Kabuto manages to take on Tamamushi's forces with his magic sword and ability to sprout wings as he assists Ran and Kazuma with their rebellion against the false queen who is revealed to be even more false as she is really also one of Jinnai's robots that the crafty creep arranged all so he could make off with Ran. Kabuto apparently had a prior history with the Princess which acts as the sole reasoning behind his bloody campaign.

In spite of the clumsy pacing and a plotline that keeps tripping over its own feet, the Kabuto OVA did set the stage for several genre-bending titles like Ninja Scroll where it is a lone warrior who wanders around from town to town, taking down the resident baddies, and then walking off into the sunset. Some of these cowboy movies were inspired by samurai epics, but Kabuto does stand out as it is a magical flying ninja duking it out with mechanized minions. The entire episode does play out similar to an 80s sidescrolling video game complete with boss levels, and with it being animated by Nakamura Production later took some ideas from this when they did the original Berserk anime. There are plentiful amounts of superfluous nudity and violent gore which were standard for a 90s anime, even though Kabuto did manage to make a small bit of nostalgia in the early days of American anime fandom.