OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *The Humanoid

Yet another sci-fi one-shot from the 80's, The Humanoid was a joint effort between studios Kaname Production and Nishiko Pro in 1986 to make a fresh title that stood out on its own and not be tied to any existing media. The story seems like an extension of the Star Trek universe, even though the opening text crawl is strait out of Star Wars The title character appears to be a mix of Maria from the original live-action Metropolis film and one of the Silverhawks. A good portion of this OVA is taken up with showing off its pop music soundtrack which the creators really hoped to be a karaoke hit, and considering the feature is only 45-minutes long makes it even more pathetic. Central Park Media released this in English on VHS, DVD, and a very rare LD, even though it had an exceptional dub from the Ocean Group who most Americans would recognize handling the first few dubs of Dragonball.

Way off in the future, Earth has inhabited the lush planet of Lazeria also inhabited by the alien human Megalosians whose princess is being held there in security until she is old enough to assume her world's throne. The Megalosian in charge of this is the obviously evil Governor Proud who wants to utilize an ancient spaceship called the Iczeon that crashed there centuries ago. On this planet is the Earthling scientist Dr. Watson who has created one of the galaxy's first sentient androids named Antoinette while his daughter is waiting for space trucker Eric to finally arrive hauling his latest cargo. There is an excruciatingly overdone joke with Eric's partner Alan and his obsession with coffee that loses any humor the writers had in mind when they bring it up for the sixth time. Eric's ship crashes with him and Eric making it out on an escape capsule only to get shot down by Megalosian aircraft. They make their way to Watson's home where Antoinette seems to grow attached to Eric. Proud wants the two keys to the Iczeon ship, one of which is in the android's body. Antoinette rescues her friends at the cost of surrendering the key, but she sacrifices herself to stop the Iczeon which had already killed off most of the evil Megalosians.

The Humanoid is difficult to recollect after seeing it. The OVA's only real claim to fame is that the title character was designed by Hajime Sorayama who made a career of pinup of sexy metallic robot women. Aside from the cliche of a robot learning about human emotions that had already been done to death at that point, there isn't anything holding the viewer's attention aside from some decent aerial chases. This is more like a sample of what anime is to newbies in the late 20th Century.