OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Fire Tripper

Rumik World was a series of OVA one-shots that Studio Pierrot did in the 80s-90s which adapted some of Rumiko Takahashi's earlier manga creations. Fire Tripper could be seen as being the prototype for what would eventually become Takahashi's hit franchise of Inu-Yasha about a modern day schoolgirl travelling back and forth in time to feudal Japan with a romantic background playing througout. The Fire Tripper anime got a theatrical release as a double feature of The Humanoid, another OVA one-shot. The OVA was released in America on dubbed and subtitled VHS plus LD by Central Park Media featuring an intense cockney dub from Manga Entertainment.

Suzuko is a common 80's schoolgirl who was adopted by a kindly couple. On her way home from school she runs into her neighbor's child Shuhei just before a tremendous gas explosion comes out of nowhere. This bang sends the two of them travelling 500 years in the past where Suzuko finds herself alone in the middle of an abandoned battlefield littered with corpses. The bewildered girl gets found by Shukumaru, a resident teenage boy caught in the middle of a conflict with his village and an invading warlord. He decides to take Suzuko as his wife since that's how marriages worked back then, even though he also cares deeply for his younger sister Suzu. During her time with Shukumaru, Suzuko begins to fall for him. The enemy clan attacks their village again setting most of the village on fire leaving Suzu to disappear, this makes Suzuko to believe that she herself is an older version of Suzu who is really Shukumaru's sister. The head barbarian gets into a brawl with Shukumaru that leads to a chunk of burning wood falling on him and Suzuko that catapults them both back to the future. Suzuko gets the injured Shukumaru back to her home where she discovers that he is really Shuhei from next door but older, so she doesn't have to worry about incest screwing up their marriage plans. They were also sent back just before the original gas erruption, so they close out the time loop by having it being the current version of themselves to get sent to the past, even though this seems to contradict some time travel tropes.

As the first of the Rumik World releases, Fire Tripper doesn't have the striking animation that the others would like Maris The Chojo. The single OVA does have a more engaging character study between the two starcrossed leads putting together fresh take on romantic sagas that weren't all that plentiful during the era. This is also a decent samurai fable too, but nothing on the level of Lone Wolf And Cub.