OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Roots Search

The beginning of the OVA era in the mid-80's was like a totally new frontier for anime production companies, that's why yet another rip-off of the original Alien movie might seem like a brilliant idea. Columbia and Studio Live were the studios that produced this one-shot highlighting substandard animation. While space horror was just starting to crawl out of the ground mostly thanks to Ridley Scott's initial vision, Roots Search was a 1986 release that did have some Lovecraft imagery to it, but you do see some hints of future projects like Dead Space or Event Horizon. Michiru Shimada wrote this and went on to lead a decent career as a scriptwriter, even though this example of her earlier work wasn't all that encouraging. Proof of this is shown in U.S. Manga Corps. 1993 release of it on subtitled VHS and Laser Disc with no dub or DVD release. Their boring cover of a woman surrounded by metal pipes demonstrates how little they cared about it gaining any renown.

The sci-fi setting is in deep space at an intergalactic research center for psychics. The crew consists of a single esper named Moira and three other officers who all get the worst guest possible, an alien monster which looks like a rejected Muppet that starts to prey on them with its mental powers. The only one not affected by it is Captain Buzz, the sole survivor of the monster referred to as "Alien X" from previously crashing his party. The other crew members get killed off from Alien X giving each of them a brain scrambler leaving Buzz and Moira to set try and kill it by blowing the space station's reactor. The two don't make it out before the explosion and end up walking through some long dark cave covered in organs and alien goo with them just resolving that they entered some kind of afterlife and head on to an unknown future.

Roots Search is a full-blown failure at trying to get the attention of anyone into the opening OVA market, not even those mildly curious about the emerging media. Bad animation, forgettable character designs, and a myopic plot that hits a literal dead end. If you want to see a better anime forgery of Alien, then just wait a year later for Lily C.A.T. which was a least a little eerie.