JESI THE GENIE, *Part 3: Page 2

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Jenn Oseicki.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Outlanders

Outlanders was a one-shot OVA that was released in 1986, based on the manga series by Johji Manabe. He also created other manga titles such as Caravan Kidd and Drakuun, plus the anime/manga Capricorn. The entire manga was previously released in America through Dark Horse Comics. The anime was first put on dubbed VHS in the mid-90s through the now defunct Dark Image Entertainment, and is now available on DVD with a totally different dub by U.S. Manga Corps. The roles of the 4 main characters were actually-decided over an online poll by anime fans.

The story is about a bikini-clad alien princess with green hair(who isn’t Lum!)named Kahm who comes to Earth in a single alien battleship to invade it on her own. But while she’s there, she encounters a hapless young photographer called Tetsuya. She immeaiately falls for him and kidnaps him in the hopes of marrying him and uniting her people and humanity. It turns out Kahm’s father, the Emperor, is planning on taking over Earth, so Kahm tries to stop him by announcing her “engagement” to Tetsuya. Unfortunately, her daddy doesn’t like it, and sentences her wouldbe-hubby to death. But, Kahm’s friends, the sexy catgirl Batia and drunk dogman Geobaldi, help free them both them and escape into space. They mostly save the Earth, although they leave room for a possible sequel.

Outlanders was one of America’s first exposure to “sexy sci-fi” anime, even before there was much hentai available out here. There is some gratuitous violence in it as well, especially with Kahm’s killing spree at the beginning where she starts beheading several soldiers. But the ecchi-ness it what really makes this great grindhouse material.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Dead Leaves

This was a one-shot OVA produced by Production IG(Ghost In The Shell), and created by Gainax who did FLCL and Gurren Lagann. It was an original anime not based on any manga.

Set in the distant future, two amensiac fugitives find themselves in the middle of the desert. After a quick crime spree, they’re caught and sentenced to a prison on what’s left of the moon. Once there, they team up with the other inmates to do the ultimate prison break. This leads to some amazingly cartoonish fight scenes. It’s literally like a cross between Tom & Jerry and Quinton Tarentino. It leads up to a big battle, an immature pregnancy, and lots of explosions and violence.

A censored version of Dead Leaves has been featured on Sci-Fi Channel’s Ani-Monday, and a few other cable TV screenngs. It’s a great sci-fi anime with quirky character designs, over-the-top action, and some serious reality-challenging physics!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 3: Page 1

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Jenn Oseicki.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Bounty Dog

Anime’s answer to Total Recall? At least Schwarzenegger can speak English better than the people on this dub!

In the not-too-distant future, mankind colonized the moon. However, one of the main companies behind the huge domed cities on the moon’s surface appears to be planning on using some alien technology they’ve found to create a new weapon. A group of special infiltrators called Bounty Dogs come from Earth to investigate. One of them keeps having flashbacks about his sister dying, and is somehow linked to a bunch of evil little girl clones of her. What proceeds is a series of kickass car chases similar to Bubblegum Crisis, and action sequences with mechas designed by Ghost In The Shell’s Masamune Shirow.

This isn’t exactly the greatest 2-episode OVA ever made, but it is up there if your a fan of action sci-fi. If you liked the manga Seraphic Feather, then this is right up your alley.

MISC. MANGA, *Ragnarok

This was a great manga, although technically not a “manga” persay since it comes from Korea. Myung-Jin Lee did a fabulous job on the art. This takes place in a sci-fi version of the Norse legends, sort of like Reign The Conqueror is a sci-fi version of Greek mythology.

The goddess Fenris has been reborn in the body of a human sorceress. She is being stalked by an ambitious Valkerie. Fenris runs into the might young warrior Chaos and his friend, the enchantress Iris. They bring her back to Iris’ city of Fayon in the kingdom of Midgard. But Fenris soon learns she has ties to Iris. Plus, the scantily-clad thief Lidia hopes to gain the favor of Chaos, and joins the others on their quest.

This series has alot of cool graphics and great design. Of course, more people are familiar with the Ragnarok Online gaming community(and its crappy anime TV series spinoff)that was based on the manga. But check out the original manga as its far better than any of the other adaptations.

ANI-MOVIES, *Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie

While Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie set the standard as the pinnacle for fighting game-based anime, the crew at Capcom decided to do a completely new anime with no ties to the former. This was originally a 2-episode OVA series, but was later re-released as a single compilation movie. Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie(or The Animation)deals with a different take with Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li as they are introduced into new characters from the Alpha video games.

Ryu visits the grave of his sensei, Gouken, and Ken shows up too. They are then suprised to meet a young boy named Shun claiming to be Ryu’s long lost brother. Despite not taking a blood test, Ryu just up and accepts Shun as family, and starts training him in martial arts, even though he’s already had some experience. Ken then takes them to a Street Fighter tournament where they run into Chun-Li, an interpol agent looking for leads on the criminal orginization Shadowlaw, as well as her father. Ken is too late to enter the tournament, and ends up having to protect Ryu’s new secret stalker, the enthusiastic schoolgirl Sakura. Shun somehow gets accepted in though, and takes on the gigantic wrestler Zangief. Ryu intervenes, only to have a huge cyborg warrior show up. Ryu blows a hole in him, and begins to worry that he’s going down the same dark path as Akuma, the fighter who killed Gouken. Shun is taken by Shadowlaw, leaving Ryu to dispair even more. He plans to go after Shun, but only after he first confronts Akuma, because he believes that he might be his father. After that’s more-or-less disproven, Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li enter another Street Fighter tournament being held at a secret Shadolaw base in the middle of the desert. Instead of it being someone like Bison or Vega running this show, its a random mad scientist-type character Sadler as the main villain who has never appeared in the games. He’s using the time-honored cliche of analyzing the data of various fighters to create the “ultimate warrior”. Sadler hopes to get Ryu riled up enough that he’ll use the Dark Hadou, which is a version of the Hadokaen channeled by rage and anger. After using Shun’s body inside the shell of another cyborg, Ryu finally uses a Dark Hadou on it. This data transfers to an apparatus hooked up right into Sadler’s body which transforms him into a pumped up fighter. He and Ryu face off in one big Kamehameha showdown, which Ryu arises the victor. But Shun doesn’t survive, and reveals that he isn’t really Ryu’s brother. Ken goes back to fighting in garages, Chun-Li goes back to looking for her father, and Ryu gets into a match with Akuma, but only to have the traditional fighting movie ending with both fighters freezing in mid-air just before their about to get at it.

This was a very different animal from the previous Street Fighter anime, and focused more on that whole “why do they fight” theme used in too many fighter stories that have no plot to it. Plus, the whole concept of analyzing fighters’ data has been overused prior to this in anime like Battle Arena Toshinden, and then again in crappy adaptations like the D.O.A. live-action movie. The animation was considerably less realistic than in the original Street Fighter anime, as the characters had more disjointed features, and the fights were taken up to the Dragonball level. This was a fairly decent entry in the Street Fighter media library, certainly better than either of the live-action movies, although not without some serious faults. There was another OVA one-shot that acted as a pseudo-sequal to this titled Street Fighter Alpha: Generations where Ryu and Akuma(aka: Gouki)finally duke it out, although it doesn’t totally match up with this version as far as story is concerned.