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

Based on the Dog Soldier manga from 1987 by Tetsuya Saruwatari who also did the artwork for the notorious Riki-Oh manga, this single OVA was released in 1989 under the title Dog Soldier: Shadows Of The Past. The manga-ka based his series on 80's American blockbusters, even though this translates oddly to anime with all the pointless backstory of each character as it seems they all knew each other when they were younger. Central Park Media decided to pick this up for U.S. distribution with an Ocean Group dub on VHS and Laser Disc, but a blending of anime and Rambo doesn't necessarily make for a thrilling time.

John Kyosuke Hiba is a retired green beret who works with his army buddy Fudou for a construction company. They get pulled into a situation where a girl is superficially being chased by goons with guns. It turns out the girl an old friend of John's named Cathy that grew up with him in the backstreets of California and was working for a terrorist leader called Phantom who is going to offer a cure for AIDS to all the world's countries for the highest bid. The vaccine is revealed to be totally fake and was just an excuse to have John do a commando run on Phantom's secret island getaway which leads to a big knife fight out of a Schwarzenegger flick.

Dog Soldier has a lack of direction in where the intrigue is leading to, not to mention some awful dialogue in what is supposed to be a straight up homage to action movies. The OVA also suffers from a jarring habit of trying to put misplaced humor in places where it doesn't belong, like having Rob Schneider in a Stallone movie. This scenario might work for anime titles such as Lupin or City Hunter, but the military manga did not translate well as a late-80's OVA.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Sorcerer On The Rocks

Based on a spinoff of the Sorcerer Hunters manga, Chivas 1-2-3 was a series that took place supposedly at the same time as the fanservice filled fantasy. Satoru Akahori had worked on numerous anime and manga like Mouse, Saber Marionette J, and Sakura Wars, but his original universe of Sorcerer Hunters had its own specific vibe of fetishism and dark magic. The 7-volume manga got its own 2-episode OVA series that was retitled Shibas 1-2-3 to dodge copyright infringement from a beverage company, although the brand that ADV Films did for its DVD release was Sorcerer On The Rocks sticking to the alcohol theme.

Happening in the mystical land of the Spooner Continent(which if you're following the Sorcerer Hunters TV series might be in a parallel universe)is a realm where most sorcerers are evil and use their power to reign over their own little territories. A rogue sorcerer named Shibas Scotch wanders the land normally working as a bounty hunter when he's not using his indentured servant girl Gin Fizz who puts up with her master's abuse in an attempt to reform his lecherous ways. Accompanying him on his journeys are the cute werewolf Kiss and the stock gay character Gemini who only wants to make out with Shibas. In their latest caper, Shibas and his crew get talked into slaying a giant monster that keeps stalking a town which is one big red-light district filled with lowlifes, gamblers, and sex mongers. The grubby sorcerer bides his time waiting for the kaiju to attack again while leasing his girl servants out to a local night club as dancing bunnygirls. Gin grows tired of waiting and takes Kiss and Gemini beneath the city, but Shibas shows up at the last minute to save them by turning into a giant himself, even though his physical form is hurt so he has to take time to heal inside Gin's body. Shibas eventually recovered and wraps up a hidden enemy's plot with his overwhelming power.

Sorcerer On The Rocks is a likable insular OVA with admissible animation. It hints at a larger world outside its main plot, but gives little into the original storyline, so it doesn't require anyone watching it to check out the Sorcerer Hunters franchise. It's not one of the more momentous anime titles, however it is an ample footnote in the catalog of late 90's releases.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *The Dark Myth

Ankoku Shinwa was a 1977 horror manga that was later on made into a 2-episode OVA series in 1990 retitled The Dark Myth when it was released by Manga Entertainment. It centers largely around Japanese religion and folklore, most specifically about how much of it was regionalized from outside beliefs like Hindu and Bhuddism. Anime director Takashi Anno handled this terror tale of prehistoric fiction which at times does contain spontaneous splatter scenes, but largely is like one long history lesson of Shinto.

Takeshi is a teenager who is drawn to the legend of a god which his father was investigating that took his life. A powerful family are searching for this legend too because it leads to a treasure which might lead to overwhelming power. Takeshi keeps running into different spirits and gods that bite him leaving a sort of stigmata that make him the chosen one in an ancient prophecy, plus a magic sword and enchanted mirror. The chosen one eventually fulfills his destiny where he encounters the God of Darkness which is really the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation of Orion that allows him to choose between returning to Earth and dooming the world, or taking his newfound enlightenment and transcending to a higher plane, similar to the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Dark Myth gives an overwhelming amount of exposition going over the backstory of Japanese mythology, and not anywhere near enough in the way of horror fantasy like it appears to on the cover. Anyone hoping to find cosmic terror similar to Lovecraft here will be woefully disappointed. There's trite dialogue and boring essays which makes this more of a college thesis than an anime thriller. Manga Entertainment also gave this one of the least interesting dubs of all time when they released this on DVD.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Crystal Triangle

Having one of the longest OVA runtimes to first get produced for the Japanese market was an action adventure that looks like someone wanted to do an Indiana Jones story in modern day. Coming out in 1987, the anime takes place in the year "198X" which didn't leave much room for ambiguity since the decade would end anyway in two years. Studio Live took up the reigns of this original project which does contain impressive animation, especially in the combat scenes that highlight the military otaku attention to technical detail that was prevalent at in the 80's.

Koichiro Kamishiro is a professor of archeology from Japan who has teamed up with a sexy blonde American claiming to be an archeologist but is really a CIA agent who is tasked with securing the Message of God which acts as the MacGuffin of our story. The Message was lost centuries ago and all of the world's political powers are moving to secure it for themselves, including the KGB, a Japanese shadow cabinet that send out their own yakuza swordsman, and a cabal of evil aliens taking on the form of monks. Kamishiro gets help in his quest from two of his students, one of which totally has a crush on him, as well as Miyabi who is the daughter of a professional colleague. Their quest takes them all over the world to ruins in the Middle East to a final encounter at a site in Hokkaido where the Message is really a spaceship that is supposed to be a time capsule to help mankind prepare for a rogue planet called Nemesis that will arrive in 1999 and destroy all life on the planet. The monstrous aliens hiding as monks are in league with Nemesis that want use Miyabi as a sacrificial priestess intended to be the only one worthy enough to interpret God's Message, but she decides to relay the Message to Kamishiro who refuses to give it to any of the world's armies who all somehow entered into Japanese territory complete with tanks, army choppers, and fighter jets. Supposedly, Kamishiro is planning on revealing the divine information for the upcoming apocalypse that Nemesis has in mind within the next decade, otherwise the professor's tight-lipped nature would doom humanity just because he couldn't trust the government to prepare for an extinction level event.

Crystal Triangle is free of having any consistent pace with flashes of intrigue, battle sequences, psychic powers, and an international treasure hunt which doesn't completely fail to deliver a satisfying overall plot. It's not exactly up there with action/adventure films like National Treasures, even though it is entertaining. The only fault lies in finding a copy of this OVA as it was only released on subtitled VHS and LD, meaning that the license for making it available on streaming is long since gone.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Project A-ko Vs.

Also labeled as Project A-ko: Uncivil Wars, this 2-episode OVA series was a spinoff of the previous Project A-ko releases but significant it's the first time a remake of an anime is officially taking place in an alternate reality. Project A-ko Vs. takes the main characters and reintroduces them in a parallel universe where it's like an extended Dirty Pair space adventure. Original movie director Katsuhiko Nishijima returns to work on the OVA which is one of the earliest franchises that explores the concept of a multiverse. This came out less than a year after the Final chapter of the previous series.

Set in a parallel universe, A-ko and B-ko are a pair of scavengers on a desert planet where the kidnapped C-ko literally drops into their lives. C-ko is the daughter of an intergalactic conglomerate that was snatched by space pirates who plan to use her as the vessel for an ancient sorceress named Xena. Led by the powerful psychic Gail, the bad guys need Xena to conjure up a giant dragon which is a dead ringer for King Ghidora. The combined power of the resurrected Xena and the dragon are supposed to bring about the end of the universe as well as every other universe so that Gail and his followers can create their own reality from scratch. A-ko and B-ko spend the majority of the anime either fighting with Gail's flunkies or bickering with each other like an old married couple where all of their shenanigans lead to entire planets getting destroyed. Even with help from the minute space patrol officer Maruten, the chaotic female wrecking duo manage to save the day, but with nothing to gain from the experience.

Project A-ko Vs. shows how the era of the 80's had truly come to an end with its madcap nonsensical humor was seriously running dry. You wouldn't see comedy this brainless until the turn of the millennium where anime got all meta with its commentary bringing up tropes and cliches that thrill the occasional fan. The storyline keeps shifting tones where this character is fighting another one, while some complex exposition is going on in the background. This didn't have to be a 2-part OVA series as it could have been wrapped up into a single feature with a tighter script. It brings about a feeling of sentimentality for 80s anime for those who were suffering from withdrawal of the previous decade. There is also an American comic book adaption available for it titled Project A-ko Vs. The Universe that you might want to brush up on.

R.I.P., Kenpachiro Satsuma

ANI-MOVIES, *X

Wrapping up an era of anime and manga that tried the troika of psychics, cyberpunk, and armageddon, X was based on CLAMP's hit X/1999 manga series which took place in the year of 1999. The manga itself started out in 1992 and went through several delays, largely due to CLAMP's huge backlog of other titles they were working on including Magic Knight Rayearth, plus some real-life disasters, namely some earthquakes that hit Japan in the late 90's. The manga carried on well past the year it happens in and ran until 2003, despite the fact that to this day there has been no solid finale to the original source material. X was highly anticipated by fans at the time in a way not seen since the Akira movie came out. Rintaro acted as director who had already worked on the similar anime movie Harmagedon, plus the addition of pop group X-Japan handling the film's soundtrack made fans crave its release even more. The 1996 movie had to draw its own conclusion as the manga was still running, which also turned out to be a problem for the X anime TV series that came out in 2001. It also took a while for the English release of the film which finally saw daylight in 2000, one year after the canonical events of the story. Manga Entertainment had the feature dubbed in England with some of the same actors who were cast in Project A-Ko. This was released as one of Manga's first American releases instead of through their first distributor of U.S. Manga Corps. X/1999 is connected to other CLAMP titles, including Tokyo Babylon which acted as a prelude to X and received its own OVA series as well as a live-action movie. The X film adaptation is gothic moody battle of super-powered characters that probably went on to influence anime titles such as Fate and Record Of Ragnarok. Visually the movie has some of the best animation that was done for its period, although the film sadly falls flat with too much exposition and a hasty need to leap to its own conclusion.

Young teenager Kamui returns to Tokyo after years spent training with his recently deceased mother honing his psychic powers. Kamui visits the house of his childhood friends, Kotori and her older brother Fuma. What none of them know is that they are smack in the middle of a war between two supernatural forces battling for the fate of the world, The Dragons of Earth are seven espers planning to wipe the planet free of humans by destroying seven magical places throughout Tokyo, while the seven Dragons of Heaven are fighting back hoping to peacefully save humanity. The Dragons of Earth kidnap Kotori to persuade Kamui to join their ranks, even though what neither side knows is that Fuma will take on the role of Kamui's opposite in the fights. Each of the psychics have epic Dragonball Z bouts with the other psychics in their mission to bring about or prevent the apocalypse.

X is a high-powered watch with powerful imagery. The downside to all this is that it gets brought down with an unending treadmill of flashbacks, flash-forwards, predictions, and prophecies, making a good portion of the movie just a series of dream sequences with X-Men level action. The Dragons of Heaven and Earth all get sent through the meat grinder, most of which are killed by the possessed Fuma, with Kamui and his Anti-Kamui having a final battle at Tokyo Tower, which was oddly the center of various other 90's anime that involved the fate of the world. There is little regard given to the extended characters as they serve only as cannon fodder like they were in a slasher movie, and the relationship with the main characters gets tortuous with large implications of incest. X suffers largely from having to fabricate their own ending that here is like a scene out of Highlander of which the actual anime movie of did a better job of. CLAMP's work is a hallmark of the mid-90's anime, but the movie should have been pushed back to capture the majority of the manga's saga, again forgiving the fact that the manga was never completed.