OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Mermaid's Scar

Mermaid's Forest was the last of the Rumik World OVAs based on various Rumiko Takahashi manga. Mermaid's Scar returns to the same storyline in a new OVA this time animated by Madhouse. Similar to Central Park Media's releases of Rumik World, this anime was released through Viz only on dubbed and subtitled VHS tapes. The dub features a completely different cast than Mermaid's Forest with the Ocean Group taking the reins in their first anime dubs. Where Mermaid's Forest carried a type of mysterious tune to it, Mermaid's Scar escalates the carnage by several steps with a greater emphasis on bloodshed.

Taking place sometime after Mermaid's Forest, the immortal twosome of Yuta and Mana are still roaming around Japan coming to a stop at a town near the beach where they run across a little boy named Masato who is moving in with his mother. Yuta and Mana gained immortality from eating the flesh of a mermaid, although a new element is added to the lore as some can eat the flesh while turning into a monster called a Lost Soul. Masato is revealed to also be in the mermaid-eating club after feeding a piece of flesh to his nanny that transforming her into a grotesque ghoul. Masato's mother is revealed not to be his real mother but a survivor of an attack in WWII that he also granted immortality to, but in a watered down capacity where her healing factor isn't as strong. The immortal boy Masato says he's over 800 years old and that he needs to get someone to play the part of his mother every few decades, this time with his sights on Mana. Yuta has to deal with Masato's crafty traps that are like a fatal version of Home Alone, and the little creep carries a loaded gun and a large meat cleaver on hand just in case he needs to behead any undying enemy's head. Masato comically drives off in car with Yuta and Mana forcing him off a cliff to his apparent fiery demise with the immortal deathless duo left to continue their never-ending road trip.

Mermaid's Scar takes the sinister J-horror established in the original OVA and cranks it up to full grindhouse territory. There isn't as much of the body horror aside from one Lost Soul mutation as the tone had changed to a higher extent of bloodshed as if it's a slasher flick peppered with monsters. Madhouse's style of animation is remarkably contrasting to that used in Mermaid's Forest so it might cause any watcher some inconsistency if you watch one OVA after the other. Viz's license for it ran out a good while ago making this weighty piece of anime history quite unreachable. Don't forget, immortal anime boys are pure evil!

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Mermaid's Forest

Mermaid's Forest was the last of the Rumik World OVA series based on the works of Rumiko Takahashi, the title of which was later turned into a full manga series titled Mermaid Saga. The manga first got this one-shot animated by Studio Pastel which after Rumik World got a sequel years later by Madhouse titled Mermaid's Scar, and then an entire anime TV series of the same name. This was so far one of the most bloodthirsty of all Takahashi's works pulling together body horror with brilliant character details. The original Mermaid's Forest OVA became America's first real glimpse into J-horror as it was released on VHS dubbed and subtitled plus LD through U.S. Manga Corps.

According to legends in this world, eating the flesh of a mermaid can either instantly kill you or give you immortality. Yuta was the only survivor from a group of fishermen who tested this when they caught a mermaid some 500 years prior. At some point he comes across a girl blessed with the same eternal life named Mana, and the two of them tour around modern Japan like The Fugitive. They get separated in a place referred to as Mermaid Forest where a diseased girl was fed mermaid blood by her twin sister decades ago. Mana is to be sacrificed for this cursed immortal with a monster hand, but a twist later in the story reveals who the true villain is. In the end, Yuta and Mana continue their ongoing mission leading into Mermaid's Scar.

This is not the slow-burn horror that Laughing Target as it begins with pure bloody murder and visceral imagery. The plight of immortality is on display in how it affects others as both a curse and a blessing. Rumiko Takahashi's evolution aa a storyteller is apparent here as she isn't limited to doing only zany rom-coms. Mermaid's Forest is fruitful enough as a stand-alone horror story, but knowing it's the beginning of a longer history should convince first time watchers into wanting to continue the saga.

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.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Laughing Target

As part of the Rumik World OVAs based on Rumiko Takahashi's earlier works, Laughing Target is a distinguished selection as it was one of the first horror anime ever made. Thanks to Central Park Media, it is also one of the first J-horror titles to get released in English, even though they only put it out on dubbed and subtitled VHS. The 1983 manga got an anime adaptation four years later by Studio Pierrot. The overall production is far more eerie than violent.

Yuzura is part of the declining Shiga family, so the choice was made for him to marry his second cousin Asuza. A decade later, Yuzura is a teenager with a steady girlfriend named Satomi. Asuza arrives grown up beautifully hoping to take her place as Yuzura's fiance since her mother recently passed. Yuzura is content with Satomi, so Asuza relies on her family curse to win over her intended by shoving her rival out of the picture. The creepy girl can summon up demonic leeches to take out her enemies which she learned after a sexual assault she experienced when she was younger. Asuza tries to terminate Satomi, but Yuzura being the expert archer he is shows up to turn his fiance into a pincushion, thus ending the curse and freeing Asuza from her curse.

Laughing Target has a cryptic title since there is no character in this macabre tale that engages in any real fits of laughing. It gives off a moody environment that does slowly creep up on you regardless of its short running time. Unlike other horror OVA, this dive into one of Takahashi's more morbid stories that doesn't seem to go on longer than it should. You could see this chronicle being turned into a full-length live-action feature. It's obtainability to Western fans might would be hard to come about now unless its license gets saved possibly through crowdfunding.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Maris The Chojo

Being a part of the Rumik World series of OVA one-shot specials based on Rumiko Takahashi's short manga stories, Maris The Chojo was a released in English under several different titles. In some places it was labeled Maris The Wondergirl or The Supergal, both of which didn't escape the attention of DC Comics so that future releases went back to the original title. The sci-fi comedy was distributed in English by Manga Entertainment and U.S. Manga Corps which gave it a laughable British dub only available on VHS or LD. What separates this OVA from the other Rumik World releases is that it takes place in the same universe as one of Takahashi's existing titles, Urusei Yatsura, even though it's not considered an authentic spinoff.

Set in space, Maris is one of the survivors of a race of humanoids from the planet Thanatos which was destroyed in a natural disaster. All Thanatosians have super-strength, so in order for them to be regular members of society they have to wear special restraining gear so they don't go accidently tearing entire buildings to pieces simply from opening a door. Maris made ends meet at first by being a female wrestler, afterwards she joined the space police and gets partnered with a nine-tailed shapeshifting fox named Murphy. Her latest assignment is to free the son of a billionaire who has been kidnapped by Sue, another super-person from a similar race to Thanatosians. Eventually, Maris and Murphy arrive at Sue's hideout who challenges Maris to a wrestling match but with her restraints still on which causes the whole complex to fall apart with a surprise to the real mastermind behind the whole gambit.

Maris The Chojo is one of the shortest of the Rumik World installments that gets padded out in what could have been the length of a single TV episode, complete with at least two different music video segments, one of which has cameos by Darth Vader and R2-D2. Studio Pierrot did an adequate job animating a trippy space satire that was oozing with fanservice. Getting released in the 80's, the license expiration makes it hard to find it available on American streaming but considering how much exposure this anime about bikini girls in space got at the time, any future releases aren't too unlikely.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Guyver: Out Of Control

Based on the Bio-Booster Armor Guyver manga, the first adaptation of it came out just a year later in an OVA that was branded Guyver: Out Of Control. Yoshi Takaya's manga concentrates on the armored superhero genre that anime like Tekkaman Blade got into, but with a Cronenberg body horror motif, and this one-shot anime got the ball rolling into what would be sleeper hit, oddly enough with a number of American horror hounds. The franchise would soon get a 12-episode OVA series, two live-action movies from the States, and an anime TV series. Out Of Control was handled largely by Toyoo Ashida just after got through with the Fist Of The North Star TV series. The OVA got a single release in America as one of our first Japanese-language anime titles, available only on VHS by Dark Image Entertainment which was part of U.S. Renditions.

A secret organization called Chronos has an operation in Japan using test subjects who are experimented on to create a hybrid lifeform named Zoanoids. A test subject escapes Chonos' control along with a trio of special weapons. One of these weapons finds its way to common schoolboy Sho who bonds with it in a way similar to Venom and becomes the super-powered Guyver. He can now rip apart the Zoanoid monsters with ease and is protected against all of Chronos' arsenal. The shadowy villains want their tech back, so their only sexy redheaded agent bonds with another Guyver unit, but only after her obligatory 80's anime shower scene. Sho finds out that Chronos is holding his girlfriend and assaults their headquarters while fighting the second Guyver subject who only ends up getting killed by her malfunctioning gear. A third Guyver soldier appears to help Sho at the end as the entire complex blows up leaving our hero to go on the lam avoiding the reach of Chronos.

For the first Guyver anime, Out Of Control is a habitual slice of 80's nostalgia with rudimentary animation, even though the characters are designed like cherubs more than rough shonen figures. For being less than an hour, it covers a decent amount of the manga's first story arc, despite the sacrifice of the cast having any deep attributes. The OVA sustains your interests, even though the OVA series does the manga better justice with a more complete story and higher enthusiasm.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *One-Pound Gospel

Rumiko Takahashi is thought as being not only one of the greatest manga-ka of all time, but as one of the world's leading female cartoonists. One-Pound Gospel is one her lesser-known titles that lasted for 4-volumes. It's a comedy with a hint of romance, but unlike most of Takahashi's works it is more of a slice-of-life like her other title Maison Ikkoku. The manga received a small recognition in America when Viz released the bulk of it during the mid-90's, including a one-shot OVA made when the series first came out in 1988, even though Viz only released it on subtitled VHS giving it a very limited range outside of specific anime retailers. The anime was directed by Osamu Dezaki, which is advantageous as he worked on the similarly boxing-themed anime Tomorrow Joe. Another bonus is the soundtrack provided by the talented Kenji Kawai.

Kosaku is a lightweight boxer with a killer knockout punch, despite the fact that his weakness is an overwhelming appetite. After getting weighed in for his latest match, he went for a walk and is found by Sister Angela, a kind-hearted nun who mistakes his gluttony for starvation and feeds him a quick meal. This causes Kosaku to puke during his fight giving him a bad reputation so he can't secure any future matches, even though he accidently punches out an Olympic-winning boxer(twice!)while he was out jogging. The rival boxer's pride is hurt, so he challenges Kosaku to a highly publicized fight, giving the hungry boxer a second chance. Angela tries to make up for her well-meaning bungle by encouraging Kosaku to surpress his voracity, even accidentally getting drunk in a diner arguing with some non-believers. The anime steers clear of any romantic comedy cliches, while at the same time showing that Kosaku views Angela is being something more than just a motivator for his goal. As a boxing story, there are of course some training montages that pad out the story to fill its 55-minute run time.

One-Pound Gospel is a cute feel-good feature with likable lead characters, even though you could see it being somewhat shorter. This anime was released after the Rumik World OVAs and was produced by Studio Gallop who later created early millennial hits like Yu-Gi-Oh that nonetheless created a bearable production. Trying to get a physical copy of the VHS is almost an ultimatum onto itself, but if you still have a working VCR then it might merit a look.