Gall Force: Earth Chapter (1989-1990) Anime OVA Series Review

Gall Force: Earth Chapter was an action sci-fi war anime OVA series that was released from 1989 to 1990 and functions as a continuation to Rhea Gall Force (1989) and it's the fifth installment in the Gall Force franchise. The same creative team with Katsuhito Akiyama and Hideki Kakinuma was incharge of it, with the voices of Naoko Watanabe, Michie Tomizawa, Eriko Hara, Yuko Mizutani, Maria Kawamura, Naoko Watanabe, Hiromi Tsuru, Chieko Honda and Naoko Matsui.

We follow the same human resistance against Paranoid machines. Sandy leads her group of guerrilla fighters to face off against their non-human foes traveling across Earth and uniting the entire race against the menace, awaiting Martian reinforcements and meeting a group of ecological christians, the Geo Chris, as the MME menace approaches.

I do think that the post-apocalyptic setting was a nice modification to the Gall Force formula, it was a fun way to show a needed counterpart to the space setting of the first trilogy, but while Rhea benefited from a short runtime and wonderful action this sequel OVA three-parter isn't as fortunate, even with its merits. The drama is pretty weightless and most of the plot points don't really have much staying power with you, the personality of the characters has also been put on a secondary plane, with the exposition-heavy talks taking the majority of the screentime.

It's a shame that they didn't explore more of the characters considering that this time we follow the exact same ones for an increased amount of time, would have been neat to see more of Score and Sandy developing as friends, or maybe the vagrant Mitty could have been fleshed out or could have been given a bigger role in the narrative but not much is done with them. Score never really does anything else besides being a badass chick with weapons who says one liners and mocks others, but she is very good in that role so I cant really complain about that. At certain moments they make her more sensible and she begins to worry a lot about her companions, giving her a bit of character, stopping her from becoming some sort of walking cliche for some brief scenes. Sandy is the same optimist and the intimate relationship she feels, the responsibility, is very palpable and allows her to reflect on the relationship between her enemies and herself as well as her kind. This pays off to some degree in the climax of the series.

We have some pretty awesome action but the overall animation kind of varies in quality throughout the three episodes, it never reaches the level of incompetent but you can tell there were some shots and scenes that feature some stilted or downgraded animation. Nothing awful but it's a bit distracting. The rest of the OVA series has some delightful sci-fi action that keep you entertained, but they aren't the most impressive or fantastic out of the franchise and might not be enough if you want to binge the series.

It's nothing stellar but it gets the job done as a light action anime. It's a bit convoluted at times, which hurts the engagement and the pacing, but in general I believe that even non-fans of the franchise can jump on either Rhea or Earth Chapter and get something out of it, considering that most of the essential elements were removed or altered.

I mostly recommend the show to those who are already into Gall Force and are completists, stick with it until the final OVA to see how the conflict from the previous chapters gets resolved but don't expect a breathtaking script or outstanding animation.

Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996) Movie Review

Nemesis 4: Death Angel (also known as Cry of Angels) is a 1996 sci-fi action movie written and directed by Abert Pyun. The film is the fourth installment in the Nemesis film series and is the last one to have Pyun involved at any capacity. It stars Sue Price, Blanka Copikova, Andrew Divoff, Nicholas Guest and Norbert Weisser. Made in Slovakia about two years after part two and three were shot, the film is loose on continuity because Nemesis 3 didn't sell very well, so more nudity was added. Shooting was done in between the filming of Adrenalin: Fear the Rush, another film by Pyun shot in Europe.

In this entry, Alex Sinclair is a professional cybernetically-enhanced assassin in a world where humans and cyborgs have had a ceasefire. Her skills are top notch but she tends to be a bit messy and things get real bad when she kills Carlos Jr, the son of a crime syndicate leader. She also gets visions of a woman in black with a distortion VFX who haunts her, probably an angel of death alluding to how death gets closer to Alex because every bounty hunter is after the muscular killer now. 

This one is a sort of reboot of the series in the sense that very few things are brought back, only the fact that Alex is a genetically modified human and some plot points that are honestly not that noticeable at first. Don't expect a concrete continuity. The production values are still on the lower end and the limitations are apparent, but the very pretty european setting carries a good amount of the weight and gives the movie a rich amount of locations Pyun works with quite well, just as he did with the desert and industrial locations in the last two.

A lot of the movie features uncensored nudity from Price and others, surely an attempt by the makers of appealing to the direct-to-video crowd who wanted softcore stuff. A curious thing to point out is that this is probably one of the few times a brawny female body has been eroticized and treated the way more normative bodies are shot in such films and turned seductive in sexual sequences. A nice refreshing sight. Because of these scenes, the unreal and surreal vibes are back due to the playful way Pyun uses lighting and takes advantage of his new shooting locations, as mentioned above, and also because of the outlandish and bizarre deaths. The more out-of-this-world storyline with apparitions and strange occurrences are further proof that a great deal of changes were more out of the director's desire to touch upon particular themes and ideas.

The film mostly unfolds as a sexy thriller with some sci-fi components but things are mostly kept tight and intimate, the camera mostly stays in closed spaces and does close ups of the actors. Every performer does a very decent job and all retain their charm, especially the leading lady. After a rather vague and understated resolution we see what I can only assume is a tribute to Sue Price as a montage sequence of stock footage put together with some of her highlights appears on the screen, followed by her screen credit. A very worthy and awesome goodbye to the series, at least that's what it was until 2017 but that's another story.

Totally recommended for the DTV scavengers who enjoy this very B-level series and are also eager to see a lot of muscular nudity. This one should satisfy with its intriguing plot and solid cast.