Devil Hunter Yohko (1990) Anime OVA Series Review

Mamono Hantā Yōko - Devil Hunter Yohko is a 1990 action comedy fantasy anime OVA mini-series that was released until 1995 and consists of six episodes. It was directed by Katsuhisa Yamada, Hisashi Abe, Jun'ichi Sakata and Akiyuki Shinbo with scripts by Sukehiro Tomita, Hisaya Takabayashi, Katsuhisa Yamada, Tatsuhiko Urahata. The cast includes Aya Hisakawa, Konami Yoshida, Yūji Mitsuya, Hiromi Tsuru, Chieko Honda and Noriko Hidaka. Aya Hisakawa also gives us some wonderful songs on the soundtrack, which take prominence as a way to sell the series. The success of the OVA series was enough to warrant a manga created by Gaku Miyao in 1996.

Teenager Yohko lived a normal life in Japan but one day she finds out that every woman in her family becomes a powerful demon hunter, who must go after the forces of evil once they are unleashed. Backed by her grandmother, her friend Chikako and an unwanted apprentice named Azusa, Yohko must both struggle between her new life as a demon fighter and maintain her virginity or else she will lose her abilities.

This coming-of-age fantasy action show with strong ecchi elements plays out like a normal storyline involving a girl that comes from a lineage of demon hunter women who battle the forces of darkness with their powers and abilities. This, of course, comes with the price of having to neglect some typical teenage stuff in favor of her duty. This is where some of the main conflicts in the show are found but none of it really becomes the focus as every episode changes the stakes drastically. Every chapter is a self-contained story, this episodic structure could have worked better if the show had far more episodes instead of just six (well, five actually but we can't count episode 4). So even though the episodes are fun and captivating you end up wanting a lot more.

I think my issue is that most of the series doesn't have a throughline outside of just presenting the main set-up in its near perfect first episode. The rest are just secluded plots with their own narrative, not relating much to each other. Not only that, but episode four is just a clip show that consists of new music videos with some footage from the series. It's of no real interest outside of some cute new animation but it works as something you can put on the background. Either way, the other storylines aren't bad, they are fun and playful while having enough emotional load to be worthwhile.

I gotta say some things about the series are quite disturbing or creepy, it invokes scenarios and images that are somewhat crude and daring in how much they want to deliver in the fanservice department but while having such inappropriate elements. An example is the female teacher harassing a male student or the several panty shots of the girls, some who are very young. It's weird but it's all greatly animated and brought to life that it looks nice. The animation itself is a highlight as the amazing battles between the main girl and the demons are outstanding in how majestic and epic they are executed. This is something that really couldn't have been as polished and detailed if it was a proper TV series, so the lack of episodes ultimately works out.

With great technical aspects and some entertaining episodes, Devil Hunter Yohko is a highly recommended retro anime series that will be more than enough for vintage anime fans.

D.E.B.S (2003-2004) Movie Review

D.E.B.S is a 2004 action spy comedy movie written and directed by Angela Robinson and based on her short film from 2003. The film stars Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki, Jill Ritchie, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jessica Cauffiel. Robinson began the project as a comic book, doing the art herself during college. POWER UP then gave her $20,000 in order to do a short film and pitch the idea to a studio. The original 2003 film was a short subject filled with color, very frenetic and action-packed, it was also shot on film, something that was ditched when moving onto the feature film department, opting to go for a digital look instead. While the film did badly at the box office and got a less than stellar reception it became a cult hit among queer audiences as the years went by.

A secret test recruits female students for the D.E.B.S. (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength) organization, this paramilitary academy takes care of dangerous spy missions. We follow four D.E.B.S, Max, Janet, Dominique and Amy, as they foil the plans of a villainess known as Lucy Diamond, this supercriminal accidentally begins a relationship with Amy after a failed date. Now Amy must choose between her loyalty to D.E.B.S and her love for Lucy.

I gotta give it to this movie because it takes very refreshing and new twists that you won't really expect out of a movie like this. Usually a movie like this would be an origin story as the protagonist gets into the D.E.B.S program, maybe reluctantly, and gets introduced to the spy world while having to carry a mission and save the world. Maybe there's a romantic interest in the form of a tech guy who is handsome or something. That's typically how it would go, it's a template that exists. However, this movie is nothing like that. You are thrown into a strange but likable universe where everything has already been established and the initial exposition scenes explaining the concept of D.E.B.S is all you get in the form of context in order to follow the narrative that follows, which is a lighthearted lesbian relationship building itself among two girls in the middle of two antagonistic forces, the bad girl falls in love with the girl from the good side. Nothing groundbreaking but there's charm to the fact that it's not only a mainstream movie but also because of how it plays with the genre.

What could be a problem is just how bold it is by dropping you in the middle of this world without proper guidance, the information that you need is there, but you don't really get to connect with any character immediately because everything goes by so fast and the characters themselves aren't given much to stand out aside from some small character quirks that don't really flesh them out but simply give you a vague impression of who these girls could be. Further rewatches diminish these flaws though. A couple of the DEBS girls escape this as the main conflict progresses but for the most part they are one note. Another thing is that the villainess assassin doesn't immediately look the part, so it can catch you off guard just how average she looks and how pedestrian this spy and assassin world comes off as.

With this being one of the first major films shot on digital cameras you kind of get some rather unpolished or TV-level images, the quality isn't really terrible but the resolution and the frame rate will make it look slightly more cheap and poor when compared to movies shot on film. The technology wasn't quite there and this was one of the early entries in that category so it's excusable that a few shots maybe aren't up to par, especially whenever a green screen is involved. Other than that, it's not a badly composed or shot film, the director manages to organize everything inside the frame in a stylish way and the way the action sequences are shot do have some momentum and rhythm, there's a lot of energy behind them and they don't rely too heavily on CGI at this point. I gotta say that there's a limited amount of shootouts and fights, so don't expect any kind of astounding spectacle. It's nothing as explosive as the 2000's Charlie's Angels movies but it's also not as clunky as some of the bottom of the barrel stuff could be.

When it comes to the execution of the material this one has an interesting perspective since the director mostly plays it like a very earnest relationship film with innovative gender and sexual dynamics that just happens to have both spy film elements and romcom elements. It could have been seen as exploitative with the girls in schoolgirl uniforms and such but the quirky humor and the fact that it never sexualizes the girls kind of keep it from feeling dirty or sleazy. Aside from some adult conversations this could have been a Disney Channel movie to be honest.

A highly recommended piece of 2000’s camp that will surely be a comfort film for many. 

Project A-ko Versus: Gray Side/Blue Side (1990) Anime OVA Series Review

Project A-ko Versus (Project A-ko: Uncivil Wars) is a 1990 action sci-fi anime OVA mini-series divided in two parts: Grey Side and Blue Side and is a reboot of the Project-Ako film and OVA series. It was directed by Project A-ko's original director Katsuhiko Nishijima and written by newcomers Yuji Kawahara and Shôichi Tsuji. The cast includes Miki Itô, Emi Shinohara, Michie Tomizawa, Kazuo Oka and Tesshô Genda. These OVA'S are basically unrelated in plot and characters but they do retain the same designs and part of the energy of the original, transplanting the girls into a sci-fi setting.

In an undetermined intergalactic setting, A-ko and B-ko are two space bounty hunters who catch giant creatures in a desert planet. Fate has in store for them more than what they can chew as they find C-ko, a small princess kidnapped by space pirates. What begins as a simple crime turns out to be a menace for the universe as a powerful sorceress possesses C-ko's body and gets her evil plans going.

Continuing the Project Ako franchise by making a straight science fiction story with little to no resemblance to the original concept was quite a wild move on their part because this really could have been titled just about anything else and it still would have made sense and be understood, it didn't need to have any connection to the Ako series whatsoever. Having said that, what we do get is quite cool on its own. Yeah, it stands apart from the franchise but fits perfectly into the landscape of anime shows with female friendships at their core, having A-ko and B-ko be more similar to Kei and Yuri from Dirty Pair than their original incarnations. C-ko is also shown as an actual small child which makes her usual behaviour make more sense even if she is dumbed down and aged down explicitly in the story. The three are cute together and have some hilarious moments.

The new villains are very cool, particularly Liza Chichi, who engages in awesome combats with A-ko, who still has super human abilities in this version but not in an overpowered way as she has to put up a fight against Liza. The action sequences are expertly crafted and dynamically boarded with very smooth animation once again. The change of setting makes things be a bit more generic, we see space shuttles and some typical desolated planets instead of the high school, so that type of contrast gets mostly lost on the change of setting but we do get some notable fight scenes sprinkled with some spicy touches, so it's a bit faithful to the spirit of Project A-ko in that regard.

Blue Side has a lot of great moments, but the set up of Gray Side I found to be the most engaging, especially because it all seemed to build up to something outstanding or at least an exciting climax with a lot more action and stakes, and while we do get a good ending I think the writers were hoping for more OVA episodes that never came because the way these conflicts are resolved don't really close much and it all feels too scrambled and loose to be a proper ending. I could see the rivalry between A-ko and the blondie get more complex or reach a more impactful breaking point if they had gotten more episodes.

It's overall a very highly recommended OVA series but don't expect to come back to the same characters in the Project A-ko saga, because you are not, you are gonna be exposed to a brand new universe that is a lot of fun on its own.