Sukeban Deka (1991) Anime OVA Review

Sukeban Deka is a 1991 action crime anime written and directed by Takeshi Hirota based on a manga by Shinji Wada. The manga series was highly successful in Japan, which gave way for a full live-action TV series and 3 films inspired by the same story. This particular OVA starred Kazue Ikura, Akio Ōtsuka, Akira Kamiya, Hiroshi Takemura, Kenji Utsumi, Masako Katsuki, Naomi Uchiyama and Saeko Shimazu. Juvenile delinquents were a pretty big issue in Japanese society at the time and media related to it gave way for a fiction subgenre that focused on the female variety and it's subculture, Sukeban Deka (Delinquent Girl Detective) being one of the prime examples.

Saki Asamiya is a young delinquent who gets taken out of her cell by the police in order to go undercover into the social structure of a dangerous school ruled by the wealthy Mizuchi sisters, girls who belong to a crime family and fight for control and to be head of the organization. Saki does this in order to get her mother out of death row and to gain her freedom.

Such a premise gives us an action-filled vehicle that goes at 200 miles per hour and has very little time to breathe or rest, establishing relationships, settings and ideas in little time but with a lot of dynamism and a playful nature. It's stylish and lyrical, highly poetic and potently dramatic. It's an excellent piece of the genre that takes advantage of its medium. Everything is executed with precise skill by the animators and the crew.

This is probably the best example of an OVA series that, while surprisingly short, is able to construct a proper dramatic structure that has the same effect in getting you attached to its characters, both main and secondary, in such a small time frame. One example is the girl that the protagonist meets and is then attacked at the end of the first episode. The series doesn't waste time and introduces her right away. Her dialogue is succinct and to the point but the VA's give the lines some personality and emotion. We have some brief scenes of her that are well juggled between other plotlines but also presents us her intimacy (her home, her hobbies, her aspirations, what she sees in life) that gets us closer to her in a single brief but effective scene (through the main character's point of view as well). Because of this, when the tragic event happens we are more invested in her as a person, the stakes moving higher and higher with every event and we understand why the protagonist cares at the same time.

I really love how overdramatic and heightened character's reactions are. The VA's really give it their all and embody their characters with perfection. They yell and grunt and shriek in the right tone and register to make everything more expressive and understandable. This doesn't stop at the voice actors' performances, the direction also emphasizes these intense emotions via angles and visual techniques in order to solidify and express a needed emotion.

The constant array of action and events might have gotten tiresome it wasn't for the tricks they pull and the clever ways they are able to disguise the corners they cut, either by cutting away from the most laborious fight sequences with many characters by focusing on another character while we assume a battle takes place or by using eye-popping visuals to summarize events. You can tell, because of the fast pace, that this was a TV series or a long manga that had time for everything to take place before it became a 40 minute two-part OVA (80 minutes at most) but it all helps to give it some energy and make it consistently entertaining without losing the meat of the story.

A totally recommended OVA in every sense. It's quick and strong. Obligatory for all anime fans.

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.