Dirty Pair: The OVA Series (1987-1988) Episode 1: Prison Uprising. We Hate People With Grudges!

The success of the original Dirty Pair series based on the light novels by Haruka Takachiho, the OVA movies and the theatrical feature film prompted a sequel show for the home video market in the form of a 10-episode OVA series by Sunrise. The series was mostly handled by director Katsuyoshi Yatabe, but other directors included Masayoshi Tanidabe, Shinji Takamatsu, Shin'ichirō Watanabe, Mihiro Yamaguchim and Osamu Sekita. The writers included Koichi Kasamoto, Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, Yuichi Sasamoto, Hiroshi Ônogi, Hideki Sonoda and Yasushi Hirano.

This first episode has the angels going into a space prison named Karuso after a riot broke out and prisoners took control of the facilities. They are looking to rescue a warden that's being held in the place by the inmates. They meet with some marines as they enter the prison in waves and wearing mechanical suits for protection. The girls enter the prison and beat the crap out of the rogue convicts, finding their target in the process but he makes the mission troublesome.

It's quite fun to see more of the angels working on a case doing paperwork and research at the beginning, something that we didn't get to see a whole lot of before, we even start out turning the tables a little bit with Yuri on her own flirting as Kei works in the office. Some other new characters are introduced but they won't really become all that relevant later on anyway. The function of these new characters is basically to set up some plot devices that will come in handy during the episode. 

The writers and board artists bring a lot of the charm and fun back with sequences like the space surfing one or the dynamic and flashy action sequences and shootouts that abound here. The comedy never fails as the Lovely Angels are as endearing and charismatic as ever, solidifying this new introduction as a pretty nice return to form.

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.

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.