#235: Hantsu x Trash (2015-16)

 

Studio: Hoods Entertainment

Director: Hisashi Saito

Screenwriter: Keiichirō Ōchi

Based on the manga by Hiyoko Kobayashi

Voice Cast: Maaya Uchida as Chisato Hagiwara; Yūma Uchida as Yōhei Hamaji; Kenta Matsumoto as Nakajima; Saki Yamakita as Maki Hayami; Shizuka Itou as Manami Miyoshi; Yurika Kubo as Mai Shinozaki

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Hantsu X Trash is not really defendable. It is neither a full work, as these are three episodes (two over twelve minutes, the third over fourteen) are part of a trend of creating tie-in anime that comes with the manga, the first bundled with the 8^th volume of the manga on October 6^th 2015¹, the second bundled with the 10^th volume of the manga in June 6^th 2016², and the third and final one bundled with the 11^th volume of the manga on November 4^th 2016³. Together, they are not politically correct a sex comedy about the high school male water polo team who is more interested in the female water team, though maybe it is my cynical nature, but considering some of the far more tasteless and sexist content I have unfortunately come across, the less of two evils argument is here. It is still indefensible, as jokes include spying on the female team bathing, which is sexual harassment in real life, but somehow pales next to worse content.

It feels like a throwback, the source manga published originally in Weekly Young Magazine, a young men’s publication which published the likes of the original Akira magazine, but also in the 2010s with this published titles with names like Does a Hot Elf Live Next Door to You? (2019–2021) by Meguru Ueno, sex still something which sells as in the past and still now, only with this one feeling like it has inherited clichés that came from decades earlier. Episode One introduces Yōhei Hamaji, a poor guy doomed like many male protagonists in these sex comedies to have constant head trauma, a young man who has one clear love, his senpai Chisato Hagiwara⁴, one of the committed members of her team, even if like the other men in his team, he is also one with a fixation on breasts, as those making these shorts clearly were. Hoods Entertainment made their bread and butter on titles like this, whether explicit in content or implied. From them are the likes of The Qwaser of Stigmata (2010), infamously the animated show about breast milk powering one’s super abilities, or Mysterious Girlfriend X (2012), a truly bizarre series for me to experience in that, for all its sex comedy, it is actually a sweet romance between a guy and an unconventional introvert of a girl, which however involves her saliva having addictive qualities to it. They are an animation studio who has no qualms in the slightest to even unconventional fetishes let alone lewdness, this in comparison tame even if it does not help defend the content either.

These are part of the modern OVA movement, the straight-to-video era into the 2010s involving for more tie-in extra episodes or specials for existing shows, or tie-ins to manga we never get over in the West, rather than adaptations or unique titles we were still getting into the 2000s but have dwindled out. A lot, as here, are also entirely for the sake of animating nudity, these three episodes not even lewd ecchi, neither hentai, but devoted entirely to bared animated breasts. TV series are censored for television, they sell their physical releases for this content being uncensored, in this case only the sense this was a far obscure work which someone felt was not able to sell for a full television series. What is also is, even if of a different culture, is the equivalent of the American high school sex comedy into the 2000s, like Road Trip (2000), tame works baring their brief scenes of nudity, and with all the potential issues of sexism and their tones to consider upon actually watching them.

Episode One warns of this in the content, though as I will get to, this is following the trope that, whilst still objectifying the women, the men are punished painfully for comedic effect, which has always been a curious side to Japanese anime and manga in their sex comedy in that they constantly undercut their male characters, in work targeting men in their gazes, in being completely immature figures. Even what could be seen as a gay panic running gag undercuts itself in presentation, where Yōhei keeps imagining erotic fantasies of Hagi-chan, whilst recuperating in the nurse’s room, only to keep envisioning Nakajima, a team member looks in his late thirties with sunglasses permanently on, because of the strange tone to it. The main joke for that first episode, whilst Hagi-Chan is the woman he loves, Yōhei is someone clearly who has both an obsession with large breasts, and that due to the tone of this joke, far from homophobic it comes off like he is denying his bisexuality. If not latent desire to buff his team leader’s nipples, his super ego denying his sexual desire is a really unconventional, a mind which envisions Chisato being seduced by one of her teammates Shinozaki, someone who is very physical with her friends, and in a more complex show than the fragments we got would have been compelling, even if tasteless, for imagining the sexual id of a guy who is confused in a lot of ways about his sexuality even if there is one girl he loves dearly. That is as much trying to stretch out a sex gag which most would roll their eyes by excusing it through a layer of amateur interpretation, but that becomes the most interesting thing, even if by accident, how much of this does become a curious gag anime about the strangeness of the male libido, even if the work is not great.

This is still an anime about the male water polo team being perverts, even with episode three having them trying to spy on the female team so Yōhei learn the nipple colour of the woman he loves, words I cannot believe (or defend) recording as dialogue. This follows however clichés common in anime, including that this always leads to the men being punished as already mentioned, one going too far in his delirium seeing one girl naked he even gets a baseball bat up a painful area. It is a strange paradox of getting away with behavior in real life with these fictional characters which would not be (rightly) justifiable, more problematic by the time these episodes were being released, with explicit nudity here shown to the viewer, only to punish the male characters for their libido. The female teacher for both teams is neither helping in breaking teaching ethics too. In Episode Two, she even made a promise to let the male team touch her breasts if they won a match, three seconds only each, and has a desire for Yōhei beyond the boundaries of teacher-student relationships, only with the issue that he loves Chisato and wants to keep his virginity except for her undercutting this.

None of this has aged well as, least in the English speaking world, content like this is considered more and more taboo even if this title is from the 2010s and was an obscure title which is not commonly available. Most would rightly not want to watch this, which comes up just past the thirty minute mark only, but it is here too though, so I do not come off as a hypocrite, where I admit I did laugh. Every time it was entirely when a clear theme was up front as the joke, of how every male character here is as thick as a brick, even Yōhei, whose obsession entirely to breasts is to the point they all believe touching them is enough for an orgasm for a woman, which is comical and in an actual relationship would been the most embarrassing reality check they all could have. It is the kind of premise which, for all the content here with is clichés from previous anime and not aging well, still hits close to home as a joke at mocking the male heterosexual libido. More so, as I have seen titles which have casual edged into sexual violence and far more misogynistic content, this feels more antiquated and with this Super Ego slant to how the joke always punished the male characters, even if the plots here are not defendable and yet reward with their explicitly topless nudity, Here there is a scene of all the swim team on the floor just from touching their teacher’s breasts, or that she has beaten them all up for not following the three second rule, the exaggeration here of these male character coming off as something itself ridiculous to laugh at, that image in itself the encapsulation of what is clearly the joke but also unintentionally the theme, even a neurosis, running through this.

It is sexist? Yes, though this crude OVA accidentally nods to this paradoxical tug of war between titillation and punishment which is interesting if perverted. A story is also here if there ever was a sense of trying to tell one out of this, the romance between a sex fixated Yōhei who yet wishes to be a good person for Chisato, a romantic triangle set up in the finale episode with another girl on the water polo team with a crush on him. Not many of the cast are set up beyond this, though the premise of a sap like Yōhei trying to balance between water polo and his libido is a premise that could be good, as most could, is focused and were trying for more than clearly here. That this is not really a water polo genre story, and likely is not in the source manga, is itself disappointing because, as a genre hybrid, a sports show combined with absurd sex comedy and romance would work, or least be something really original.  

What you get here, just over thirty minutes, could have been a pilot if released separately into three parts. Its content, even if I found aspects funny, does come with my own guilt that, absolutely, and that episode two does at times look rough. It is fascinating though, as a lot of shows still had this tone of sex comedy, even the badly aged content, over the decades before into the modern day, this one fixated as much on the stupidity of its male leads as much as clearly exist to sell its titillation. I cannot help but contrast this too, back to the concern of the lesser of two evils argument, in mind to other anime I have seen which have more problematic content, where this is still not the place I wish sex comedies were in, but with far worse out there. I think of the first season of High School DxD (2012), which I once watched to cover for a cult film blog I wrote for anime rated for eighteen year olds in the British Isles, where alongside one of the female characters (at least one) being uncomfortably young looking, there was an extensive Pokemon parody within one episode with tentacles that I could have done without. I think of the shock of an obscure series like Sakura Diaries (1997) when I returned to it; for the most part a sweet natured toned sex comedy even if about cousins, it abruptly (including its ADV Films English dub) enters some horrifying misogyny and the male lead nearly considering raping his cousin, only to brush that aside for the rest of the premise. No, the gag of spying on the female water polo team bathing is not justifiable as a joke, but it is antiquated like an American Pie film inexplicably appearing in the cinemas in the 2020s, rather than just uncomfortable to sit through.

Instead this evokes Colorful (1999), a micro-series anime. Whilst the question of whether its content is defendable means revisiting it, its humour was less sex humour, vignettes about men trying to see women in their underwear, or the garments under their clothes, but the jokes entirely about how ridiculous these men were, and the punch lines making them look like egits. Whether that has aged well or not is to debate, but you look to these works which are as much the joke is a guilt reflex of the creators, and they are fascinating even if Hantsu x Trash is very conventional even in the genre. In the perfect world, these types of sex comedies would not involve this type of sexual harassment humour – where even Hood Entertainment with Mysterious Girlfriend X, with its fetish some will find off-putting, managing to have at its center a pair who really liked each other and embraced this quirk of the relationship. Yet that is the only sin of Hantsu x Trash, a slight production, one which will likely be forgotten as an actual anime production, but managing to produce far more here on paper than what these thirty plus minutes should have produced because there is stuff here of note it accidentally spells out. That, and because one wishes there was an erotic water polo sex comedy out there which was more wholesome and progressive with this tone even if still breast fixated.

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1) Hantsu x Trash Manga Bundles Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime News Network on August 23^rd 2015.

2) Hantsu x Trash Risque Water Polo Manga Bundles 2nd Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime New Network on April 24^th 2016.

3) Risque Water Polo Manga Hantsu x Trash Bundles 3rd Original Anime DVD, written by Rafael Antonio Pineda and published by Anime News Network on September 9th 2016.

4) Maaya Uchida and Yūma Uchida, the voice actors for these lead characters, are siblings, which is somewhat an odd casting choice as romantic leads. That is not a slight against either of them, Maaya the older sister, both prolific in their careers, just an odd choice which I hope they found funny in hindsight to what happens in the show. 

#234: Sakura Diaries (1997)

 

Studio: Shaft

Director: Kunitoshi Okajima

Screenplay: Kenji Terada

Based on the manga by U-Jin

Voice Cast:

Japanese:

Kyoko Hikami as Urara Kasuga; Mitsuaki Madono as Touma Inaba; Mako Hyoudou as Koumi Natsuki; Rumi Kasahara as Meiko Yotsuba; Kunihiko Yasui as Tatsuhiko Mashu; Masa Saito as Touma's Mother; Masamichi Ota as Keisuke

English:

Lauren Worsham as Urara Kasuga; Mariela Ortiz as Urara Kasuga (2005 dub); Martin Burke as Touma Inaba; Robert Martinez as Touma Inaba (2005 dub); Monica Rial as Mieko Yotsuba (2005 dub); Rebecca Davis as Meiko Yotsuba

Viewed in English Dub

 

This sadly was a review, an act of revisiting an anime I saw when I was younger, where I found myself having completely forgotten most of the content, including how one dramatic choice can entirely capsize your production, a reminder of how something can go grossly wrong as an artistic choice, and ruin what sadly also had, even as an average sex comedy, moments of virtues. Sakura Diaries is a twelve episode series, yet it was released straight-to-video, all in spite of the fact that, even as an explicit sex comedy, it only once or twice ever uses the creative freedoms of the medium choice to be more sexually provocative, or even have actual nudity. The rest feels like a quieter comedy with dramatic moments and a lot of innuendo. Trying to get into college, a young guy from the country Touma Inaba fails the entrance exams to get into a university. When he falls for a red headed woman named Mieko Yotsuba, he claims he has passed into that prestigious university in a moment of panic and attraction to her. Wishing not to just damn Sakura Diaries, and instead present the sad minefield where a show can make one wrongheaded choice but still be interesting, it is that this aspect of the story becomes the most fascinating and having had the potential to grow into something inspired.

Namely that Touma, whilst a cliché of a young man protagonist who can be a pervert, also presents all the neurosis of someone in his position, that whilst the show has tone deaf and misogynistic choices, he is a fascinating character of a virginal young guy who is trying to get away from working in the family hot spring. Having fallen in love with Mieko, even if lying that he enter the most prestigious college in Tokyo, he has the desire to enter cram school so he can get into the college for real. His sex fantasies are lewd, sometimes inappropriate, but when the tone works, his flights of fantasy, about romance and losing his virginity, become comedic in how he has his heads in the clouds as much as in his pants, who is stuck masturbating to porn and admits he is neurotic of his inexperience that he would unsatisfying women like Mieko even in bed. Feeling Mieko is entirely out of his league, even his dreams about trying to succeed in cram school are interesting, in a tragically humoured way, in how his subconscious can cruelly make him dream he has failed the exam, even more cruelly making him believe he is awake and has passed to exams, or involve his sexual hang-ups, which are some of the most rewarding moments. Even the crass jokes about Touma realising his libido is preventing his studying, in this anxiety, is thoughtful for being blunt about this.

The facade of being in college is complicated as he is living with his young female cousin Urara Kasuga, who has clearly lied about her father being constantly away on business but managing to keep the lie one. This is something some will find icky, and Urara is viewed as the show's central icon of sexuality, but again with mind that this could have gotten to be a more thoughtful story, Sakura Diaries does have the set up to have been more dramatically complex than it does briefly have. Urara is already eccentric, if questionable, in her relationship with Touma, meeting him by pretending to be a sex worker upon the first time he has seen her grown up, soon into him living at her uncle's wearing only an apron when preparing a meal, all in what is her blatant attempts to attract him to her. In a show if it focused on this drama more than the moments it does, it would have been compelling as a tale of a cousin whose love for Touma comes from a tragic moment in her life, the passing of a close relative, which is complicated by the fact that the emotional dependency involved years on is not healthy for either of them. [Major Spoiler Warning] The ending, where she has to learn to have a broken heart as Touma moves out of the house, realising the relationship is not healthy for either, is a good ending in context for this. [Spoilers End] Mieko realises she herself is in an existential position, where the debonair guy in the college, obsessed with her and trying to undermine Touma, is someone with his own psychological baggage, but also when confronted by her is rightly damned for wanting to own her like a won prize. The drama here is compelling for that reason.

The problem is in the tone. Specifically, and this is why the review now has to come with a trigger warning, entirely for Episode Five where, after a drunken game of strip paper rock scissors, Touma suddenly becoming a violent figure who attempts to rape Urara before realising what he is doing. That, in mind to a show whose tone is soft, lightly coloured and gentle even as a lewd sex comedy, is the most abrupt and inappropriate tonal shift possible. It is ugly, it is unacceptable, and it makes it impossible to like Touma as a protagonist for good reason, especially as the show references this moment a few times over the last episodes rather than pretend it did not happen. It is an absolute disaster in terms of a dramatic choice. The surprising thing is that, if you look into what the source manga is, this one segment is just one moment in a show which entirely jettisoned what the tone was for the manga, which makes this creative choice even more cursed. Even though I do not what to criticise the manga or its author without having seen the source material, there was a lot of content which, if done wrong, would have been far worse than here.  

The Sakura Diaries manga is hentai, which is not a thing to criticise. What is more shocking is that, looking into synopsis on what content is within it, it has a lot of content which sounds absolutely tasteless and crass if it had been presented with the tone of Episode 5's misguided change into serious drama. That it includes Urara becoming pregnant, entering sex work with a friend, and an incident trying to swindle money from a client involving one of them being gang raped. Yes, that in itself does feel, especially for a hentai manga, legitimately uncomfortable to consider as working as good let alone acceptable storytelling. U-Jin, the source manga author, is unapologetically someone, looking at their career, which wrote transgressive content - some, depending on the tone, to kink shame, such as Vixens (1994), which involves BDSM and Omorashi (the arousal from wetting oneself), but other material as plot threads in Sakura Diaries, would dangerously skirt the line between offending people or if they managed to get the tone right. The tragedy is that, for one moment, Sakura Diaries the show makes one mistake with one storytelling choice, and thus ruins itself when it is, for the most part, a gentle comedy drama which, despite some dated sexual politics, had the right trajectory with its production.

It is a shame as, even with the crass sex comedy, of Touma lusting over women, the show is a mostly fluffy story whose drama in the end, accepting a romance that will not happen and growing up, is absolutely alien to its one tasteless shock moment. The opening and ending credits are light coloured and sweet, contrasted by two choices of songs which actually are good for this tone, the first an acoustic song which a gentle earworm. It is however with realisation, a perfect example here, of how one decision is able to capsize a story fully. It does evoke Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987), a legendary science fiction theatrical anime which made as equally as misguided choice in sexual violence involving the main male protagonist. Honnêamise though, whilst not defendable and a decision which should have been excised in its production, was attempting a moment of great existentialism, a horrible mistake nearly done in a moment of exceptional world bearing crisis, leading to an existential enlightenment learning from this idiocy, even if again a scene which is rightly challenged as nearly capsizing Honnêamise's incredible achievements fully. Honnêamise is however also a film of such magnitude that, in its complexity, this problematic scene is still there and undermines it, but is a work dealing with such complexity on a psychological level, which can be grasped even if that artistic mistake is to be challenged. Sakura Diaries is a light hearted sex comedy, even for its emotional complexity, suddenly shows a horrible misogynistic side in how Touma acts to Urara before the sexual violence is even considered, never meant for real complexity even if misguided. It completely deflates Sakura Diaries fully even if the drama afterwards is interesting and of reward.

The odd thing is that no one on the production is really someone who should have known better. Kunitoshi Okajima, the director, was prolific in the animation side of anime productions the decade before, and screenwriter Kenji Terada, with this one of the last works of their career, had a long filmography beforehand, having penned for franchises including the original series of Kimagure Orange Road (1987-1988) as its key screenwriter. This is a very early production from Shaft as a studio, one which would grow and be prolific over the decades after, including being the home of Akiyuki Shinbo, who started helming productions there in the mid-2000s, and to the current day is his home, meaning they were the ones who brought his big hitters of the 2010s to life. If anything, this feels like an awkward stumble for the studio that, in this time, also brought about Arcade Gamer Fubuki (2002-3), a work with too many tasteless aspects to defend, even if there are grains of gold within it too.

Sakura Diaries, were it not for Episode 5's conclusion, would be an all right, if not perfect drama, one which could have been significantly better but has virtues. As it stands, including Episode 5, that is enough to put people off decades on, and it really emphasises how one mistake in tone, even over anime which is more openly lurid and tasteless, has a far worse influence when, here, there were virtues. The only thing I had remembered from this series originally when I had watched it, which is a tasteless moment, is that there is a scene where exchanging pubic hair is considered a good luck charm. It is something which comes from actual Japan belief¹, and is not a bad thing inherently in itself to include, but considering Touma emotionally bullies Urara into it to help him pass his exams, there is a streak of toxicity to the drama which does undermine its tone too. The English dub, one of two ADV Films recorded, and in the UK was the only language track they included in their DVD release for us, neither helps, not good and actually emphasising how, for every moment Touma does come off (if lecherous) as a sympathetic figure, there are so many scenes which do not work because they paint him as a detestable figure we are meant to sympathise with. Sakura Diaries' problems are more than one horrible drama choice, but that one choice does emphasis how this series failed to reach the virtues it occasionally clings to, which is heartbreaking to experience. This should have been a melodrama where the knife stabs into the viewer - like Touma going to karaoke with Meiko, only for Urara to have gone to the same one, with the pain where she lies about being his sister - not stab the viewer in a way that this has aged badly and destroys its own virtues at the same time.

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1) Japanese Lucky Charm: Pubic hair, written by Timothy Takemoto for Burogu on April 6th 2012

#233: Angel Links (1999)

 

Studio: Sunrise

Director: Yuji Yamaguchi

Screenplay: Jirō Takayama, Masaharu Amiya and Yasuko Kobayashi

Voice Cast: Ryoka Yuzuki as Meifon Li; Atsuko Tanaka as Valeria; Hikaru Midorikawa as Kousei Hida; Kazuo Hayashi as Leon; Kenji Utsumi as Duuz

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I came to Angel Links with no knowledge this series from Sunrise had never existed, that this was a work set in the same world as Outlaw Star (1998), a series with flaws but one with a huge amount of virtues that I admired, able to overcome those flaws to become something special and see why it gained a fan base in the West when it came to the Cartoon Network Toonami slot. Sadly, adapting both a one volume manga by Takehiko Itō, the original creator of Outlaw Star, and a light novel by Ibuki Hideaki, I can see now why I had never heard of Angel Links, but not wishing to just damn the production. For whatever reason, the production does not gel despite nothing being inherently amiss in the plan of how this goes on. The one immediate issue, and a huge one to its detriment, is a really simple mistake, that thirteen episodes, whilst it should be long enough, really is not in the context of a series, which you need to carefully use.

The titular Angel Links is a giant ship of a private escort and protection firm who provide free outer space defence from pirates, headed by a sixteen year old girl named Meifon Li, taking over from her late grandfather as a group with comrades. Two of them, a Dragonite (a dragon humanoid of a combat species) named Duuz, and a human woman named Valeria, made a cameo in one episode of Outlaw Star, episode 19, with no additional context for them barring being on the side of security forces against pirates, which makes this a fascinating mirror to have created. This is Meifon Li's story however, entirely hers as the centre of its main narrative thrust, and a figure vastly different from how Outlaw Star, fully an ensemble cast, nonetheless had a cocky fiery male lead, whilst Meifon Li is marketable for a different reason.

It is creepy she is explicitly sixteen as, frankly, her costume design and her silhouette is explicitly with sex appeal, her design exaggerated (and sometimes) depicted with an eroticism, alongside the fact that, including a cat-bat thing named Taffei as a pet which can turn into a sword, even her character design stands out alongside having the most plot, leaving everyone else decidedly the background side characters despite some background narratives for a couple. Meifon's past is marked from the first episode, as there is a grave in a cemetery there marking her death at seventeen whilst she is still alive, progressive a sword of Damocles over her head. The show for its first few episodes though is very lightweight and comedic, Angels Links an example of how the last episode is alien to the first in progression and tone.

It takes a lot of build for just thirteen episodes to get ahead with this plot, very episodic for the first quarter. It starts as a broad show, if with the touch that, unlike Outlaw Star, the crew of Angel Links are more inclined to obliterate space pirates into dust with their super beam cannon. It has cartoonish villains for episodes, where the rival president of another protection firm, hiring mercenaries to snuff them out, is a stereotypical evil large man with a pet pig, or one joke which was funny in episode 2 with mob bosses, one eating sundaes and the other spaghetti, where their minions are eating the same in unison on mass before an explosive argument transpires. The one figure who does carry over from these first episodes though, introduced in episode one, is Leon Lou, who becomes very important as a business man rescued by Angel Links. There is a potential romance with Meifon Li, all in spite of the obvious issue with her age and that her back-story, and its secrets, is interlink with him and become central to the proper drama.

Honestly the rinse repeat nature of these early episodes, very episodic, do reveal the huge problems with this show, that for all the animation budget still there, the bombastic opening and closing themes, and that the story of Meifon Li is meant to be eventually a sombre one where she even questions who she is, Angel Links takes too long to get anywhere. The tone of the first half going into the more serious later half has a lot to get through, [Huge Spoiler] that our female protagonist is an android, built from the real her by her grandfather who was killed, given the memories and the function as a figure with a temporary lifespan to kill Leon Lou, who is a space pirate connected to him in the past [Spoilers End]. The issue is that it is absolutely undercut by this feeling like it should have been twenty four episodes like Outlaw Star was, but even under thirteen episodes, most of the episodes of this do not feel structured to make this work, or that this even with the episodic episodes do not stand out.

And, honestly, most of the drama just being ordinary in how it was executed, saying a lot that the stand out episode from this entire episode for me was none of the drama but episode 4, LiEF〜Living Ether Flier〜, the one which feels like an Outlaw Star episode or, to give Angel Links a chance outside its shadow, one which feels like an exploration of the world itself. It follows "LIEFs", either absorbing living spaceships which are effectively sci-fi space whales, an endangered species protected and watched by tourists when they travel with their young as incredible ethereal behemoths, but are targets for poachers for dragon stones in the body, a fuel source, or in the episode itself for a presumed immortality remedy. This episode works, as a more comedic story which yet expands the world beyond the stars, with a completely unnatural form in the centre, and with space action still a central part, action set pieces which stand out against a legitimately fantastical concept that it compelling.

The episode afterwards however, The Rain upon the Stars, manages to reveal so many of its flaws, including its weight on importance on Meifon's tragedy, instantly in just the episode afterwards. Episode five introducing a female space pirate named Jesia, and leads to the male left hand man Kosei Hida and his habit of winning women over becoming a flaw he is meek enough to feel guilty about, especially as it is explicit he is smitten over his captain Meifon. Episode five pretty much has Kosei bumping into multiple ex-girlfriends when trying to appease Jesia, who is fixated on him, but the episode's twist fully exposes the problems with Angel Links in its lack of weight, in that Jesia after being introduced is killed in the same episode, which is more out of place when the killer looks like T-Hawk, a Street Fighter beat-em-up character, undercutting the emotion fully. It emphasises, back with Outlaw Star, how that earlier show had a surprising lack of characters that died in that show, even grunts, and those who did had impact. There is also the fact this tries to cram a dynamic narrative into its length with Meifon which is as equally rushed.

There is enough here to stand out - between episodes 6, trying to tackle the back-story of Angel Links itself, which is interesting, and includes the dangers of attacking with ruthlessness, and episode 7 where Meifong's secrets even unknown to herself become more prominent. There is even another interesting candidate for the best episode, another lighter hearted one involving the Outsiders, vagrant pirates without ships who formed a mercenary group underground ran by a figure named Cyrus, again another which is expanding the world and the universe in interesting ways. By its ending however, it is fully the melodrama of Meifong's life, but as much as it has enough drama to work with, it does not have the time to stand out. [Major Spoiler] None of the existentialism that Melfina in Outlaw Star, a bio-android having to accept her fate, is here, and ending your villain by him abruptly falling into his own trap on purpose seems abrupt as it is ridiculous, alongside an unexpected escalation involving a virus he will unleash. [Spoilers End] It feels as well, to continue as a work without the cruel weight of the previous title, a science fiction story which does not have a lot which really stood out. Those episodes which did are outnumbered by those once the drama of the serious story fully begins which feel squandered, whilst those previous humorous stories fleshed out the world. Meifong's tale, despite taken centre stage, ultimately could be told in another science fiction setting and does not stand out.

Angel Links was excessively long to finish. It is strange how this production, a Sunrise developed series which still has a considerable amount of budget, can be reduced to this review which took less time to complete than the protracted time between episodes, but it was entirely that this struggled to actually reveal good moments, most of it did not win me over. This is entirely subjective, knowing the hard work which is put in any of these productions,  but Angel Links does feel average, and for reasons which are obvious for my personal tastes but with plenty that could have been successful with structural changes.

#232: Shadow Skill [The OVAs] (1995/1996/2004)

 

Studio: Zero-G [Shadow Skill 1 & 2]; Tandm [Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style]

Director: Hiroshi Negishi [Shadow Skill (1995)]; Yasuhiro Kuroda and Hiroshi Negishi [Shadow Skill (1996)]; Kazuya Ichikawa [Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style]

Screenplay: Mayori Sekijima [Shadow Skill (1995)]; Masanori Sekijimo [Shadow Skill (1996)]; Kurasumi Sunayama [Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style]

Based on the manga by Megumu Okada

Voice Cast: Megumi Hayashibara as Ella Lagu; Akio Matsuoka as Gau Ban; Bin Shimada as Rui Frasneel; Ikue Ōtani/Mikuni Shimokawa as Kyo Ryu; Yasunori Matsumoto as Scarface; Yuko Mizutani as Follymayer Razmatizer; Kiyoyuki Yanada as Koa Icks; Tamio Ohki as Jin Stolla; Yuko Mizutani as Fouly

All Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Shadow Skill was first published in 1992 as a manga. This is an interesting premise, an interesting world, but with the 1998 television series excluded from this list, for another day, the straight to video adaptations only cover a slither of something much more grander even as a martial arts action premise with a simple structure. There is also an odd chronology, in that the 1996 four part OVA is set before the first from 1995, emphasised by how Manga Entertainment makes the 1996 set "Shadow Skill the Movie", collected together as a feature as they were want to do, and the 1995 production the "Epilogue". These all set up the warrior kingdom of Kurda, part of a fantasy world where the first female "Sevaar", their title for their most powerful warriors, is Ella Lagu. A powerful figure in her "Shadow Skill" style, she is followed by her younger adopted brother Gau, who is being guided by her and Scarface, a legendary male warrior who sees he as much as her as a powerful force if nurtured. If he could ever complete the goal of defeating her in combat, Gau could become powerful, but he also loves Ella as a sister, who is just as strong and dangerous is pushed.

There is a concern that Gau, as the male character, is going to over shadow a much cooler female lead, but there is one catch which thankfully plays in to this, that she is voiced in the OVAs (and the series) by Megumi Hayashibara. Most will know her for Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), and she is a huge figure in voice actresses, throughout the nineties, including the fact she sung many of their credit themes. She qualifies as a bonafide star in the medium in the nineties, and it helps as well as, whilst Gau is a meek figure who is tugged and pulled in emotional conflicts, still not the strongest but capable of inhuman power when pushed, Ella is memorable. There are prominent differences between the first two OVAs, one of which is that the Epilogue has her as a more serious figure for its narrative. The contrast, found in a later 2004 OVA, is better, that she is a capable figure who is serious when she needs to be, but also allowed Hayashibara, known for characters like Lina Inverse in the Slayers franchise as much as a more serious character as in Evangelion. Introduced fighting a monstrous opponent in gladiatorial combat in the Movie OVAs, an entity with acid blood and can still fight having had his head decapitated, this is contrasted by the fact she is also greedy and obsessed with boozing, the later the cause of unpaid tabs much to Faulee's disbelief.

The Movie provides the most time for the side characters too, even if sadly not as much still, not even covering a male character who briefly appears in the epilogue but never seen in any of the other OVAS. Both female, both these characters would have been more rewarding then they were if there was more stories to go with, with episodes devoted to them already in the Movie segments. There is Faulee, a former nemesis and a talisman sorceress whose intentions to kill Ella became a change to admiring her as a close friend, in spite of Ella's foibles, whilst Kyuo has a really distinct look due to the character designs by Shin Matsuo in the Movie OVAs, closer to the source manga, a Robin Hood-like green costume as the grandniece and apprentice of a beast slayer, armed with steel rings with wires that cut into monstrous flesh as well as pin them. Her episode introducing her is the best of the entire Movie OVAs, what one wished Shadow Skill as a longer tale was, as it matches its action based tone with that of high fantasy and explicit horror, of demonic entities and fighters even able to weaponize ones blood and Kyuo out to avenge her granduncle's death at the hands of the "Moon King", an awesome monster design not just for the obvious, a werewolf centaur with the ability to regenerate mortal wounds in the power of the moonlight, but because the design evokes how, like an epic high fantasy story if remade today, this world has an evocative imagination in its centre. Even as a video game with a high budget let alone as an anime, Shadow Skill has a world and style which is vivid in its imagination as it is violent and over-the-top.

Here I admit, whilst both are distinct from the pre-2000s OVA, that I prefer the Movie's look, which is very unconventional. The Epilogue looks more "conventional", whilst the Movie has more angular facial features on the characters and a costume design which, for me, befits a world that, even in very little, oozes in lore even if never seen, which neither the later 2000s OVA ever gets to. The world inherently won me over in its combination of high fantasy, even ancient Greek and Roman influence in architecture, and Japanese lore seen in slithers, and it is contrasted by the fact this is a fighting anime, where the Shadow Skill is an unnatural one of gliding in the air if however contrasted as being entirely about kicking and leg work. Said explicitly in the Epilogue anime, even the Shadow Skill as martial arts has a compelling lore as it was created by female slaves, figures tortured and raped, forced to fight with their hands bound, the show having a potent world in little details like this. Even if Gou is technically the lead, and Scarface is there in his machinations moving the players around for utopian plans, this is a violent action story dominated by women.

Combined with the action content, very well animated, both the nineties OVAs are good. In 1998, there was a television series for twenty six episodes, but unfortunately, we also got in 2004 another OVA from Tandm, a studio created to having only made this production and nothing else¹. They made a very ill advised technical decision, entirely rendering it in CG created by ToonShader technology², the technology itself and cel shading, in animation and video games, capable of incredible work, but here a huge obstacle. This is a weird creative choice and not the only time this happened, as Dominion Tank Police, another OVA franchise from the nineties based on the Masamune Shirow manga, got a one-off 2006 OVA which was designed in polygonal cel shaded animation called TANK S.W.A.T. 01,  one where looking at the screenshots alone shows it was a bad decision. In this case, the technology itself had the full potential, but in context here, the time needed to perfect it involved a budget this did not have. The follow up went the wrong direction entirely in many ways, including from the get-go with this animation change. Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style, to give the third OVA its proper name, is an attempt to continue the franchise, with key cast members returning, and Megumi Hayashibara significantly back as Ella, but completely within an aesthetic choice that is not suitable for the production at all before you get to the plot.

A man named Death Wind wishes to acquire a MacGuffin of an unknown "Genesis technique", challenging the sevaar and her brother Gau who go to protect the land from this. Everyone looks like a doll from a different animated series I might have watched on a Saturday morning as a kid. This is not an insult to those types of shows, but here it is a really crippling creative decision, especially as you lose the elaborate onscreen world building and the character designs, alongside the fact you cannot have the elaborate fight sequences as the form makes it impossible to do. The production has its own obsolete mood, least in the environment designs evoking a Myst adventure game clone, or the music having an esoteric mix of tribal ambient and electronic noise experiments, but it comes in mind of its style being an absolute disadvantage.

There is some creativity in the art style, which shows what could be done, specifically that all the flashbacks, even if evoking graphite (or Microsoft Paint graphite) painting, are done in silhouettes with an imaginative style that I will praise. It is still an art style, with its clear budget and production restrictions, for an entirely different type of work, like a horror story with minimal kineticism and lengthy dialogue, which is pertinent as this sequel's other huge problem is that, with lengthy discussion scenes, the story even next to the simple ones of before is not good. There is interesting ideas here, such as a training golem, built with the skull of the founder to train the secret techniques, but alongside this falling into the danger of the premise's structure, of maligning Ella for the far less interesting Gau, who Death Wing wants to tempt to his side, but this became a slog. Alongside the style undercutting it, the golem not looking remotely as good as the Moon King as before, this has lengthy and tedious dialogue sequences to compensate for the restrictions, including Death Wing using arguments to win over Gau, about punishing sin before it happens, so loose a college critical thinking coarse knowledge could destroy it. This even rewrites the lore of the Shadow Skill, no longer explicitly the martial arts style created by female slaves but "slaves" in a generic way, which does fully reveal how even the simplistic plot gets everything wrong as well. The side characters only have a cameo, and even Megumi Hayashibara, the big voice actor of this production, feel maligned as well.

Sadly, this closed the book on this era of the Shadow Skill franchise, as when the manga ended in 1998, there would be no animated adaptations in the rest of the 2000s and the 2010s. Just from the OVAs from the nineties, there is a tantalising world here I wished would be remade to show its virtues. With Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style, there is a reason few may even know it exists, and it is a damn squib to end the world on.

 

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1) Tandm's Anime News Network page.

2) Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style's Anime News Network page.