#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.