Back to NerdicWarrior's Profile NerdicWarrior's Profile 3w5f54

Didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did.
I'd seen the trailer for Vampire Wars on a few Manga Entertainment DVD releases back in the 2000s and it looked to me like another ho-hum, throw away sex and violence title from Manga's library. Having decided on a whim one night to give it a try, I ended up finding myself presently suprised.

Based on a pulp novel series by Kiyoshi Kasai and produced by Toei Animation with Kazuhisa Takenouchi as director, Vampire Wars follows Kuki Kosaburo, a former mercenary living in the red light district of Paris who spends his time on prostitutes and booze. ... After failing to protect a sex worker friend of his from a psychopath and being framed for her murder, Kuki is forced back into service by a shady government agency who want to use him to investigate a terrorist attack on the NASA base in Arizona and the mysterious murder of a French Secret Service agent, which are believed to have been carried out by vampires. If he completes his assignment, he will be granted a full pardon for his alleged crime.
Kuki's search eventually leads him to Lamia Vindaw, a popular young actress who isn't all that she seems and is being targeted not only by the vampires but also the same government agency that hired Kuki along with the CIA.

The story is very good and really grabs your attention while throwing some great suprising twists along the way, even if suffering from some over complexity while being rather silly and dumb in some places. Plus it also suffers from exposition dumping though character dialogue at some points. The animation is decent enough despite looking like it was done on a budget and the action scenes are pretty solid showing that Toei certainly had some of their best animators on this.
That being said, characters get practically no form of development which is pretty typical of your standard half hour B-movie OVA title.
And of course, there is the English dub produced in house by Manga Entertainment which is cheesy as all hell and packed with some stilted performances and hokey American accents. And with the OVA being set in Paris we also get to hear British actors giving their hokiest French accents and, oh boy are they hokey!

Overall, Vampire Wars really doesn't deserve it's status of being one of the worst animes out there. Is it a great vampire/horror anime or one of the best animes in general? No, clearly not.
If anything it's pretty much shlocky B-movie fun that's worth a look.

I've read some of the reviews on this little 80s OVA gore fest and having watched it for myself, I honestly don't think it deserves the hate it's received. Not to say that it's one of the greatest animes to come out of the OVA boom of the 80s.

Beginning in 1987 and being the sole directorial work of Hiroaki Oogami, Maryuu Senki a.k.a. Evil Dragon War Chronicles is pretty much your typical ultra violence title of the OVA boom ment to push the boundaries of what television broadcast standards would deem unacceptable. It's an anime that would have been easy pickings for western anime ... distributors of the early 90s such as the UK's Manga Entertainment, who were mostly looking for anything involving sex and violence that they could market to Britain's Beer & Curry crowd.
In other words, teenage boys and young adult men.

Oddly enough, the OVA would not receive any form of official release outside of Japan and hasn't even so much as recived any form of DVD or Blu-Ray with it's only form of disc based media release being laser disc. Although, this was likely due to it not selling well in Japan which may or may not have been attributed to it being part of the Pink Noise series of OVAs which consisted of titles such as supernatural horror/bawdy sex comedy Call Me Tonight and the tokusatsu Metal Hero inspired one shot OVA Campus Special Investigator Hikaruon, none of which sold well either.
It also doesn't help that it suffered from production issues such as a change in hands from AIC to Bandai Visual which left the series stuck in limbo until 1989 where it was finally competed, resulting in the original story treatment for part 2 being scrapped (part 1 ends with a preview of part 2 that shows scenes that don't appear in part 2 at all).

Centuries ago in ancient Japan, a cult a shamans called the Kido ruled the country from the shadows. Although hunted down and exterminated by those who feared their power, a small group of their number managed to survive and hoped to regain their power by performing a dark ritual to summon the Four Sacred Beasts into human bodies.
Now it's 1989 and the Kido have once again risen to attempt the ritual again in Shinjuku, Tokyo and are searching for the reincarnation of Suzaku, the Vermilion Bird of the South to complete the ritual under the command of their leader, shady businessman Miki Chiyoe who is the reincarnation of Seiryu, the Azure Dragon of the East. Chiyoe has discovered that sculptor and martial artist Kyoichi Hiyu, the anime's protagonist is the human reincarnation of Byakko, the White Tiger of the West and believes he may be connected to the other two Sacred Beasts.
Gendo, a monk who is also Hiyu's grandfather and sensei is the reincarnation of Genbu, the Black Tortoise of the North and Hiyu's girlfriend Shiho Murase in the reincarnation of Suzaku, who Chiyoe is looking for. And so begins a race to protect Shiho from Chiyoe in order to prevent him from carrying out the dark ritual that will restore the Kido cult to power leading to carnage and bloody battles against some terrifying demonic creatures. And when I say bloody battles, I mean bloody!

Okay, so the story may not exactly be anything special but it's still pretty solid for the most part being a typical good vs evil story where our heroes are mere mortal humans who happen to possess extraordinary abilities while the villains are demonic entities with otherworldly powers, packing suspense while offering plenty of tension fuelled action. Sadly, characters don't really get much in the way of development, if any at all.
The animation is also pretty good, if suffering from some issues in some places. However, where the anime really shines it's it's art style, especially in part 1 which looks outstanding and has some amazing attention to detail. Part 2 is where the change in the production company can definitely be felt as not only do we get a change in art style but in character design as well, some of the design changes being more noticeable than others. Although the animation does get some improvement over the first part.
Oh, and I hope you have a least some knowledge of the Four Heavenly Beasts of Chinese mythology because you're gonna need it while watching this anime

Maryuu Senki is not an anime without it's flaws, of which there are a lot. On the other hand, it's not a bad little OVA and it certainly doesn't deserve to be relegated to total obscurity. The story is pretty decent and packs tension while the animation and art are a feast for the eyes.
Apparently, Yoshiaki Kawajiri was such a fan of the first OVA that would use it as inspiration for his own OVA feature, Demon City Shinjuku in 1988.
If you're a fan of 80s horror movies that are heavy on blood and gore looking for a solid late night horror title, then get yourself a curry, crack open a beer and give this a shot.

I have to be perfectly honest, I really don't think this show lives up to the hype surrounding it.
I mean, sure I see the appeal of it, especially as a cosplayer myself and yes Marin Kitagawa is cute and very likeable. However, the series is pretty much a typical paint by numbers slice of life romantic comedy with a milquetoast male protagonist ment to serve as wish fulfilment for the lonely male demographic.
And of course, there is fan service because you can't have a show themed around cosplay without it.

Wakana Gojo, our said male protagonist, is a typical high school student who happens to have ... a hobby crafting hina dolls, a trade he learned from his grandfather as a young boy. However, due to a bitter memory of a female childhood friend criticising him for "playing with dolls" and thus ending their friendship, Gojo is recluse with no friends and no self confidence who keeps his hobby and love of hina dolls to himself. His life ends up taking a unexpected turn when he meets Marin Kitagawa, a typical cute and bubbly classmate who, in contrast to Gojo, is popular at school and not at all shy about her hobby, which happens to be anime. And ero games.
Marin, upon discovering Gojo's hobby, does not belittle or ridicule him and actually takes interest in the craft of his hobby which in turn leads to Marin expressing her interest in cosplaying the characters she loves. Gojo offers to make Marin's dreams of cosplay a reality by using his knowledge of crafting outfits for hina dolls to create costumes for Marin which leads to the two striking up a friendship and maybe something more as Gojo creates costume after costume for Marin to wear at various cosplay events where more often than not hijinx and your typical rom-com schtick ensue.

Given my introduction in this review, you probably think I hate this anime with a ion and are likely expecting me to ruthlessly tear it to shreds. On the contrary, there were parts of My Dress Up Darling that I enjoyed. However, it also left much to be desired.
Let's start with the elephant in the room that is Marin Kitagawa. She easily could have been just another cute and bubbly anime girl relegated to pure fan service bait. And while the fan service and (rather uncomfortable) sexualization is certainly there, she ends up being much more than another cliche anime waifu. Her cheerful and bubbly energy gives off a vibe that she's an overall fun person to be around which is no suprise why she's popular with her classmates, while her openness of her love of anime makes a perfect foil to Gojo's reclusiveness. She also expresses interest in Gojo's hobby upon discovering it showing that she isn't arrogant or conceited and doesn't let her popularity go to her head. She can sometimes be rather scatter brained which brings in much of the comedy.
Gojo on the other hand is a bland and rather dull protagonist who does get some form of development at least through his interactions with Marin as he begins to step outside of his comfort zone thanks to her encouragement and gains confidence in his craft. But like I said earlier, he is pretty much the standard male wish fulfilment character, the socially awkward recluse who somehow manages to attract the hot, popular girl.

Which leads me to the story. It's pretty much your typical high school tale of boy meets girl themed around cosplay. Besides the cosplay part, it really doesn't do anything we haven't seen before.

The animation on the other hand is excellent and is certainly one of the show's redeeming factors and the art style is pretty decent.

To conclude, My Dress Up Darling isn't the worst anime I've watched but it certainly isn't one of the best and for me, it really didn't live up to the hype. It's rather average at best.
But hey, other people seem to like it enough for it to warrant a second season which, at the time of this review, is due out sometime this year. Will I be watching it? I'm gonna have to say no. The first season was enough for me.

We all know how divisive the Sonic the Hedgehog fan community can be. Wether it's games, TV shows or even just the franchise in general, not a single Sonic fan can seem to see eye to eye on anything (with of course the recent live action movies being the only exception). The 1996 Sonic the Hedgehog OVA, originally a two parter that was compiled into a feature film and released as Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie in the west in 1999 is most certainly one such cause of division within the fanbase with some actually liking it while others regard it as the worst thing ... since Sonic Underground.
As for my humble opinion, it's not terrible but it's certainly not the greatest.

The story is fairly basic but fast paced and does what it sets out to do. Even if it does stray from the established lore of the games. The first part, named Journey to Eggmanland in the Japanese release, sees Sonic and Tails journey to Dr Eggman/Robotnik's home of Eggmanland (localised as Robotropolis in the English dub) to prevent a rouge generatior from exploding and thus destroying the whole planet, leading to a run in and battle with the giant Metal Robotnik (referred to as Black Eggman in the Japanese version), who is the one responsible for the generator going haywire, with Knuckles eventually showing up to help. The second part, Sonic vs Metal Sonic is pretty much what it says on the tin, focusing on the battle between Sonic and his robot doppelganger.

As for characters, we get the main trio of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles as the heroes with Eggman and Metal Sonic as the main villains and they're all handled as one would expect, Sonic is the cocky speedster, Tails the kid sidekick who's also a tech wizard and Eggman is the evil scientist who wants to destroy Sonic with his latest creation, Metal Sonic who is depicted as a cold and menacing machine who will stop at nothing to fulfil his programmed objective. Knuckles's character has been significantly altered from his video games counterpart being just a simple treasure hunter and not the guardian of the Master Emerald on Angel Island. He also sports a nifty looking cowboy hat for some reason.
The OVA also throws in some original characters, namely Sara who is apparently ment to be a replacement for Amy Rose as she has a one sided romantic interest in Sonic.
And... she's also the worst character in the anime. Besides being a tropey humanoid cat girl she is just absolutely annoying.

Where the OVA really shines is in it's animation and art style. The art is beautiful to look at with designs of the main characters being on point from their game counterparts. The animation is excellently done, especially during action scenes which are fast paced and exciting.
However the anime does contain some of the typical anime cliches and some rather out of place slap stick.
Sound wise, the OVA has an excellent music score composed by Mitsuhiro Tada along with the catchy technopop song Look-a-Like sung by Riyu Konaka as the ending theme. It's unfortunate that the soundtrack never got any form of release.

Of course, I have to address the elephant in the room which is the English dub by ADV Films.
It's pretty awful. Not only does it suffer from terrible voice performances (Tails' voice actor sounds like she's holding her nose while Sonic has this overly naisally voice that is just annoying) none of the voices really match the characters at all.

Sonic the Hedgehog the OVA may not be a perfect anime or one of the greatest things to come out of the Sonic franchise as a whole and story wise it does stray from the source material but it's certainly a fun ride with plenty of fast paced action, great animation and art, a great soundtrack and a simple yet fast paced story that I'm sure fans of the little blue rat will most certainly enjoy while the average anime fan or casual Sonic enjoyer will have some fun watching it.

It's Street Fighter but know as we know it.

Following on from the success of the Street Fighter II Animated Movie in 1994, animation studio Group Tac and director Gisaburō Sugii would return to Street Fighter in 1995 with Street Fighter II V, or Street Fighter II Victory as it's also known, a 29 episode TV series (the show's title being a play on this as 2 V sounds like TV) that unlike it's movie predecessor which was a somewhat faithful adaptation of the Street Fighter II video game would take many liberties from it's source material, particularly with the characters in of their ... designs, personalities and back stories.
For example, Ryu is 17 years old who is more happy-go-lucky and simple minded as opposed to his more stern and stoic personality he's known for. His design has also been significantly altered with his trademark headband now being traded for a prayer bead bracelet and he now sports spiked up hair which makes him look more like Akira from Sega's Virtua Fighter.
Ken, also 17, is a red head instead of blonde and Chun Li is now a tour guide instead of an Interpol officer seeking revenge for her the murder of her father, who is very much alive in this series.

Like the Street Fighter II movie, Street Fighter II V is primarily based on the game Super Street Fighter II Turbo and features most of the game's roster of characters. Only Blanka, E.Honda, Dee Jay and T.Hawk do not appear in the series. Though Akuma does make a few background cameos here and there.

The series follows Ryu and Ken who after suffering a brutal defeat at the hands of Guile after a run in with some U.S. Air Force officers at a bar one night, decide to go on a globe trotting journey to improve their martial arts skills, meeting various other characters from the Street Fighter game along the way such as Chun Li, Fei Long, Sagat and Dhalsim, eventually leading to a run in with the organisation Shadowlaw and it's mastermind, the evil and enigmatic M. Bison.

Story wise, Street Fighter II V isn't anything all that special. Most of the first half of the show's episodes consist of Ryu and Ken getting in some situation, a fight happens and the situation is resolved. That being said there are some good storylines in the first half such as Ryu being framed for drug possession while in Thailand leading to him being imprisoned with Sagat who has also been framed for the same crime while Ken tries to prove Ryu's innocence.
The characters aren't boring but they aren't anything special either as they don't really have much in the way of development and are rather one note (Ryu is the cheerful goofball who like a challenge, Ken is the cocky American rich kid, Chun Li is the peppy girl who can kick ass when she needs to, etc.). That being said the music in the series is nothing short of a masterpiece and contains many great music tracks that can easily be listened to outside of watching the show and the opening theme song, Kaze Fuiteru (The Wind Is Blowing) by Yuki Kuroda is a joy to listen to and oddly fits the series. Incidentally, the song was composed by J-Pop musician Ryo Aska who performed a song with his now defunct band Chage and Aska for the 1994 live action Street Fighter film.
The animation is also very well done with some fairly fluid fight scenes. Naturally it doesn't hold a candle to the Street Fighter II movie given that it's relegated to TV budget but it's certainly very well done.

Interestingly, the series would receive two different English dubs. One dub produced by Animaze and Manga Entertainment which would be released in the U.S. and Australia that used a new instrumental theme for the opening and ending and a dub produced by ADV Films that was released exclusively to the U.K. that used the original Japanese opening and ending songs. Both of which where released on VHS in 1997. The Animaze/Manga dub even has many of the cast from the Street Fighter II movie return to reprise their roles from the film.
However, only the Animaze/Manga dub would see re-release on DVD with the ADV dub not receiving any kind of re-release, making the ADV dub something of a lost commodity.

Do I recommend Street Fighter II V? Absolutely! Especially if you're a fan of the Street Fighter franchise as a whole. However the changes made to the characters may throw some fans or people familiar with Street Fighter off as they are pretty drastic changes. All I can say is try to look past the deviations from the source material and try to look at it from the perspective that it's different to what you already know and just roll with and who knows, you might just find yourself having a good time with it.

Before Jojo's Bizarre Adventure there was Baoh.
Published in Weekly Shonen Jump from October 1984 to February 1985, Baoh is one of Hirohiko Araki's many pre-Jojo works and was the first to display his signiture amount of ultra violence and gore.
The OVA produced by Studio Pierrot and distributed by Toho (yes THAT Toho) in 1989 is your typical OVA that's ment to serve as a blatant ment for the manga it's based on.
Not to say that such OVAs are all terrible. In fact, the Baoh OVA is actually quite good.

Ikuro Hashizawa, a seventeen year old young man is turned into a human bio-weapon after the evil ... Doress Organisation infects him with a parasitic worm like creature named Baoh, which allows him to turn into a more monstrous form with superhuman strength and other abilities such as emitting corrosive substances and electrical discharge.
Ikuro manages to escape one night with a young psychic girl named Sumire and the two live on the run. The evil scientist who infected Ikuro with the Baoh parasite, Dr Kasuminome naturally isn't pleased that the product of his experiment is now roaming free and dispatches various assassins to seek and destroy Ikuro to cover his and the orginisation's tracks.

The OVA would receive praise from Hirohiko Araki as it faithfully adapted his original manga if making a few changes and omittions from the source material and felt that it was very well made.
He did however have some grievances as he felt that adapting the manga in it's entirety into a single OVA was a bit of a waste and would have preferred if it was adapted into two parts.
And to be fair to Araki, his grievances aren't wrong as the OVA does feel like it's trying to cram as much of it's source material into 48 minutes and even feels rushed at times, which is pretty much the standard for direct to video anime that is basically made to the manga it's adapting.
Inspite of it's short comings, the OVA does have a lot of good things going for it.
The story is intriguing with two very likeable lead characters that we are made to care for right from the get go while the villains who hunt them are unscrupulous to the point of being outright detestable making them the perfect baddies we love to hate while rooting for the heroes and the art style, character designs and animation are beautiful to look at.

Baoh may not be a perfect anime by any means but it's definitely a well made and well written little film that I recommend seeing, especially if you're a fan of Jojo and are interested in some of Hirohiko Araki's other works or if you're a fan of ultra violent action titles like Guyver.

There's really not a whole lot I can say about this anime. At least not what hasn't been said about it already.
The story starts off pretty standard sci-fi stuff with a rag tag space ship crew crash landing on an alien planet and banding together for survival before turning into what I can only describe as a messy hodge podge of ideas with psychic humanoids, gorilla like super soldiers and military dictators vying for dominance while a small band of rebel soldiers seek to take down said military dictators. Oh, and there's something about a robot super weapon as well. At least, that's what I ... got from it.
The characters aren't exactly any better either. The film has a large cast of characters but they're all just bland and uninteresting. While the animation is... able at best.
As for the English dub, it's pretty much Central Park Media at it's worst with terrible acting and some laughably bad dialogue.

Hyper-Psychic Geo Garaga is a forgotten anime that is honestly best left forgotten. It's a dull, boring hour and a half long movie that pretty much tries to throw every idea at the wall and sees what sticks resulting in one great big boring mess that is just an absolute chore to sit through.

I've got to be honest, I actually went into this anime without having played the video game it's based on. Sure, as a Sega fan I certainly knew about it and had seen pictures and some gameplay footage but I had practically no knowledge of what the game was about other than it being a rail shooter with a dragon.
Which ment that for the purpose of this review, I had to go and do a little bit of research on the game's story.

In any case, the OVA follows the basic plot of the game but with some changes such as giving the protagonist Kyle (originally ... named Keil in the game) a girlfriend who is kidnapped and forcibly fused with the main antagonist Black Dragon, making for another cliche "hero has to rescue the girl" plot which proceeds at a break neck pace leaving very little time to breathe or go into any further depth in of world building.
The animation is a messy hodge podge of 2D and 3D thanks to the use of mid 1990s CGI backgrounds while reusing some of the same animation cycles over and over.
And while I can't speak for the original Japanese dub, the English dub by ADV Films is just plain awful with stilted performances and some laughably bad dialogue.
Oh and the characters? There's not really a whole lot I can say about them other than they're just not interesting at all.

Panzer Dragoon the OVA is honestly not an anime I would recommend. The story is dull and cliched, the animation looks and feels cheap and the characters are just plain uninteresting.
This is another one of those animes that you're better off skipping altogether. The average anime enjoyer will likely find it an underwhelming experience while fans of the game it's based on will likely be disappointed.

Let's face it, the only reason people this anime is because of the English dub produced by ADV Films written by Steven Foster, which is known for it's raunchy, self aware humour that features fourth wall breaks and politically incorrect jokes (which they likely couldn't get away with today).
Other than that, it's basically just Scooby Doo with ghosts from Japanese folklore and less of the charm, which makes for a boring experience that I'm afraid not even the dub could save it from even with talent such as Hilary Haag, Chris Patton, Greg Ayres and Rob Mungle behind it.

The series is pretty much episodic ... in nature with the only semblance of any over arching plot being an evil spirit posessing a cat belonging to one of the protagonists who is basically there to talk shit to them as they try to defeat whatever evil entity they face in that particular episode.

Ghost Stories is an anime that I honestly can't recommend to anyone, especially those of the easily offended disposition. It's dull, generic and there are plenty of other horror titles out there that are worth your time.

If you're at all familiar with the name Masami Obari, then you probably know what to expect from just about any anime his name is attached to.
Dangaizer 3 pretty much ticks all the Obari boxes. Sexy girls? Check. Giant robots? Check. Copious amounts of shameless fan service? Check and mate!

If you've seen Voltage Fighter Gowkaizer and thought that was bad, then hold on to your beer because when it comes to schlock Dangaizer takes the cake. Literally, if you know what I mean.

The plot is practically wafer thin and nonsensical, the characters are dull and uninteresting, and any action scenes are just plain boring. ... Much of the anime's focus is on the fan service which is in plentiful supply from your typical panty shots to full blown T&A and some ludicrously skimpy outfits.
The animation is decent enough though that is to be expected from an OVA from the late 90s and the design of the titular Dangaizer is certainly impressive showing that Obari certainly knows how to design a good mecha.

In conclusion, Dangaizer 3 is a shallow and just outright soulless little series that I can only recommend to the lowest denominator. The kind who couldn't give less of a shit about plot and characters and are only interested in the fan service. For anyone else I can only recommend spending your time elsewhere.