Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! ζ: Deus ex Rota II (Summer Lovin')

We've reached another third entry of this series where I look at a quarter of short OVA productions (i.e. no more than two episodes long), so just as we did in late 2022 with the third volume of OM, OM, OVA! this sixth volume has once again been chosen by a randomized virtual prize wheel! Last time this happened the results were a quartet that had no real shared theme between them (a toned-down adaptation of female erotica, a seemingly "impossible" anime sequel to a cult classic manga, a two-episode OVA solely meant to promote a fantasy manga, & Tatsunoko's 50th Anniversary production), and that's more or less what I kind of expect out of these prize wheel-determined volumes of OM, OM, OVA! that I plan on doing every third time around; a fun little grab bag that comes with no expectations beforehand. However, sometimes even random chance can have an overall theme to it, and that's the case here as The Almighty Wheel has chosen four OVAs that actually DO share an overall theme: Romance!

Specifically, The Wheel has picked two romantic comedies & two romantic dramas, so let's see how these OVAs fare for a guy who has had absolutely ZERO personal experience with romance! Still, the dog days of summer have already passed us by, so before I believe in a sign of zeta (or hope that better days are coming) I think I should have a blast, even if it happened so fast... Well-a well-a well-a huh!

"Tell me more, tell me more; did you get very far?" "Tell me more, tell me more; like does he have a car?"

We start off with a one-off that's actually a bit of an old cult-classic in English-speaking anime fandom, and also has a slightly more complex history behind it than you'd think: Outlanders. Released in late 1986, this ~45-minute OVA is based on the 1985-1987 manga of the same name by Johji Manabe than ran in Hakusensha's Monthly ComiComi for eight volumes & was actually Manabe's first serialized manga. Out of the four titles in this volume this is the least "romantic" of them all, as the manga is primarily a space opera, but there's still a focus on romantic comedy to be found, especially due in part to Manabe's love of drawing tough-yet-beautiful women; to no surprise, Manabe has made roughly as much adult manga & doujin as he's made other manga. As for Outlanders' history in English, it was actually one of the very first manga Dark Horse ever brought over (by way of the late Toren Smith & Studio Proteus), after being unable to license Akira, and while it certainly took a while all eight volumes would eventually see release in English between 1989 & 2000. As for the OVA, U.S. Renditions first licensed & released it via the Dark Image label in 1993 solely via dubbed VHS, with it being notable for featuring the only time legendary translator Trish Ledoux ever voiced a major character in a dub. In the mid-00s, though, Central Park Media would license rescue the OVA for a dual-audio DVD release (one of the company's final releases, in general), deciding to make a brand new dub in place of including the original one & even putting the casting of the four major roles to a fan poll; the OG dub was done by Animaze, while TripWire Productions handled the CPM dub. However, I'll just be going off of the original Japanese in this case, but let's see if Outlanders is still good enough to maintain that cult-favorite status.

Earth is suddenly invaded by an alien warship, and the military is more or less helpless against it. Japanese photographer Tetsuya Wakatsuki finds himself in the middle of an utterly one-sided fight with a humanoid woman wielding a sword, and when she goes for him he manages to parry her with his camera, before holding her back against a wall. Impressed, the woman kisses Tetsuya & knocks him out during his confusion. Tetsuya awakens inside the warship & finds out that the woman, Kahm, is the princess of the Evascurazen Empire, which feels that humanity has invaded their "sacred planet" & must be destroyed. Kahm, however, has become smitten with Tetsuya & wants to marry him, partially to save Earth & partially because she doesn't want her Emperor father to decide who she will marry, since her eventual child would be the heir of the Empire itself. Upon their arrival at the Evascurazen home planet, though, the Emperor instantly declares that Tetsuya must be executed, so it's up to Kahm & two friends, catgirl Battia & her wolfman boyfriend Geobaldy, to rescue Tetsuya & escape from the Empire so that they can elope.

Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle: "Seiya May Cry"? "Saint Gaiden"? How About "Sanctuary Musou"?

Being an iconic manga to come from Weekly Shonen Jump's "Golden Age", it's only natural that Saint Seiya has seen its fair share of video game adaptations, & when it comes to Masami Kurumada all but one video game adapted from his works is based on Saint Seiya; that outlier would be the Ring ni Kakero game for the Super Famicom, which I covered back in 2011. When it comes to Seiya, though, there actually isn't too much variety between the various video game adaptations. The very first would be 1987 & 1988's Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu/Golden Legend, a two-part Famicom RPG/action-platformer that together adapt the entire Sanctuary Chapter, & in 2003 the two games would be fused together & remade on the WonderSwan Color as Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu-hen Perfect Edition; these games are also generally considered quite trash. After a card battler RPG for the Game Boy in 1992 & a typing game for PC in 2002, the majority of the remaining Seiya video games that have been made all fit a single genre: Fighting games. In fact, even if you include the various mobile games based on Saint Seiya made in the past decade, you'd still get almost nothing but card games, RPGs, & fighting games, plus the single requisite slot machine & pachinko title. Out of the entire catalog of Saint Seiya video games, there's only one of them that released on a home console that is neither an RPG, card battler, nor fighting game.

Well, OK, it does involve fighting, but it's instead more of a beat-em-up or "character action" game.

Founded in 2000 by the legendary Takashi Nishiyama (creator of Moon Patrol, Kung-Fu Master, Street Fighter, & Fatal Fury), Dimps Corporation is an Osaka-based game studio that, true to its founder, quickly became known for its prowess in making fighting games; that said, Dimps does also develop in other genres, too. In particular, Dimps would become especially reliable for making fighting games based on various anime & manga, like Digimon, Shaman King, InuYasha, One Piece, Dragon Ball, etc., so it's only natural that Dimps would eventually be handed the job of making a Saint Seiya fighting game. That would come about in 2005 with Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary for the PlayStation 2, a 2.5D fighter (with sidestepping) based on the Sanctuary Chapter, specifically the battles with the Gold Saints, and in 2007 a sequel would be released on the PS2 titled Saint Seiya: The Hades, which obviously was a similar fighter based on the Hades Chapter, specifically the first portion taking place in Sanctuary; seeing as the series is super popular in Europe these two games did see English release in PAL regions. This duo of games was essentially the basis for two full 3D arena fighters later developed by Dimps, 2013's Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers & 2015's Saint Seiya: Soldiers' Soul, which both came out for the PS3 (as well as PS4 & PC for the latter) & opened up the roster to the entirety of the manga/anime's plot; also, since digital-only releases were now more of a thing, these two games did in fact see release in North America. However, in between these two pairs of fighting games (& taking aside the Saint Seiya Omega PSP fighting game & Saint Seiya Online, neither of which came from Dimps), there's one more Dimps-developed Seiya game to bring up... and it's the aforementioned "character action" game.

Released in Japan on November 23, 2011, Saint Seiya Senki/Record of Saint Seiya War was the first Saint Seiya video game released for an HD-compatible console, specifically the PlayStation 3. Unlike its prior two efforts, Dimps did NOT make a fighter & instead developed a stage-based 3D action game, with the game split up between stages where players took on large swaths of foes at once, a la the Musou Series, & stages where players took on a single powerful boss. That being said, though, this game was still only adapting the Sanctuary Chapter, specifically the battles with the Gold Saints; iconography & all, you know? Just as with the prior two games on the PS2, though, Saint Seiya's popularity in certain other regions did result in the game getting an English translation & release in Europe (& even South America, this time!) in 2012, now under the title Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle. In fact, Europe even received two different special edition releases of Sanctuary Battle, one that came with a Myth Coth figure & one that came with a life-size plastic replica of the Gold Sagittarius Cloth's headpiece(!), complete with a stand to display it. Compared to the two arena fighters that came before it, Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle was generally received a little bit more warmly than its precursors, though the reception was still mixed overall. However, I remember playing the game back in the day & enjoying it, and since this year is (mostly) about celebrating Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary in manga I think it's time I give Sanctuary Battle another go & see how it holds up, especially as in the ~13 years since its original release it remains a true outlier amongst Saint Seiya video game adaptations.

Masami Kurumada 50th Anniversary Trivia Track: Six Neat, Important, or Interesting Factoids

On "August 12, 1974" (or thereabouts) Issue #33 of Weekly Shonen Jump for that year saw the appearance of a one-shot manga in the third-to-last spot. This one-shot was titled Sukeban Arashi/Delinquent Storm & was made by a 19-year old newbie named Masami Kurumada, a resident of Tsukushima, Chuo, Tokyo (the alleged birthplace of monjayaki) who had previously worked as an assistant for artist Ko Inoue for the baseball manga Samurai Giants, which itself would end just nine issues later. It is now exactly 50 years since that date, and over the course of those five decades Masami Kurumada went from a simple delinquent-turned-"mangaya" to an iconic & influential mangaka who focuses primarily on making action-packed manga for male readers, but with a goal of also attracting a female readership by way of his art style, which by his own words (though the website that had it has unfortunately gone away) tries to "find a way to simultaneously express the dynamics & power of shonen manga with the elegance & fantasy of shojo manga".

"My characters will kick ass & bleed buckets,
but they'll also look utterly FABULOUS while doing so!"

While Sukeban Arashi wound up not becoming a hit by any means, Kurumada would go on to find great success with some of his later manga, namely Ring ni Kakero (1976-1981), Fuma no Kojirou (1982-1983), Saint Seiya (1986-1990), & B't X (1994-2000), becoming a mangaka who would later inspire others to become managka themselves, like Takehiko Inoue, CLAMP, Yun Kouga, & Tite Kubo, or influence his contemporaries to follow in his lead, like Yudetamago, Yoichi Takahashi, Tetsuo Hara, & Akira Toriyama. A ton of what makes shonen action manga such a popular & beloved genre around the world is owed, in part, to Masami Kurumada setting so much of it in stone with Ring ni Kakero, so much so that in 2014 Shueisha even promoted it for its digital re-release as the "Hot-Blooded Fighting Manga Bible", despite it technically being a boxing manga. Throughout this entire year I've been writing reviews & other pieces related to Kurumada's various manga to celebrate his 50th Anniversary year. However, for the literal day of the 50th Anniversary itself, let's take a look at six bits of fun and/or cool trivia I've managed to dig up regarding the man himself.

Otoko Zaka (The Shonen Jump+ Run): 未完 No More

Previously on the Otoko Zaka Review:

"Masami Kurumada has so far taken his second chance at making Otoko Zaka, and given it the love & care he always planned for...After roughly 24 years, Masami Kurumada has finally returned home..."

'He's coming home, he's coming home; tell the world he's coming home.

Let the rain wash away all the pain of cancelling.

He knows Shonen Jump awaits, & he's forgiven their mistakes.

He's coming home, he's coming home; tell the world he's coming...home.'

On "November 16, 1992" (or thereabouts) the final weekly chapter of Silent Knight Sho was serialized in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, & with it marked the end of Masami Kurumada's 18-year run with the magazine. Aside from an irregular run in Super Jump for Akane-Iro no Kaze through 1993 & 1994, Kurumada wouldn't publish another new manga with Shueisha until 2000 with Ring ni Kakero 2, also through Super Jump. While he still allowed Shueisha to re-publish his old works throughout all this it seemed as though Kurumada was done with Shonen Jump & its "Jump Comics" label... until 2014. As part of his 40th Anniversary celebration Masami Kurumada decide to revive Otoko Zaka, the 1984 manga he intended to be his magnum opus but wound up seeing cancellation in 1985 after 30 weekly chapters, infamously using the kanji "未完/mikan", or "Incomplete", on the final page to emphasize his dissatisfaction at the time. While this revival would be serialized in the digital pages of Weekly PlayNews, the new physical tankouban for Otoko Zaka would still be published under the "Jump Comics" label, to maintain continuity with the initial three volumes that collected the original Shonen Jump run; similar treatment had previously been given to Bastard!!, Ninku, & JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

However, the revival of Otoko Zaka would only be serialized through Weekly PlayNews from 2014 to 2016 across three chunks, which made up Volumes 4 to 6. That's because shortly after Otoko Zaka's return Shueisha debuted a new digital manga platform, and eventually it was seemingly decided that since Otoko Zaka debuted in "Shonen Jump" then it should end in "Shonen Jump".

Yeah, it's weird to make the literal final page the opening image...
But for a manga with history like this, it's only fitting.

Launched on September 22, 2014, Shonen Jump+ was created to replace Jump LIVE, a short-lived digital manga platform from Shueisha, and not only offered a digital version of each new issue of Weekly Shonen Jump for a fee but would also be the home of various manga serializations that were exclusive to Jump+, ones that would be allowed more relaxed restrictions than over at the magazine itself, similar to titles that run in Jump's monthly magazine counterpart, Jump Square. This is where titles like Spy x Family, Astra Lost in Space, Summer Time Rendering, Kaiju No. 8, Kindergarten Wars, Fire Punch, & the current run of Chainsaw Man all come from, and in 2023 Shueisha promised to simulpublish almost every new manga that debuts in Shonen Jump+ in English via its Manga Plus app; the only exceptions are manga based on licensed IP & ones labeled "Indies". Eventually it was decided that the revival of Otoko Zaka would get moved over to Shonen Jump+, and on July 14, 2017 the first chapter of what would later become Volume 7 of Otoko Zaka was published digitally on Jump+, marking the first time in roughly 25 years that a "new" Masami Kurumada manga was being serialized in "Shonen Jump"; however, all future volumes would continue to use the "Jump Comics" brand, instead of the "Jump Comics+" brand Jump+-exclusives use. After all this time, it felt as though Masami Kurumada had truly returned "home".

Masami Kurumada would publish Otoko Zaka via Shonen Jump+ across six chunks (in 2017, 2018, twice in 2020, & twice in 2023), and on November 11, 2023 the true final chapter of Otoko Zaka, fittingly titled Farewell, Jingi, was published on Jump+, bringing a definitive end to a manga Kurumada had first started back in July of 1984. It took Kurumada nearly 40 years, but the story of Jingi Kikukawa had finally come to an end, totaling 72 chapters (90, if you go off the original run's weekly chapter count) across 11 volumes, 60 of which came from the revival's eight new volumes of content between 2014 & 2023. I first reviewed Otoko Zaka back in 2015, where I covered "The Original Run", & then returned to it in 2018, where I covered "The Weekly PlayNews Run", so now it's finally time that I do like Kurumada & finish what I started. As part of this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary in manga, let's go over Volumes 7 to 11 of Otoko Zaka, i.e. "The Shonen Jump+ Run".

Obscusion B-Side: Not-Quite-Limitless Potential: Playing Half-Life 1 & 2 on Comparative "Potato" Consoles

Normally, something like Half-Life would be the furthest thing from a subject I'd cover over here. After all, this series from Valve is one of the most influential video games of all time, both for the first-person shooter genre itself as well as gaming as a whole due to its revolutionary storytelling techniques via the exclusive usage of scripted sequences instead of cutscenes, its excellent gameplay that mixes together traditional FPS gameplay with a heavier focus on environmental puzzle solving & the like, and its habit of being on the cutting edge of technology via its game engines, whether it was GoldSrc for Half-Life in 1998, Source (& Havok, for the physics) for Half-Life 2 in 2004, or Source 2 (& VR, in general) for Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. Without a doubt, Half-Life is one of the most important video game franchises of all time, and the games themselves are some of the best I've ever played. These games have been picked apart to no end by countless other people online, so what can I possibly provide in that regard?

Well, as Stephen Colbert will sometimes joke on The Late Show, the answer... "is potato".

In tech speak, a "potato" is a piece of hardware that has much-too-low specs compared to what someone is trying to utilize it for. In terms of gaming that would equate to trying to play a game on a computer using hardware that likely isn't even quite up to snuff with the minimum requirements, but you're still curious about just what'll happen if you boot the game up regardless; I mean, there's a mod for Doom 3 that lets it run on Windows 98 & a Voodoo2 card... and it's amazing. This is because PC hardware is an ever-evolving thing, while their console brethren are (for the most part) fixed architecture, and it wasn't until the seventh generation in the mid-00s (at the very earliest) that the gap between the two truly lessened, as console manufacturers started to simply rely primarily on PC-based hardware to power their machines. Therefore, when a PC game from the 90s got ported to console at the time it was often a case of having it play on a comparative "potato" when put against the PC tech it was designed to work with. In that regard, Valve has been rather conservative when it comes to releasing its games on console, & that's doubly so when it comes to Half-Life, as the first game only saw one official console port released (for the PlayStation 2), while Half-Life 2 only saw "two" (for the Xbox, & later Xbox 360/PS3 via The Orange Box). Therefore, on this 20th Anniversary year of Half-Life 2's original release on PC, I want to see how well these amazing games still hold up when played in their most potato-y of forms.

For Half-Life 2 that means revisiting it on the original Xbox, which is actually how I first played the game back in the day, but before that we should revisit the original Half-Life & for that it means playing something that wasn't actually released... at least officially.