I can't promise that this is the end of the dog puns.
 |
| "Inu-hei: Kako no Kage" |
Up first is something that could have potentially fit another theme I have in the wings for an eventual OM, OM, OVA!: Infamous OVAs. Originally starting out as an assistant to both Shinji Hiramatsu & Hiroshi Motomiya, Tetsuya Saruwatari got his start in Weekly Shonen Jump with titles like 1982's Umi no Senshi & 1984's Mr. Whitey, but neither really saw any success & it didn't take long for Saruwatari to move over to making seinen manga over in Young Jump. His first truly successful manga would be 1986's Dog Soldier, which eventually got moved over to Business Jump & ran until 1991 across 12 volumes; during this time Saruwatari also made the Riki-Oh manga in the same magazine, earning himself even more notoriety. In late 1989 a 45-minute OVA adaptation, Dog Soldier: Shadows of the Past (the title is 100% English, even in Japan), would see release in Japan, being a co-production between Animate-Film/MOVIC, J.C. Staff, & Sony Music Entertainment... the precursor to Aniplex. Central Park Media would license the Dog Soldier OVA (likely around the same time CPM licensed other Sony Music titles, like Crystal Triangle, Wanna-Be's, & Judge), initially releasing it sub-only on VHS & LD in 1992 or 1993 before re-releasing it dubbed on VHS in 1996; this never saw a DVD release containing both the dub & sub. For a certain generation of English-speaking anime fandom, the Dog Soldier OVA is one that is often ridiculed & derided as absolute dreck, but I came into anime from a (slightly) later generation of fandom, so let me see for myself.
John Kyosuke Hiba is an ex-Green Beret who left after refusing to kill innocents during a mission & is now working at a Japanese construction company alongside co-worker Masami Fudou, an ex-SDF "commando". During work one night the area they're working in is commandeered by the local US Army base forces, who are trying to recover a researcher who's been kidnapped via helicopter. Hiba tries to help by managing to get onto the helicopter's legs, but the entire thing gets shot down, and after a further scuffle the researcher's kidnapping is still successful. Hiba & Fudou are taken in by the Japanese government under the accusation of killing US Army personnel, but are instead offered the chance to clear their names by taking the job of recovering what the researcher was carrying: A supposed "biochemical weapon", later revealed to be an alleged AIDS vaccine. Hiba at first refuses, since he knows all too well how any nation's government works (& he could tell that the "kidnapping" was anything but), but soon finds out that the researcher is actually Cathy, an old childhood friend of his, and the man who she willingly got "kidnapped" by, notorious death merchant "Phantom", is actually Makoto, another childhood friend & the man Cathy has always loved; all three met as child orphans in the slums of Los Angeles. For Hiba, this mission is solely to rescue Cathy from Makoto's manipulative & revenge-fueled clutches, no matter how much Cathy wants to believe that Makoto is the same person they once knew him as.
Without a doubt, Tetsuya Saruwatari was inspired by Sylvester Stallone & his portrayal of John Rambo when it came to conceiving the visual design of John Kyosuke Hiba, and there is one bit early on that even shows a bit of Ryo Saeba when Hiba gets a look up Cathy's skirt when he tries to board the helicopter (fittingly, Akira Kamiya voices Hiba), but as you continue with the Dog Soldier OVA you quickly realize that it isn't quite a direct fusion of Rambo & City Hunter. Sure, there is a set piece in the second half where Makoto forces Hiba to act as the game for a group of hunters, which allows the OVA to be like an animated version of Rambo: First Blood for a few moments (&, to be fair, Hiba using his own arm like a makeshift mini bow was neat), but the large majority of this OVA is nowhere near as action-packed, violent, or even bloody as you would assume it'd be, considering the time frame it was made in, the general concept of Hiba himself, & even the mangaka. Sure, there are moments of action, but it's actually more subdued than you'd think in those moments, bloodshed is surprisingly tame in its usage, and instead the focus is more on the relationship between Hiba, Cathy, & Makoto, though it isn't exactly deep. There is also the element of whether or not the AIDS vaccine behind all of this is even real mattering in the long run, because in the end what's more important to a country like America is making sure that all the other countries think that you have the AIDS vaccine, thereby utilizing that very concept as a deterrent so that the other countries play nice. Again, Hiba doesn't want to play the game that governments are using him as a pawn in, and has only agreed to the mission so that he can save his old friend from what he plainly can tell is a psychologically abusive relationship.
The end result, then, is a bit of a weird 45-minute OVA, though one that I think was slightly overstated by the old guard of English anime fandom in just how abjectly terrible it is. Yeah, it's a flawed OVA in a number of ways, partially by not really delivering what you'd expect from it, but there have been much worse anime released in English, even for its time. This is seemingly an original plot (Wikipedia Japan even lists it an an "Original Anime", instead of an "OVA"), instead of a direct adaptation from the manga, so you can apparently blame writer Noboru "Sho" Aikawa for the flaws, instead of Tetsuya Saruwatari's manga script. I have no real familiarity with the manga, though it's been (very slowly) getting fan translated over the past decade, but considering what I know of Saruwatari's style I imagine it's much more of a "Rambo, but manga" style title, i.e. filled with action, violence, & maybe some sociopolitical commentary. The inclusion of Fudou also feels more like an "out of obligation" decision, due to him being a supporting cast member in the manga, because he barely contributes anything of note here, and his one "major" moment (taking out a tank with a rocket launcher) is 100% handled off screen. Instead, what we get with the Dog Soldier OVA is more of a character drama, with bits of action here & there, and while I can fully understand if some don't like it because of its flaws, I find it more as merely being "okay"; this certainly wasn't an "A Team" effort by Animate-Film & J.C. Staff, that's for sure. It's by no means the worst anime I've ever seen or covered on this blog, but it certainly isn't anything amazing, either.
 |
| "Houshoukin Inu: Getsumen no Eve" or "Shoukinkubi: Getsumen no Eve" |
We move from the 80s to the 90s, and next up is something that I had completely forgotten saw an English release, though that would partially be due to it releasing before I became a big anime fan. Another Animate-Film/MOVIC & J.C. Staff production (with the Majuu Sensen OVA review previously that makes three of these in a row!), though this time teaming with Toho & King Records, Bounty Dog: Eve of the Lunar Surface is an original two-episode OVA that came out in Japan between October & November of 1994. It was conceived of & designed by Zero-G Room, a studio founded by director Hiroshi Negishi (Tekkaman Blade, NG/VS Knight Lamune & 40) in 1991 that eventually got merged with Radix to form Radix Ace Entertainment in 2001, which itself was then merged with Mobanimation (of Legend of DUO "fame") to form Radix Mobanimation in 2007. All of this (legally) is a completely different studio than the Zero-G that Negishi would later found in 2011 & is still around to this day. Interestingly enough, Bounty Dog wouldn't get licensed for English release until Manga Entertainment started soliciting it for DVD in late 2000 from out of nowhere, though said release wouldn't seem to come out until early 2003 or so; also, Manga literally messed up Toho's name on the back cover credits, misspelling it "Tho". Reception at the time looked to be less than stellar, not helped by an apparently lackluster English dub that (for whatever reason) Manga made the literal only audio option on the DVD; yeah, a dub-only DVD release in 2003 for a near-decade old anime that had never been released in English before! However, OM, OM, OVA! only looks at the original Japanese versions of the OVAs covered, and luckily there does exist a fansub for that version, so let's see how Bounty Dog fares in its original form... the one that Manga Entertainment, oddly, didn't give as an option on its DVD release.
Yoshiyuki Otomo looks to be a journalist who's on his way to the Moon for an article regarding how it's since become a commercialized colony, of sorts. However, in truth he's part of a trio (alongside partner Kei Mimura & chief Shoko Uzuki) known collectively as Bounty Dog, spies for hire, and their mission is to covertly investigate the Costans Corporation, which operate out on the Moon. However, not too long into their mission, Yoshiyuki comes across a young woman named Ines, who looks remarkably like Yayoi Okina, his deceased girlfriend whose genetic information & brain patters now reside in his artificial right hand; Ines even quotes Yayoi's final line of seeing him on the Moon. However, after seeing some black suits knock out Ines during his own chase, Yoshiyuki saves her, starting he & his team's look into the mysterious "Project Kaguya", why there are multiple clones of Ines walking around the area... and what all of this has to do with Yoshiyuki & Yayoi.
Bounty Dog is a curious short-form OVA, because while on the whole I actually really enjoyed it (& likely feel that it's lackluster reception here was mostly due to a bad dub) there are some aspects of it that I will fully admit are either flaws or just really bizarre creative choices. For example, the story itself is a cool one, with Yoshiyuki's direct relation to everything slowly becoming more & more explained, and though there is a bit of a "chosen one" aspect to him for the finale it's not because of destiny or anything like that, but rather something more natural. It's also neat to see Episode 1 actually see the Bounty Dog trio fail at their job, mainly due to Yoshiyuki, followed by Episode 2 showing how good they actually can be when things are at their worst. There's also some dark tones that the OVA cleverly handles subtlety, namely when circumstances result in Yoshiyuki needing to consistently kill Ines clones that keep coming after him in Episode 2; it makes sense in context, I swear! While the first few times visibly show him shaken by what he's doing (since Ines looks similar to Yayoi, it's like he's repeatedly killing the woman he loved) by the end he's literally bashing Ines clones' faces into walls, crushing their necks, & literally swinging them into each other, followed by him having a face that just shows how mentally done he is with all of this mayhem, & he wants it to just end. However, there is definitely a slight bit of whiplash between episodes, as while Episode 1 more or less takes it time to slowly build things up & set the stage, Episode 2 effectively feels like it's cramming in two whole episodes of story & heading straight for the climax from the very start of the episode. Considering how OVAs like these were produced, with only one month between each episode's release in Japan, it's not like low sales of Episode 1 resulted in the staff needing the truncate the rest into just one episode, yet it does feel like Bounty Dog was originally intended to be maybe three episodes, but was at some point reduced to just two.
It doesn't really ruin the storytelling, as Episode 2 does still directly answer all the main questions introduced to the viewer well (while others are at least handled in a way where the viewer can deduce things for themselves), but it's definitely a sudden change of pacing, to be sure.
However, the one thing that definitely will ruin Bounty Dog for most people is the visuals, & while the animation it's actually very well done & holds up well today, what I'm talking about is the color grading. To put it bluntly... most of this OVA has what can be best described as a "piss filter" over it, because the large majority of it is done in a yellow color tone. This definitely isn't some bizarre mistake, either, as there are specific scenes which have their own distinct color tone, like blue or red (& in those cases it makes some sense, to an extent), but the general color tone of any scene taking place in the Moon colony itself is this faded yellow color, which is utterly bizarre because the Moon is (for the most part) a white/grey color, not yellow; and, yes, the shots from out in orbit are also tinted yellow. This was 100% intentional for some reason, and I really can't figure out why; obviously it was to set the mood, but I feel that there was a better color for that. While you do get used to it over the course of the OVA, it never really feels "right", and I feel that had the staff simply made things look "normal" in terms of color the story would have worked out exactly the same. Without a doubt, the color grading in Bounty Dog is the "make it or break it" aspect for the large majority of those who watch it, and that does suck a little because this otherwise is a decent little sci-fi OVA that has a neat little story to it & goes in some unexpected places in the second half, namely in regards to those Ines clones.
 |
| "Inu: Jyuudan to Daigyakusatsu" or "Inu: Kurayami de Touboesuru Norainu" |
Next up is the 00s... and a bit of me breaking my own rules for OM, OM, OVA!, though for good reason. Anyway, Shiro Miwa is an artist who isn't just a mangaka but also a member of doujin music circle supercell, which he provides visual designs for. In terms of manga, Miwa made his debut in 1999 with the short series Black Mind for Ultra Jump, and in 2000 followed things up with a new short series simply titled 狗-DOGS- (the kanji is an alternate one used for "inu"), which would later be collected in a single tankouban titled Dogs: Stray dogs howling in the dark. The dystopian sci-fi crime world that Miwa introduced in Dogs would then return in mid-2005 with a sequel titled Dogs: Bullets & Carnage, which Miwa would make on a semi-regular basis until early 2015 before going on a hiatus that has continued to this very day, though Miwa has stated that he plans to return to the series... one day; so far, Dogs: B&C totals 10 volumes as of 2014, though the last seven serialized chapters have yet to be collected into a book. In May of 2009 a four-episode OVA adaptation of Dogs: Bullets & Carnage saw release in Japan, though the title splash itself uses the old Dogs: Stray dogs howling in the dark title, with the first two episodes being released as a bonus DVD for the special edition release of Volume 4, while the latter two episodes were released as a bonus DVD for a special edition re-release of the original Dogs "Volume 0". The Dogs OVA is actually only the second anime ever headed up by the now-beloved David Production, releasing just a month after the debut of Ristorante Paradiso that same year. So, if OM, OM, OVA! has a restriction of "no more than two episodes long", why am I breaking that rule by including the Dogs OVA here? Simply put, it's because each episode is only 15 minutes long, so in terms of total run time it's roughly the same length as a traditional two-episode OVA! I don't expect to really trot out this technicality much in the future, so let's see if this OVA was even worth doing that for.
It's been 10 years since Mihai was last in the city that's home to one the local Mafia families that he was once a hitman for. He was kicked out of the family when he pointed a gun at the face of the Don's son Ian, who he had been told to raise by the Don himself, after Ian killed Milena, the prostitute Mihai loved, at gunpoint. Now Ian has killed his own father to claim the spot of Don for himself, & Mihai has been invited back by his friend (& local bar/inn owner) Kiri so that he can have one last encounter with the man who was once his surrogate son. However, Mihai the Hitman's story is one only four about other "dogs" in the city: Badou the Data Broker, Naoto the "Blade Maiden", & Heine the (Seemingly) Immortal Man.
 |
| So, uh... how was YOUR day? |
Each episode of Dogs tells its own story focused around a specific member of the main quartet, though they're still told in chronological order, & the main focus of one episode sometimes appears in another. Episode 1 is about Mihai, his past with Ian & Milena, & the climactic final confrontation between the two when they reunite in front of Milena's grave; Badou makes a quick cameo at the start of the episode. Episode 2 follows Badou, who finds himself on the run from the Bourdone Family when he accidentally comes across Don Bourdone in the middle of a sadomasochistic act, all while constantly being unable to get a cigarette to help calm himself down; Mihai plays a minor supporting role in this episode, while Heine & Naoto have quick cameos. Episode 3 tells the backstory of Naoto, who was the sole survivor of the assassination of her parents at the blade of a deadly katana... and how she wound up being raised & trained by a swordsman who might have been the same man who killed her parents; this is the only episode to not feature any of the other leads, though Kiri makes a cameo. Finally, Episode 4 follows Heine, who comes across a young girl (later named Nill) being accosted & only gets involved when he sees that she has small, angel-like wings, indicating that she's the result of genetic experimentation... just like him, & while she lost her voice in the experimentation he lost his memories; Badou plays a supporting role (against his will) in this episode.
Without a doubt, the Dogs OVA is essentially a product made to help promote Shiro Miwa's manga, and since they were initially sold alongside the manga they're effectively fanservice for pre-existing fans, but that doesn't prevent it from just being a damn good short form OVA; in fact, this is probably the best of the four featured here. Each of the four stories told here are very well done, both in the great animation from David Pro & the excellent storytelling, in general. There's also a nice variety in thematic tone, as while Mihai & Naoto's episodes are much more serious & dramatic in nature, Badou's episode is almost a slapstick comedy at points, while Heine's switches between the two, primarily once Badou gets involved, due to his seeming dual personality, depending on whether he has smokes on hand or not. The mix of mafia crime drama, dark comedy, & even a touch of sci-fi with Heine's backstory all add up to a very interesting feel for Dogs, and these four episodes do an excellent job at getting one interested in reading the manga & see where things go from this point on. Most interesting, though, is how Heine is definitely given the feeling of being the "main" character of the quartet, which makes the fact that his episode is the last one almost have a little more impact. From what I can tell by looking online, all four have some sort of relation to the overarching villain organization in the manga, but Heine is the one with the most personal involvement. Yeah, it does suck that the manga's been on indefinite hiatus for nearly a decade now, but the Dogs: Bullets & Carnage OVA is still something that should be checked out, and despite being an introduction for a larger overall story it still is a really good ride, all on its own.
 |
| "Inu no Shita de" |
Finally, we end with the 2010s & something that I haven't covered in a good while: Crowdfunded anime. Back in mid-2013 I reviewed Kick-Heart, the Masaaki Yuasa-directed 13-minute OVA that was 100% funded via Kickstarter (of which I was a backer), and the success of that campaign resulted in a few years of various anime crowdfunding campaigns, both in funding brand new works & in (re-)releasing titles of the past, the latter of which was the primary subject of possibly still my favorite Theory Musing article in 2017; anime crowdfunding still exists today, but to a much smaller degree. Following Kick-Heart, probably the most well known original anime Kickstarter campaign would be mid-2014's Under the Dog, which was the brainchild of Jiro Ishii (428: Shibuya Scramble; Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors), anime studio Kinema Citrus, & Creative Intelligence Arts, though the last would later leave the production following the crowdfunding campaign's end. Originally conceived of back in the mid-90s as a 26-episode TV series, the team decided to instead crowdfund a 30-minute OVA as a proof of concept, with plans to create more, but even after earning $878,028 dollars in funding it was still deemed not enough to produce more than the initial OVA; in full disclosure, I was one of those backers, receiving the OVA on Blu-Ray. Under the Dog had a ton of hype behind it, with even both legendary game designer Hideo Kojima & CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama endorsing it, but upon its eventual premiere & release to backers on August 1, 2016 it only wound up receiving a solid (if somewhat underwhelming) response; it was generally considered "good, but nowhere near as revolutionary as it was being hyped up as". Almost an entire decade has now passed since that Kickstarter campaign, so let's see if Under the Dog can at least stand today as its own OVA, or if it remains just the unfulfilled promise of more.
Hana Togetsu looks to be your standard quiet transfer student starting her first day at a new high school... only she secretly brought a handgun with her & gets secret communications from someone known only as "0-0" via an earpiece. When she finds out that the island the school's on has been closed off, she has no choice but to take one of her classmates, Shunichi Nanase, by the hand & take him with her, or else he'll die. Shortly after, US military forces barge into the school & take over, putting it into lockdown before evacuating everyone on the premises... except for Hana & Shunichi. In reality, Hana is a "Flower" code named "0-6", a superpowered teenage girl assassin working for an organization called Underdog, and it's her job to safely get Shunichi out of harm as the US military are on the hunt for a "Pandora", an inhuman monster that's been found inside the school, as well as Shunichi himself, who all of the Flowers have been told might be their "hope" for finally breaking their "curse". When things look to be too much for Hana, though, more Flowers are sent in to assist, including Anthea (code name "0-3"), the most powerful of all of the Flowers... but is Shunichi truly "White", someone who Underdog is looking for, or is he actually "Black", someone that the Flowers are meant to kill?
Much like the Dogs OVA, what we get from Under the Dog is pretty much nothing more than an introduction to what was meant to be a larger overall production, though in this case it's better described as the anime equivalent to a video game "vertical slice", i.e. a representation of what the people behind it are looking to make, rather than a direct introduction or prologue. The story told here is 100% fully contained, as the characters who are effectively the "stars", Hana & Shunichi, are both non-factors by the end, with Anthea obviously meant to be the main character of what would have been the planned TV series. A lot of the lore for the world of Under the Dog is also left up to either interpretation or meant for the viewer to piece together themselves, like Underdog (a term only mentioned once) seemingly being a Japanese government organization, Pandoras being normal people that transform into monsters (though why is left unexplained), Flowers themselves potentially running the risk of turning into Pandoras should their "Pandoralization" levels get too high, etc. Really, the only thing truly explained at the very end is that Flowers are actually doing their missions in order to protect their families & friends, who are essentially being held hostage (softly, as they are still allowed to live their own lives) by Underdog, and if a Flower fails (i.e. dies) then their parents are also summarily killed remotely in some fashion. Really, the only thing not given much of any explanation is how the US military is involved & why it's effectively a rival to the Flowers, though if I had to make a guess I imagine it'd be the simple "they want to make use of Pandoras for their own purposes" explanation.
Despite not being dubbed into English, Under the Dog actually make extensive use of English voice acting for the US military forces, which is a neat touch & the acting is well done (though it does result in an amusing bit where Shunichi responds to an English request in Japanese, because of course), though had this become a TV series I highly doubt it would have stuck, if only for cost & logistical reasons. Similarly, from a production standpoint this is a very well animated OVA (Kinema Citrus & Orange are both very well respected for their quality), and the amount of blood & violence (though with little actual gore to be seen) was noted at the time for being something that wasn't seen as much as it once used to, reminding some of the days of ultra-violent OVAs from the 80s. To be perfectly honest, I can definitely see why Under the Dog got the reception it did back in 2016, because while it is a very good watch on its own, and you can definitely see the potential in a longer-form story in what is shown, the end result really isn't all that ground breaking, which is what the original Kickstarter campaign did try to hype itself up as. Yes, in many ways it was a return to the kinds of OVAs that did help define anime internationally back in the 90s (i.e. bloodshed, violence, storytelling aimed at older audiences, etc.), and while that did help make it feel a bit quaint & unique in 2016 it also was simply calling back to something that was more popular back in the day.
As it is, Under the Dog is a very good one-off OVA that, though intended to simply be a launchpad for more, still works fine on its own. Despite not really being intended to be something watched by the masses like your standard OVA, since it never received a "traditional" release, it has since been unofficially uploaded over on YouTube, so you can check it out for yourself & see what could have been. Such is the nature of some crowdfunding campaigns, really, because while it was a success in the most direct of fashions (i.e. the OVA did get produced & released to backers) it was also a failure in the grand scheme of things, since it never led to more.
-----
That brings an end to this thematically lupine (yes, I know that's technically the wrong term, but I don't care) entry of Oh Me, Oh My, OVA!, one that I will 100% admit came about solely because I wanted to have fun with the phrase "Dog Eat Dog" as a tagline. As always, there is no set schedule to OM, OM, OVA!, but maybe it'll return one day when the Moon instills a sudden canine urge inside myself... or something like that, I don't know.
Dog Soldier: Shadows of the Past © 1989 MOVIC・Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), Inc. (now Aniplex)
Bounty Dog: Getsumen no Eve © 1994 Zero G Room/Starchild・Toho・ Movic
Dogs: Bullets & Carnage © Shiro Miwa/Shueisha
Under the Dog © 2014 Jiro Ishii © 2014 Yusuke Kozaki © 2015 Under the Dog, LLC
No comments:
Post a Comment