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.