While I will try to keep this spoiler free the spoiler warning is in effect.
The world is enraptured by a sensational new pop idol called Uta who has become a symbol of hope for all the regular people caught up in the pirate age, the Strawhats being among the crowd.
Luffy upon seeing Uta, immediately recognises her and jumps up on stage, revealing to the entire world that she is the daughter of Red Haired Shanks.
Pirates want to kidnap her to get to Shanks while the Marines think her influence is way too powerful to be allowed to live.
Uta with her songs are able to turn the tide against any assailant, even Big Mom's pirates and she is able to have some valuable catch up time with Luffy.
But once Luffy brings up that he's a pirate, Uta's demeanour changes as she takes Luffy's crew away and demands Luffy quit being a pirate using ever more violent means, it starts unravelling after Trafalgar Law and Bartolomeo step in to save Luffy that the situation they are in is more dangerous than they originally thought.
You can tell immediately that this was a joy to work on from the animation right down to singer Ado's incredible performances making for an absolute flawless cornucopia of colour and music.
The film isn't as high on the epic set pieces set by the last One Piece movie Stampede but it more than makes up for it with Uta being the most twisted villain One Piece has ever made equal only to Doflamingo and its Uta's ever deteriorating mental state that makes the songstress even more terrifying in context.
I deliberately didn't watch the dub as the song numbers blend so much better in a Japanese dub track than the awkward switch between Japanese songs and English speaking dialogue.
Final Verdict: The lesson here is never bet against One Piece, even if you think they are passed their best, they keep surprising you with more spectacular stories and for what looks like a fan fiction plot is actually the best One Piece movie to date.
The PC engine had some weird stuff.
Used as a promotional anime attached to a PC Engine game, Private Eye Dol is about aspiring idol May Star who along with her holographic doll companion Navi, (yes, long before Ocarina of Time and yes, she is annoying) get frequently dragged into solving mysteries whether it be Scooby Doo like in a haunted mansion or more anime related stopping a hacker from exposing idols' private lives.
The anime takes the latter story but is a bit inconsistent with what the little hologram can do power wise as it pulls the power of love and friendship card and the hope that a TV stunt from the beginning of the episode can work to defeat the bad guy.
You can tell that this was rushed but it surprisingly crams alot of potential in the 45 minute run time, May Star is an endearing idol character and has a decent supporting cast to keep each story fresh, a 13 episode series would be decent even if it has nothing to do with the games plot.
Dub is non existent, in fact there is so little information I had to translate a Japanese wiki to obtain notes on the cast and synopsis just to refer to in order to write this.
Final Verdict: Has more potential than most 90s OVAs, what they produced is not terrible but is clearly rushed.
They can't all be diamonds in the rough.
The anime starts with a dream sequence of an anime we'd rather watch as reality comes crashing down when an Indian student involved in an accident gets enhanced into a cyborg in order to copy the Six Billion Dollar Man, (no really that's the actual reason) but the Indian man Karmi escapes from the hospital to hide out at the local school, his creation was done by the Telephone Pole Gang who not wanting to go too big too soon decides they want to just take over the prefecture, to combat this villainy are the Prefectural Earth Defense Force who actually don't do anything as the focus shifts to the actual scene stealer, pink haired villain Baradagi.
After a few failed attempts the gang create another cyborg from the director's daughter but that ends up failing also, attempts to restore the cyborg's original bodies ends in them being gender swapped although they seem to accept their fate later. The anime closes with Baradagi dating the lead Earth Force member and a preview for a cancelled episode 4.
A weird setup for a gag comedy but one that contains setups in villains that wouldn't become popular until the 2000s.
Starting small like Dr Doofenshmirtz and having nameless minions be comic relief like Despicable Me.
It had a few good ideas but the show I wanted was what it opened up with, it seems like a waste considering how hard they went in creating the opening sequence and the actual Earth Defense Force seemed like a decent punch.
Bit too late for licensing by ADVFilms to really give it the gag dub it should've had, would've made the experience more bearable.
Final Verdict: Made the fatal mistake of showing what could've been before showcasing the actual anime, it's not terrible but hardly worth your time either.
Wasn't planning on this review but considering what's going on here right now, it's more special than you think.
The movie starts with a fairy named Morgan Le Fay attempting to release a god known as Celestin who was the mentor of Belldandy, upon reuniting with the former mentor, Celestin infects Belldandy with a virus in an attempt to hack the Yggdrasil goddess system in an attempt to bring down heaven, this causes Belldandy to lose her memories of Keiichi with much of the film attempting to retrieve Belldandy's memories while Morgan attempts to prevent it.
Desperate to succeed, Celestin resorts to taking over Keiichi's body in order to trigger the full collapse of heaven, it's only when Belldandy saves Celestin from Gungnir that he has a change of heart as the sister goddesses unit in song to restore the World Tree in a glorious finale of song.
The film is a reminder of how poor a character Belldandy is as she seems to keep getting dragged into heavenly conflicts, the film is needlessly dramatic as Belldandy is pulled into each scenario at rapid pace, it's messy and treads ground that the OVA already covered.
On the plus side the finale more than makes up for the lacklustre story with some epic scale in animation.
Dubbing is fine I guess, Urd is always good, Celestin sells his performance, Belldandy is poor.
Final Verdict: It never really fixes the problems the OVA had with it's story, plot and characters but it does pull it together for the finale.
The reason I reviewed this, because the day this film aired, theOtaku was born, 22 years later it still continues to be a place that I can express my thoughts on anime, I can only thank you for allowing me to keep writing.
Happy Birthday theOtaku!
Funny how wrestling keeps sneaking into these mid 80s anime.
Some background first, Maris the Chojo was part of an anthology series of one shot mangas by Rumiko Takahashi called Rumic World. Of the collection, four stories were turned into OVAs.
Mermaid Forest: A horror fantasy revolving round Japan's interpretation of Mermaids.
Laughing Target: A horror in which a jealous demon woman attempts to steal her betrothed from a rival girl.
Fire Tripper: A gas explosion sends a girl to feudal Japan, the ideas were recycled into Inuyasha.
And today's subject Maris the Chojo or Supergal, the Chojo name was to avoid a lawsuit from DC on Western release.
Maris works as a member of the special galactic police force alongside her kitsune partner Murphy (who is Irish for some reason) However Maris is a Thanatosian, a race of humanoids with ridiculous strength six times that of normal humans, (about 5700 Newtons or 1284 Pounds of force) because of this strength, Thanatosians have to wear power restraits, especially as the race's planet was destroyed and all of them are refugees.
Maris used to be a wrestler but struggles with money troubles as she unintentionally destroys everything she touches, not helping her is an alcoholic Dad and a shopping obsessed ditzy Mum who keep mooching money off her.
Maris lucks out when a mission involves saving a kidnapped billionaire playboy but said playboy's kidnapper is a rival Thanatosian wrestler, leading to more trouble.
This should've been handled by the Dirty Pair creator really, mostly because Rumiko Takahashi really sucks at Sci Fi writing, even Urusei Yatsura is far from being a Sci Fi despite Lum and her race being aliens themselves.
Maris has no redeeming features as a character seeing as her calamities are mostly self inflicted, if she were a little more competent her antics would be more palatable.
The OVA isn't outright terrible and there are things that can be salvaged, it's got a decent soundtrack, the story at least makes sense, the lore is sound and Murphy is if Jacksepticeye voiced Rocket Racoon.
Speaking of the dub, it's passable considering how old the dub is.
Final Verdict: A pretty okay anime but it's clear Rumiko Takahashi has no talent for Sci Fi writing, not helped by a piss poor lead character.
