A-Z Review season is over and were back to regular old reviewing so lets celebrate by reviewing a crappy OVA from the 1980s, Circuit Angel.

Circuit Angel tells the story of Mariko, a rebellious school girl with a love for motorcycles. Unfortunately this passion draws her into a race against a jerkass rich boy who won't leave Mariko alone because she is connected to some former bike racer who accidentally killed someone, and also because he wants to prove to his father that the rider is the one who decides the outcome and not the machine.
This OVA is horrible, it constantly wastes so much time trying to set up the big race at the end that it fails to properly introduce the characters and give us any reason to support them. Mariko seems to follow a strict template for female characters in the 80s and early 90s but you get the feeling she was destined for a better anime; equally I think that it was also meant to be more adult, the so called flashback Raita has about the accident is poorly choreographed as the person who died has such a wussy crash that the guy must've been made of glass, and this was the ultra violent anime era so no excuses really, although you still get some nudity for backup.
It's not that difficult to make motorsports anime look awesome especially the likes of Initial D and over the top karting anime Capeta. I think the main issue with Circuit Angel is that they draw the bikes better than the rest of the anime.
Final Verdict: It's crap; a poorly structured story performed by a cast of bland characters set in an era that should've given it more to work with. Give it a miss, which is very easy because it's not available in the west, only online on Youtube.