Welcome to the Space Show is about a group of children who meet an alien dog while at summer camp and travel across the universe, smuggling wasabi to fund their travels.

If that sounds silly, it’s because it is: still, the movie comes together surprisingly well. It’s action-packed and doesn’t leave time to be bored. There’s something for everyone: action scenes, some light comedy, creative new worlds and some drama. This movie is targeted for families and children, so it’s not my usual cup of tea, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

The movie’s strongest points are its fantastic setting and gorgeous animation. The setting here is very creative: there’s a huge variety of interesting kinds of aliens. Many of these only show up in the background, and it looks like the creators put effort even into them. The children travel to multiple planets, and each has its own idiosyncrasies. They have to go through customs and acquire a passport to travel in space. They travel on a faster than light caterpillar train where furniture grows out of the walls. In general, there’s just a tremendous attention to detail in the setting.

And this attention to detail is brought out by the animation. The backgrounds are beautiful, drawn in tremendous detail, whether they’re showing Earth, another planet, the inside of a ship or the dark side of the moon. But the strongest point is that there’s a fluidity to the animation: everything is in motion. Exotic aliens walk past in the background, lights flash, vehicles drive by. There’s just so much going on in every scene, that the world feels full and chaotic. It isn’t just the main characters out there. I wasn’t surprised to discover that the production team was also responsible for Kamichu, and this is the movie budget version of that same style, which was great even in a TV show.

Welcome to the Space Show’s biggest weakness is its villains. Their motivations never make much sense. At the end (spoiler alert) their goal turns out to be to acquire the wasabi as fuel for the “Pet King” to combine the little sister and the bunny rabbit into a new artificial being. But this is wrong because only the strong should survive. I’m not sure this is the best message to be teaching kids.

On a side note, this movie motivated me to look up wasabi on wikipedia. I didn’t know this, but apparently it’s really hard to grow, so much so that in the West what we call wasabi is usually a mixture of horseradish, mustard and green food coloring. I love the fake wasabi, so now I really want to try the actual thing. I guess the difficulty of growing wasabi is why it became extinct in the rest of the universe.

• Plot / Script – 8  / 10 – A fun adventure story, with an excellent setting.
• Characters – 8 / 10 – The main characters are solid, but the villains are weak.
• Production – 10 / 10 – Great visuals and attention to detail.
• Overall – B

Recommendations – Kamichu, Summer Wars, Spirited Away

My first exposure to the Read or Die series was through Read or Die TV. Read or Die TV was decidedly average in every way (except in the quantity of lesbianism), so I had low expectations for the OVA. But I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

First of all, the action sequences are fantastic. There’s a creative variety of powers, and just the way Yomiko uses paper is interesting in and of itself (see the paper airplane above). You wouldn’t expect this from a series about books where the main character, Yomiko, is a clumsy airhead and bookworm. It’s partially her clumsiness which makes the fight scenes so gripping— she has no trouble fighting off giant robots with scraps of paper, but it looks like she’s going to trip and fall over at any moment. For example, in the above scene with the paper airplane, Yomiko made short work of constructing the enormous airplane, but just forgot to attach the tail fin, with nearly fatal results. The creators managed to make a very convincing portrayal of Yomiko as someone who’s both extremely capable and extremely clumsy.

Another strong point of the OVA is its setting, where agents of the British library with special powers fight for books. The agents travel from city to city in search of these books, so parts of the show take place in England, Hong Kong, India, America, and the middle of the ocean. There’s quite the variety here.

If I had to point out a flaw, the villains are much less fleshed out than the protagonists. They’re clones of famous people from history, and most of their motivations aren’t entirely clear. As another nitpick, a running gag is that the president of the US pisses his pants whenever he shows up. I personally just found this kind of dumb and not particularly funny. It’s certainly not on the level of a Legend of Koizumi presidential portrayal.

Still, the good points greatly outweigh the bad, and I highly recommend the Read or Die OVA, especially if you’re looking for some good action.

• Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – The British library goes to war, we have giant underwater steampunk rockets, and the final boss is Ludwig van Beethoven. What more needs to be said?
• Characters – 9 / 10 – Examines Yomiko and Nancy in depth. Other characters, particularly the villains, are less well developed since time is limited.
• Production – 9  / 10 – Fluid animation, especially in fight scenes.
• Overall – A-

Recommendations – Darker than Black, Book of Bantorra, Read or Die TV (although it isn’t as good as the OVA)

Norageki shows a tale of five people and a cat who escape from prison. I don’t want to say much more in fear of spoiling all of what is a rather short story.

The first thing you’ll probably notice about Norageki is the experimental animation style. There’s a heavy use of CG. In my opinion the still frames looked pretty nice, but the motion of the characters leaved a lot to be desired. It didn’t look natural at all.

The plot is decent for something that fit in 25 minutes. Same with the characters – they have potential, but again, we don’t see much in 25 minutes. I think the show could have made good use of some extra time.The male characters in particular didn’t get enough time to develop. Everything was decent, but there was just nothing that wowed me.

This OVA has a similar setting to the movie Moon, if anyone’s seen that, although the way it uses the setting is quite different.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Interesting story, if not the most unique (the setting, if nothing else, is similar to Dead Leaves)
• Characters – 7 / 10 – Have potential but don’t develop fully (particularly males).
• Production – 7 / 10 – Unique style, but blocky motion
• Overall – 7.25 / 10

Recommendations – Moon (non-anime), Freedom, Dead Leaves

Hitsuji no Uta (Lament of the Lambs) is a short OVA from eight years ago. It tells the story of a high schooler named Kazuna, who is reunited with his sister whom he hasn’t seen since he was three years old. The two have a hereditary vampiric disease where they desire blood, and begin to live together as a family, pushing away their friends and Kazuna’s adopted family.

The creators did a good job at building a tense, dark atmosphere. The colors in the animation are used to especially good effect. There are no people with random blue, green and pink hair colors here: everything is dark shades of black and brown. The character designs actually look like real people and not animified. They even have freckles and hair that could conceivably grow on a human head.

On the negative side, the use of flashbacks was a bit much in the first two episodes. The final episode was much stronger than the first three, if only because a lot more happened then. The doctor is just kind of hanging around for the first three episodes, but he really becomes an interesting character in the final episode. Revelations from the final episode also make you see the sister and the family in a quite different light. This is probably more a reflection of how good the final episode and its build up were than any issue with the earlier episodes.

• Plot / Script – 8  / 10 – A strong storyline, but plot and dialogue repeat themselves a bit much especially with flashbacks
• Characters – 9 / 10 – The main character’s choices particularly regarding his family could have been better explained. The sister and doctor are very interesting characters, although their stories aren’t revealed until the end.
• Production – 9  / 10 – Good use of color, although looking aged now.
• Overall – 8.5 / 10

Recommendations – Ghost Hound, Tsukihime