Synopsis:
The Gift, a once in a lifetime opportunity to grant a miracle for someone. However, for the Gift to work the recipient must accept it and share mutal feelings or the Gift will become distorted and may even wreak havoc on those around it. Haruhiko Amami is a firm believer in the Gift ability since if it were not for the Gift he would not be alive today. However, the Gift is an ability that is only given the the residents of the town of Narasakicho as the unknown phenomenon known as the eternal rainbow hangs in the sky above which he suspects is tied into the town’s strange magical abilities. Although Amami is not fully aware of his past when his sister Riko, who mysteriously left 7 years, shows up in front of his house with a loaded suitcase claiming she’s back home… forgotten emotions and a clouded history are about to be revealed that Amami had all but disregarded. Continue reading »
Synopsis:
Marin and Urin are two sisters that live in the sea. Always exploring new areas, Marin happens across a ring sinking from the surface of the water. She notices how beautiful the ring is and that it must have been dropped by accident and decides to find the owner of the ring. Thinking that this would be a great time for a new adventure, Marin puts on a bracelet that will allow her to breathe air and heads to the visit the “sky people” (that’s us land lovers) and Urin, being her sister, follows her. However, what they encounter in the world above is not like the stories they’ve heard among the sea people. Continue reading »
Synopsis:
Tomoki Sakurai wants nothing more than to lead a peaceful, quiet, life without interruption. One evening he comes across a large gaping hole in the sky one night, a large ball of light shoots out of it and it almost hits Tomoki. As he inspects the large crater that it left behind Tomoki notices an unconcious girl with wings at the bottom. As debris also starts falling from the large void in the sky Tomoki decides that he doesn’t want to get involved and runs for cover but doesn’t get far before he realizes that he can’t just leave her there. Continue reading »
Synopsis:
Yorito Morimiya is a photographer at heart, but he especially loves taking pictures of the sky any time of the day at any time of the year. While taking more pictures of the sky very early in the morning Yorito notices a strange girl trying to get a can of tomato juice out of a vending machine. Yorito helps her while trying to strike up a conversation with her but by the time he gets the juice out of the machine he turns to notice that the girl is mysteriously gone. Continue reading »
Synopsis:
A thousand years ago the God of Destruction, Enka, said that it’s child would destroy the world. To prevent this the Great Japanese Empire Paranormal Phenomena Bureau of Measures assigns one man, Ouka Midarezaki, to protecting the Earth from this threat. However Continue reading »
Synopsis:
While in the midst of an alien invasion, photojournalist Tetsuya Wakatsuki uses it to his advantage to take pictures of the horrors of war. But Tetsuya puts himself too far into the midst of the battle field and ends baring witness to a few up close murders and it’s executioner… a scantily-clad green-haired woman with a big sword. She takes notice of Tetsuya’s inquisitiveness as he’s rappidly snapping pictures of her in action and turns and faces Tetsuya pointing her sword at him as if to claim him as her next victim. She charges towards him and raises her sword to bring his life to an end but Tetsuya dodges the attack and his alien attacker only manages to accidentally set off his camera and at close range, the flash stuns her. Tetsuya seizes the opportunity and grabs ahold of her pushing her against a wall and as the two are locked in a power struggle to even move Tetsuya takes notice that he’s fighting a metallic bikini-clad woman and the alien girl stops resisting his feeble attacks at the same time. Tetsuya backs away not knowing what to think but she quickly walks towards him and plants a kiss on his lips and introduces herself a Kahm. Before Tetsuya can comprehend the situation, Kahm knocks him unconscious and takes him aboard her spacecraft as she claims him as her husband for the worlds first intergalactic marriage.
Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 1 (Yeah, that’s it, one 46 minute OVA)
Review:
Originally from 1986, this short film took almost 10 years to hit the U.S. and this little gem has all the story elements you could want packed within it’s short 46 minute life span. You get action, thrills, science-fiction, and romance, in a neat little package that will be leaving you wanting for so much more. The thing is, even with it’s truncated presentation it still manages to tell a fantastic tale. From the moment Princess Kham hits the screen you almost feel a slight hatred towards her until she realizes what she is doing is inherently wrong and she changes her status about the attack on Earth and it’s amazing how this anime does this… in a matter of minutes! Your view will instantly change and you really start to like this bull-headed girl and her claim to Tetsuya as her husband. Not only that, but you also understand how Tetsuya is trying to comprehend all that is going on with everything being thrown at him at once and how he deals with it without being indecisive or overly shy. Also, this anime starts bringing in more and more side characters but the thing is they only need a moment of screen time to determine your feelings towards them as your outlook towards them will never change throughout the course of the show and this is what I really enjoyed about Outlanders. An amazing cast, a short but compelling story, a wonderfully orchestrated soundtrack, and one of the finest forms of quick but appropriate tsundere romances to ever hit the anime scene… Outlanders should NOT be passed up as the animation still stands out even after being over 20 years old.
(Sorry, no teaser video available)
Recommendation: |Very High|
Media Type: DVD
From: Central Park Media
Languages: Japanese;English
Subtitles: English
*Note – Central Park Media is now defunct and this DVD is out of print. If any of you big conglomerate anime companies are reading this, please, do the anime community a favor and pick this up and re-release it!! *AND*… and put the original Dark Horse Comics dub with it as it was fantastic… and I *hate* dubs! Can’t find it? Contact me as I have two, count them “t-w-o”, copies of the original VHS tape that Dark Horse released and I’d gladly lend one to anyone wanting to do another DVD release with both the Central Park Media and Dark Horse dub on a DVD… along with subtitles of course. I’m not joking about this… anybody? Hello?
Synopsis:
“Life is so dull. I just wish one day something amazing would happen that would change my life forever.” is probably what 75% of the worlds population is thinking right about now. Well, so is 16 year old Tomokazu Mikuri, moaning and complaining about his upcoming birthday and to top it all off he doesn’t even have a girlfriend. After his usual boring day Tomokazu drifts off to sleep but ends up having a very bizarre dream where he wakes up in some bizarre world in which he sees a young girl fighting some unknown enemy. However, the mystery girl takes a hit and falls from the sky landing in Tomokazu’s arms which seems to give the young lady a second wind and with an enthusiastic “MONE!” (pronounced by her as, MOE-NEH) and a smile, she attacks her enemy again and utterly defeats it. When Tomokazu wakes from his strange dream he tries to decipher his vision he soon realizes that he’s not alone as the dream girl is lying next to him in bed and greets him with a “Mone!” Oh yeah, Tomokazu got his birthday wish alright as life will never be dull again.
Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 12
Review:
Ah, harem comedy animes… I never get tired of them. A bunch of cute girls, some doof, and a brainless comedy routine that will make you laugh or at the very least smile in some way or another and Yumeria is no different. But Yumeria does try to stand out a little by using a somewhat uncommon group of girls, 2 lolis, 2 buxom curvaceous teens, and a milf, now… before you say “Lolis? Oh yeah, bring this on!” I gotta tell you straight up that the story that brings everyone together falls a little on the idiotic side of things. So much to the fact that this series feels like it almost didn’t want to use the plot about dream warriors at all but would have rather focused on one guy dealing with this wide age range of ladies all sharing the same interest in one guy. Because, after it uses this plot device to bring everyone together the show disregards it goes on to focus on home life, school life, and everyone getting along as one happy family. The few episodes that do delv into the dream world are very rushed and really serve no other purpose than to show girls in scantily clad outfits that always get a second wind and wipe out the enemy in one fell swoop. Is this a bad thing? Well… no, but you can’t help but get the feeling that it’s tacked on somehow and almost comes across as pointless.
Yumeria is the type of anime where you really have to go into it not expecting much at all because that’s what you’ll get in return and with that mindset you may enjoy it more than you probably thought you would. It’s main plot about dream warriors and their challenge to save the Earth seems pushed aside and far from being the main focus as it’s group of girls seems like what the show wanted to spend more time on and it did to some degree. Unfortunately, this anime can’t seem to get it’s focus straight as to how it wants to present itself to the audience and falls back on trying to use cute girls to divert your attention away from it’s poorly told story and very loose ended characterization. And you know, it almost worked. In the end Yumeria is what it is and that’s fun… just good, stupid, fun… and nothing more. Now, if you’ll excuse me… I’m gonna go take a nap and see if I can pull a girl out of my dreams. Hey, why should only Tomokazu get to be so lucky?!?
Yumeria (opening)
Recommendation: |Average|
Synopsis:
In the distant future, Earth is not the only source of life and has become the home of many lifeforms throughout the universe. And in this vast and ever growing world we have one lone guy Kazuto. Kazuto Tokino has just inherited his grandfathers bathhouse and despite all odds that are against him he decides to keep the place open. With the lack of funds and his own parents telling him he is wasting his time and effort, only his sister Rika tries to help him but even so she tells him that he’s dug himself a money pit that he has no hope of escaping from. Kazuto thinks that things couldn’t get any worse, but when out of nowhere a spaceship crashes into the Tokino bathhouse and lands right on him he begins to see his life fade and how he has let everyone in his family down. But, before Kazuto goes to the light from beyond, he sees an angel that tells him she will give him part of her soul to spare his life for the mistake she has made as she kisses him squarely on the lips. When Kazuto comes to, he is told that the space princess Valkyrie accidentally crashlanded her spaceship on the bathhouse killing him but she saved his life by sharing half of her soul with him. The side effect, Valkyrie is also reduced to half her age to that of an 8 year old and the only thing that can restore her is a kiss from Kazuto… although she can only remain as a buxom 16 year old temporarily and therefore the two are eternally bonded together sharing the same soul.
Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 33 (spanning 4 seasons, OVAs included)
Review:
I’ve got 4 seasons of episodes to cram into a review so bear with me. Basically we’ve got the alien babe comes to Earth and falls in love with the average Joe type of anime. But this time we get the added twist of having Valkyrie in the body of an 8 year old and the first season basically focuses on watching Kazuto deal with this. This may seem funny at first but you might get a tad annoyed with it as Valkyrie’s physical form changes to that of an 8 year but so does her mentality and some of the episodes are like… babysitting episodes. Thankfully, Ultramaiden starts throwing some seriously crazy-ass characters your way amidst all this like the Vallhalla family’s high maid cat-woman, rival princess Hydra who also gets turned into an 8 year old but keeps her adult mentality, Princess Chorus who thinks she’s a robot, and princess Laine that travels back in time and meets up with past and present versions of herself just to hang out with her ditzy self. What this show lacks in storytelling more than makes up for it with some bizarre characters that will have you laughing and scratching your head at the same time.
Never have I watched a show quite like this since Ah! My Goddess. It covers just as much ground and then some by catering to pretty much all genres in character types. The only downside is that our main characters, Kazuto and Valkyrie, might seem boring as Kazuto is a down to earth straightforward guy that loves Valkyrie, faults and all, and she loves him unconditionally which makes them almost too perfect for each other. Don’t let that deter you from watching as this series never fails to throw enough crazy story arcs your way that will keep you watching till the end and covers all character types. From lolis to big breasted babes with nipples hard enough to poke your eyes out if you stare too long, and even an episode of shota… this series not only gives you some great characters but also enough comedy, romance, and drama to make it one enjoyable show from beginning to end. My big complaint… I want MOAR!!!
UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie (opening)
Recommendation: |Above Average|
