Anyway, to close out my first month of informal reviews of anime (huzzah), I am going to go over another short 90s OVA-Sailor Victory.
DVD Cover
This OVA dates from 1995, done by Bandai Visual with assistance from Head Room and Movic. Sailor Victory is a spinoff of Graduation, another 1995 OVA, which itself has a sequel-Marriage (1996 OVA). Yeah, really simple titles eh? lolz.
Anyway, Sailor Victory involves the main characters from Graduation OVA in a parallel world. In this world, Mikado City (main setting) is under siege from criminals with giant robots (really ridiculous!). So, a group of teenage girls pilot ninja robots to combat crime. Wait, what?!
The plot is basically a pilot that didn't go anyway past that point. It introduces the main heroines, has them fighting a bank robber then an evil sorceress who wants to take over the city.
Now the main characters. Reiko (pink haired girl) is the financier of the Sailor Victory who tends to be a bit too serious for her own good. She's accompanied by Shizuka (brown long haired girl), the technician and token meganekko (glasses girl). Kiyomi (dark blue haired girl) is the leader of Sailor Victory, though she's a bit hot-headed and cocky (and not clever at all). Mika (brown short haired girl) is well, the 2nd lead robot pilot, that's all we are given (well that and her job is that of a delivery girl when she's not piloting a ninja robot). Finally, there's Mami (green haired girl), the token loli who's supposed to be a genius, but she ends up just being an annoying and clumsy dolt.
The other characters are basically stereotypes. The police in this are presented as misogynistic and incompetent dolts. The villains include a bank robber, who's also misogynistic butthole and an evil sorceress (Ms. Margarita) who seems to be a Sailor Moon villain reject. Seriously, this OVA can be summed up by a quote from Kiyomi-"Oh, this is B.S.!".
The animation, well, I can't complain. It looks similar to other works of the time, generic but not terrible. The ninja robots are designed very well, despite the wonky premise. The voice acting, on the other hand, it is not as consistent, particularly in the english dub. The actors/actresses range from nomially passable to bad. Also, AnimeWorks, for whatever reason, decided to add in rather unneccessary profanity (PG-13 level) into it. Not to nickpick, but still it's worth mentioning that.
Final Score for Sailor Victory is 5/10. Like Jewel BEM Hunter Lime, it has a novel concept. But, it gets hampered by content and not from execution. It gets too far ridiculous for me to give a care about the plot or the characters, despite its anemic attempts to do so. There are better mecha series out there. While it is not the worst show in existence, it is not the best either. It is merely average. I'd pass this unless you are really curious.
So, for next month I'll do something different. Here's the schedule for next month
Sept 4-List of 10 Favorite Anime Series I've Seen
Sept 11-Anime Review No. 5
Sept 18-List of 10 Worst Anime Series I've Seen
Sept 25-Anime Review No. 6
