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OVA Count:8
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I’ve spent more time than I care to think about watching anime in my life thus far. Some of the best available anime either ends up being too short or too long to be released as a theatrical anime movie. These direct-to-video shorts and miniseries comprise the world of OVAs (Original Video Animations). I’ve seen both astoundingly spectacular and horrifically terrible OVAs. I’m giving you the full benefit of my anime experiences in the form of this list of mini-reviews. You’ll find the best (and only the best) OVAs in existence organized below according to studio, director and release date.
(Note: These anime features are sometimes referred to as OAVs or Original Animation Videos, but the most popular acronym by far is OVA, so that is what is used in this guide)
Production I.G/Kenji Kamiyama
Maslow's hierarchy of needs gamems. scrolls ela classes similar. Pretty much all of the movies that I’ll talk about from Production I.G are for teens to adults. Kids wouldn’t get much from these movies even if they did watch them, really. Despite that fact, they are all also some of the most beautiful and well-written anime OVAs that you are likely to see.
Kenji Kamiyama
Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. – The Laughing Man (2005)
Kôkaku kidôtai: Stand alone complex – The laughing man (攻殻機動隊)
Format: Movie
Length: 160 minutes Warblade mk ii editoremv software.
This OVA serves as a “quick” nearly 3-hour summary of the occurrences in the first season of GiTS S.A.C. I never had the opportunity to watch the whole series, so this movie served a very useful purpose in catching me up relatively quickly. Second crash program indonesia. It follows Section 9 as they try to track down a Super-Class-A hacker that can almost bend reality to his will by hacking others’ eyes and cyber-minds. The story was interesting, the dialogue, while plentiful, was intriguing and both the fights and the visuals were great. When you can find the time to be immersed even more deeply into the GiTS world, I would certainly recommend that you pick this one up.
Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. – Individual Eleven (2006)
Kôkaku kidôtai: S.A.C. 2nd GIG – Individual eleven (攻殻機動隊)
Format: Movie
Length: 160 minutes
This OVA serves as a digest version for the second season of GiTS S.A.C., 2nd GiG. It essentially does as good of a job as the first OVA to condense an entire season into an acceptable movie length. This one follows Section 9 as they try to stop both radical revolutionaries and members of their own government from slaughtering millions of refugees. It delivers quite well in the sound, visual, and plot department, although I found it to have a good measure more suspense than action as compared to the other entries in the GiTS series. Still a very good, but involved, time. If you ever have a spare six hours in a day, it’s not a bad time at all to watch both of the TV series OVAs consecutively.
Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. – Solid State Society (2006)
Kōkaku Kidōtai: Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu Soriddo Sutēto Sosaieti (攻殻機動隊)
Format: Movie
Length: 105 mintes
The most current OVA in the GiTS saga serves as an epilogue to the anime series and has much higher production values than the series in both sound and picture. This one has Major Kusanagi apparently going rogue and being hunted by Section 9, including Batou, while strange things are happening with the country’s elderly citizens and children are being randomly kidnapped all over the place. Perhaps the most complex GiTS story-wise, it is absolutely worth checking out, but you’ll be a tad lost if you haven’t seen all of the other GiTS movies and OVAs previously.
Makoto Shinkai
Shinkai’s films, while breathtakingly beautiful, are almost all intensely depressing and sad. He has been dubbed “the new Miyazaki” by many in the anime biz, but he considers that to be an exaggeration. Shinkai films are generally fine for family viewing, but are more slowly paced and lugubrious than your average family movies.
Voices of a Distant Star (2002)
Hoshi no Koe (ほしのこえ)
Format: Short film
Length: 25 minutes
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Yeah, I said Jin-Roh was sad in the Movie Guide, but this is even more sad. Covering a theme of the separation of lovers, with about as large of a distance as one can fathom (perhaps even larger), plus some mecha overtones, this OVA is pretty close to a masterpiece. The animation is unique and fantastic, but it’s the kind of anime I only really want to watch once because it left me feeling pretty depressed afterward. ^_^ Still great, though, and recommended to everyone.
Sunrise – (Shuhei Morita/Hiroaki Ando)
Sunrise is a series of anime studios owned by Namco Bandai of video game fame. They produce many of the largest and most commercial anime series including Gundam, Escaflowne, Cowboy Bebop, Patlabor, and Keroro Gunso (Sgt. Frog). On top of their critically acclaimed original anime series, they also produce anime films and OVAs (often, but not always, based on their anime TV series). While some of their series lend themselves more to older audiences, as a whole Sunrise’s OVA works are usually good for family viewing.
Shuhei Morita
Coicent (2011)
Koi☆Sento (コイ☆セント)
Format: Short film
Length: 26 minutes
Coicent is a great little OVA and one of the first things that is likely to strike you is the animation style. Improved even more from the likes of Kakurenbo (as detailed below), Coicent is the absolute closest I’ve yet seen a CG anime come to looking completely as though it was hand-drawn. CG in anime can be very hit and miss, like in the Berserk Golden Age Arc movies, but Coicent really knocks it out of the park with the only minor flaw being a lack of proper mouth animation. Story-wise, without giving too much away, Coicent follows a boy named Shinichi on a school trip to the Japanese city of Nara in the year 2710. He has a strange encounter with an odd laughing white deer that leads to him meeting a girl named Toto with a cryptic past and a group of people chasing her. As with any short film, it’s over in a flash, but it’s a great flash indeed through which to experience the cute story and superb visuals.
Hiroaki Ando
Five Numbers! (2011)
Norageki! (ノラゲキ！)
Format: Short film
Length: 25 minutes
Five Numbers! is a companion OVA to Coicent insofar as they were released within a month of one another by Sunrise and come together if you buy them on DVD. While also a CG anime, the animation in Five Numbers! falls prey to many of the issues of the medium where Coicent does not, including lanky/slow character movement, poor facial animations, and sometimes distracting model shading. This could be chalked up to a difference in art style, but there’s no denying that the short montage near the film’s beginning that is traditionally animated looks a lot better than the rest of it. Animation aside the story of Five Numbers!, while understandably terse, is well worth the half-hour time investment; it follows four prisoners, an old man, and a cat in a futuristic isolated prison whose power goes out bringing them out of their suspended sleep as they try to discover just where they are and why there is seemingly no one else in the entire complex. Interesting character archetypes and a handful of plot twists keep this OVA moving at a good clip, so it’s engaging throughout. A tad less family friendly than Coicent, Five Numbers! is still a good OVA and well worth the time of any anime fan.
Studio Madhouse/Kitaro Kosaka
Kitaro Kosaka
Kitaro Kosaka is primarily known as an animator with deep ties to Studio Ghibli. Having directed or supervised key animation for such lofty Ghibli titles as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and From Up on Poppy Hill (among others) and non-Ghibli titles like Akira and Metropolis, it’s no surprise that his most well-known anime films borrow liberally from what would normally be considered as Studio Ghibli’s unique animation style and character design.
Nasu: A Migratory Bird with Suitcase (2007)
Nasu: Suitcase no Wataridori (茄子 スーツケースの渡り鳥)
Format: Movie
Length: 54 minutes
The second Nasu (eggplant) movie sees Pepe Benengeli, now a successful member of his professional cycling team, hit Japan for another international cycling race. Both the drama and the comedy are more intense in this OVA than they were in Summer in Andalusia. The focus of the movie is also broadened from just Pepe to the entire team as other members have their own struggles like Ciocci whose famous cycling mentor dies shortly before the race. While the OVA’s 54 minutes are not devoid of contrivances (particularly when doppelgangers of some of Pepe’s Italian family/friends are shoe-horned in for no particular reason), A Migratory Bird with Suitcase is still a great OVA with charm and Ghibli-like style to spare. It’s possible to watch it on its own, but I would still suggest checking out Summer in Andalusia first to gain a better appreciation for the story as a whole.
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YamatoWorks/Shuhei Morita
YamatoWorks is perhaps the smallest anime production company featured in this guide. At around five people, YamatoWorks was started by Shuhei Morita and Daisuke Sajiki to be a small elite team to make unique, very well cel-shaded CG OVAs. Kakurenbo was their only exclusive work, but the team’s members have worked on a few other OVAs made by studio Sunrise (which can be seen listed above).
Shuhei Morita
Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek (2004)
Kakurenbo (カクレンボ)
Format: Short film
Length: 25 minutes
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Kakurenbo is a striking OVA in many ways. The most obviously striking feature of the anime is its animation style that is computer generated, but cel-shaded in such a way that from most angles it looks just like a traditionally animated anime. Another striking feature of this OVA is the story which is deceptively dark. Without giving too many of the plot’s surprises away, this OVA follows a group of children as they play hide and seek wearing inari (fox) masks in a seemingly abandoned city. Abandoned, that is, except for the hungry demons that lurk in the streets. With engaging animation and a chilling story that borrows liberally in some parts from the Matrix, Kakurenbo should be on anyone’s watch list who is old enough to see good and scary anime.