Whose bright idea was it to make an OVA based on the two worst characters, in a show where all the characters are pretty awful?
Story - 1/10
So apparently the writers came up with what they thought was a catchy nickname for the team of Mako and Sayuki, and decided to make an OVA based solely around how many times the characters can say “they don’t call us impact blue for nothing,” or something to that effect. Now this doesn’t make sense on many levels, since I don’t think anyone called them that in their original appearance, and well the name has literally no meaning, unless they have a history of crashing their car.
The story takes place after the second season, where the Emperors, and their Mitsubishi Lancers, are traveling around to different cities to take out the top racers on their home courses. They turn up in Usui and challenge Mako and her Nissan…..and her worthless friend Sayuki. What follows is twenty minutes of feminist screeching, and some boring race footage.
Now the whole “feminist” aspect would work okay, if it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve now watched two seasons where racers demean each other for what cars they have, how old they look, and what city they come from. So to act like guys thinking a racer isn’t good because she’s female, is some huge affront, is to ignore everything we’ve seen so far, where these racers think everyone is a bad driver for any reason they can think up. Adding to that is how they also make the females the only team; where they need two people to do the job that normally one racer does, which would actually prove that they aren’t as good as those they face, who have to both drive and decipher the road in front of them.
It also loses much of its attempt at equality, when Mako’s last appearance revolved around her pimping herself out all for a race.
To show their commitment to fighting for women’s equality, the writers then spent the second half of the OVA making a series about the two girls going on dates.
Animation - 3/10
The animation is very similar to Second Stage except there just didn’t seem to be the detail and better CGI that came with that season. They also focus on two female characters, which isn’t a good idea for an animation department that has apparently never actually seen the face of a female, as these two come across more as balloons with googly eyes attached.
Sound - 2/10
Both themes this time around are just terrible. They miss everything that was fun about the music in the past seasons.
Paired with that is how we’re stuck hearing two voices that will either bore you to death, or have you contemplating sticking a scissor in your ear.
Characters - 2/10
As I said in the intro, why make a series about two of the truly most awful characters in anime?
After being stood up by Kenji, Mako now has a new desire to focus all her attention on racing. Already the best racer in town, she still practices every day, and now sets her sights on defending her title against the Lan-Evo team that’s traveling around taking out the best in every city.
But instead of you know, building her as a good character, she just spends the next half hour being nothing but platitudes and whining about how she’s the best.
Once the racing is done, she’s relegated to essentially a confused girl, unsure if she wants to choose racing or love.
While Mako is for the most part just dull, Sayuki is beyond annoying. Someone with no real talent of her own, she’s the epitome of the loudmouth friend who think’s she’s Queen sh!t, while just being a worthless hanger on. At least the male version of this, Itsuki, had some likable qualities and grew as a character, Sayuki is just a braggart who constantly takes credit for her friend’s abilities.
Outside of these two everyone else again falls in to the cliche character categories that the first two seasons spewed on us.
Overall - 1/10
While most OVAs are just fun little side stories, this was just a completely worthless waste of time that offered absolutely nothing to a series that already was lacking in real story lines. The joke of it all is that in the end our hero team wins ,and is again praised as the best, despite the fact her race ended up just being against some third rate driver from the team.
This felt like a weak attempt to broaden the appeal of the series, but I would think this would just chase off female car fans, as it doesn’t treat them with the same respect as it does the male drivers.
Positive Reasons for Score:
* The racing looked okay.
Negative Reasons for Score:
* The entire story was pointless, even for an OVA.
* You’d be hard pressed to find two more unlikable characters.
* You can’t try and make a pro-woman statement, considering Mako’s role in season one.
Ways to make the show better:
* Tie the OVA in to the overall plot of the series, where it will impact future seasons.
* Don’t turn the second episode into nothing more than a dating sim.
* Tone down Sayuki, no one likes the loudmouth who essentially starts fights they intend their friend to finish.
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