OZ REVIEW
General Intro: If you're looking for anything groundbreaking here you're headed in the wrong direction. This is a very cliche 90's romance between a military man and a girl who is supposed to be old enough to be a doctor but acts, thinks and talks like she's straight out of a high school romance novel. I could make fun of it more but the truth is it had its good points for what it was. especially if you are like me and sometimes like to reminisce about how things used to be and truth be told, I've come across much worse anime both back in the day and now. I would have been less forgiving of it if it was more than 2 OVA's long though. I think I spent just over an hour of my time on it, and with that being the case, I don't feel too bad about wasting it. I tend to focus a lot of my opinion on Characters and Story, I leave only the most basic thoughts about sound and animation with the exception of major errors that even a novice like me can see or things that really grate on my nerves, since I think that is better left to the pro's to speak about the real issues with animation and sound. That said, I don't mind old style animation even with all it's flaws, in fact, I like it a lot more than certain newer styles such as the ones found in Ajin and Berserk 2016 and 2017. Just one more thing. This anime is not tagged romance but this is absolutely a romance anime. I just wanted to make it plain to anyone who is thinking about watching it that the romance does not take a back seat in any way throughout the anime. I am not sure why the tag is missing but I hope it will be added eventually.
Story: This anime does not pretend to be something it's not. It is openly cliche and it doesn't hide this fact. Within the opening scenes you meet a traditional sweet and innocent girl (or apparently a doctor in this case although she looks too young to be one) all alone in a bad part of town and talking to thugs like they are gentlemen because she doesn't know the difference apparently, but all of a sudden she realizes that she is in trouble after she gets the attention she wanted from these big bad story props... I mean characters, they corner her with that overplayed sarcastic talk insinuating they are going to take her to some dark place and hurt her in ways a pure girl like her couldn't imagine only to be saved by the strong male lead that pummels some of them and tells her he is there to save her so to follow him. The ungrateful girl then runs after the soldier only to tell him how she is thankful she was saved but hates violence and thinks what he did was wrong. Apparently, she'd rather let the story props have their way with her than have anyone hurt them. I am not taking this scene from the library of similar shoujo manga and anime out there, this is actually what happens in the early scenes. From here on it teases like it wants to make the tired trope somewhat interesting. The insane cyborgs and the brother with a God complex was a nice touch. But overall. the story is intensely stupid even as it tries hard to be something more. Personally, I tend to enjoy some really bad stores if they are done right because the serious becomes comical and that is how I found myself feeling at many moments especially near to the end of the anime. If you take this anime seriously and stand it up against the good anime of then or now, it will fall extremely short. But certain kinds of bad anime can be quite entertaining from time to time. For example Golgo 13: The professional has some really hilarious parts. This one doesn't get that funny, but it does have it's moments where the absurdity gets to be too much and becomes funny and that is it's saving grace. The only other thing I'd like to comment on is that the anime touches on some things without going fully into it. Something that would bother me if I wanted to spend more time with it.
Animation: The animation is decent for an early 90's anime. Not great and not bad either. I'd say it's about average. As I said before though I am more of a Story and Character snob than an animation and sound pro. So I'd suggest withholding any real judgment in this category one way or another until you watch it yourself or another person who is more knowledgable about these types of things writes a review. That being said I have no problem giving my general opinion on a couple of things. I thought they did fairly well with the fight scenes. They are nothing close, of course, to the types of fight scenes we see today in anime but they were probably pretty decent for their time. My only real issue with the animation that stood out to me was the way they animated some important changes in expression on the male main character's face. They made this jarring transition in a few places where they noticeably changed the view to another character or the background and then flashed back over to the guy's face which now had a different expression on it. I am not entirely sure if that was a normal tactic used back then for showing different facial expressions, but I had never really noticed it before so I wonder if maybe they just made the transition between facial expressions more natural in other anime back then so I didn't notice it as much.
Sound: The sound was decent for the most part. The voice actors were pretty good though nothing to write home about, I think the best voice actors were the antagonist (the doctor's brother) and the mercenary friend of the main character. As far as the background sound, music, and sound effects, they were very generic but they also were very in line with what you would expect from an early 90's anime of this genre.
Characters: I apologize for sounding like a broken record here, but for the most part the Characters follow the same pattern of being generic and cliche. However, there were some endearing and interesting elements to a few of the characters as well.
Dr. Felicia Epstien - This is the female main character. She is like every high school romance lead except her title which means she is older than she looks, acts and thinks. Muto, the male main, tends to call her doctor often, which I guess is supposed to drive home the reality that she is an adult. It's a good thing he keeps reminding everyone through words because nothing else about her makes you think adult or doctor. She kind of grates on my nerves quite often but she's got a few good things going for her and that is she doesn't spend her time being inauthentic. She is authenticly childish and naive. She doesn't have ulterior motives of any kind. She's straight forward. She cares about people and is constantly worried about Muto and her brother. To be honest given her personality, it's a wonder how she stayed alive to be as old as she is in the anime, though she does say that she grew up inside a think tank that was cut off from the rest of the world. (I think Think Tank is probably a mistranslation. Though I am unsure.)
Muto - This is the Male main character. He's drawn well. He's painted as some sort of mercenary genius. I say that because he was so young when he gained a high rank. He appears to be a stand-up guy by that I mean, he saves the female lead from a crashing plane, giving her the only parachute, so he seems to be very honorable. Though he is painted as an excellent mercenary throughout the story, he is constantly getting his butt handed to him. Though to be fair, fighting androids might be a little more difficult than humans. He doesn't have very many scenes where he shows his skill. However, the fact that people go out of their way to help him out and trust him is likely meant to show that he is a genuine person. I did find him to be slightly naive as well for a seasoned soldier in some situations near to the end. But this is a fiction story and making things more dramatic is likely the goal. Overall, he's a good character and my 2nd favorite character from the ova's
Android 1019 - This character is pretty close to being a main character, though the android looks close to the other androids in the anime and it's a little difficult to take in at first given that it is supposed to be a male replica of the female lead and antagonist's mother, it gets easier over time. This specific android has more depth to him than any of the other characters. While the main characters are almost too straight forward to make the story interesting and the other similar looking androids are not very well fleshed out. This android matures and changes many times over the short anime. It makes him almost more interesting than any of the other characters.
Leon - This is the female main character's brother and antagonist of the story. For such a supposedly smart character, to make such stupid mistakes, it really kinda affected the stories ending and made it more anti-climactic than it could have been. I didn't really understand his motivations regarding several of his decisions and just using craziness as an excuse is a cop-out. As far as antagonist's go he could have been so much more than he was. He wasn't fleshed out well in the anime.
Nate - Nate doesn't show up until 1/2 way through the story. He is my favorite character. Even though there is nothing groundbreaking about this guy, it is still a character type that I enjoy. He's the sort of rouge-ish type who props up the lead. A guy who's willing to get his hands dirty and cares deeply about his friends and is willing to do anything to make things turn out the way they should.
Overall: This anime is not long so if you have an interest in seeing what traditional 90's romance anime was like without having to slog through a full season of one, this anime may be a good choice. It could also be entertaining for people who get a kick out of watching generic anime. Though to be honest, there are quite a few anime that are more humorous in that regard. Other than that, the only other way I would suggest it is if you really enjoy shoujo romance and you have already gone through all the good ones and are looking for more of that genre to watch. Then this one may be worth your time. Otherwise, I wouldn't really suggest it. There isn't much about it that makes it stand out. If you do decide to watch it, it's highly likely you will forget about it quickly.
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