Kotetsu no Daibouken

A cute girl swings a sword really fast, she fights stuff and sometimes is nude. Sound like fun? Yeah I bet it does and guess what it totally is fun. It has a general mix of things that makes a lot of 80s-90s OVAs great, and this one does those things well. The action scenes are engaging, the fan service is great, and Rin is super cute. If this is the kind of stuff you like I would say this one's definitely worth the time.

There are a couple of things that I found particularly cool in this OVA. One was Gassan, the inverted katana supposedly ... crafted by a Demon. I thought that was really cool sword design and I enjoyed seeing it swung around. Rin is badass enough that even though the katana's blade is inverted, she doesn't swing it backwards. She doesn't use the sharp side of it and she still dominates in combat. The other is that this OVA uses a lot of traditional Japanese instruments and styles in it's music and I think it sounds great, something I wish was more common in certain kinds of anime. It really enhances the atmosphere.

Also the English subtitled VHS sleeve has some hilarious text on it, look it up.

I really wanted to like this one, but the positives just don't outweigh the negatives enough to recommend this vintage OVA.

A young lady escapes the martial arts training of a hundred-year-old hag to seek her older brother. Along the way she encounters her brother's old workmates and fights off some magic users. There's a pervy nerd, a vengeful dryad, and a number of mysterious folks who bark orders from the shadows.

But little of it gets explored. The first episode features a number of nice fights and a bit of fan service (even during the fights!) and seems to set up a direction for ... the series. Then the second episode goes in a completely different direction with a visit to a hot spring, where the characters can get naked and fight again.

The series just drops the ball in the second episode, leaving loose threads and established characters in favor of a silly love story and embarrassing boner gags. In fact, watching the opening credits, one might imagine there's an entire world of sorcery and action awaiting the viewer, including a white tiger. That world, tiger included, never shows up. Thankfully the fight scenes were competently animated, but are nice fights and bare breasts enough?

Don't dwell on what could've been a successful anime series but appreciate what you had with this two part OVA: some rather memorable character designs, both necessary (Kagari - the big tiddy goth gf antagonist) and unnecessary nudity, decent action, a teeth clenching cringey romance involving a young teen and an adult, and a skull-scratching conclusion to the final bout in the second episode. No doubt, had the series gone longer, Miho would've garnered the screen time the first episode promised but perhaps we would've been subject to the baffling romance between Linn and the young adult - enough interesting material could've been had with ... Linn's country gal teen in the city schtick without stifling her with some grown otaku with a design general reserved for peeping toms and side gags. Watching Linn overcome her enemies and Kagari's milkers try to keep up with her intensity do make this quick OVA a worthy watch. Up the schadenfreude with the English dub (Linn's accent = chef's kiss).