Chokin Senshi Cashman

I’ve read the One Shot manga from Akira Toriyama’s Manga Theater, and Saving Solider Cashman is my favourite out of all of them. I was surprised to find out that it was adapted into an OVA, but disappointed by how quick it was.

The OVA doesn’t elaborate who Cashman is, how he was stuck on Earth, or how he inherited someone else’s body. But for the most part it was alright, like it doesn’t take a scientist to figure what his role in the story is.

I was also surprised that the animation had a Dragon Ball GT look to it too, but I guess the ... late 90s does that to Toriyama’s work.

The original manga ended within 3 or 4 chapters, but I like the idea that every time Cashman is close to getting the required gold/salary he needs to leave Earth, there’s always something that gets in the way to prevent from doing it. Like there’s a good 12 episodes anime series that could be made from this, and depending on the reception, I can see another season as well.

This Cashman OVA is based on a short story (3 chapters long) by Akira Toriyama. It's about an alien (who is actually part of Frieza's race!) who happens to crash on earth. He can't go back to his home planet, because he's out of fuel and his spaceship uses gold as fuel. And since gold is insanely expensive on earth, he has to make a lot of money now. Therefore he becomes Cashman, a superhero who charges money for saving the day. He takes over the identity of a policeman he accidentally killed and now he has to deal with strong enemies and an annoying ... girlfriend. The premise is pretty cool, it's a typical silly Toriyama plot. Too bad this OVA doesn't do the manga justice, they changed too much and cut a lot of stuff out (which is weird, since the manga is already super short). In the manga Cashman has multiple fights, but in the anime, he only fight once. Overall this OVA isn't terrible by any means, but they should have just made it 10-15 minutes longer and just adapt the whole thing. If you like Akira Toriyama's style and you want to see a Frieza-looking dude fight some bad guys, then you might get some enjoyment out of this.