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This movie had a soft fairy tale vibe that flew along the famous Tchaikovsky theme of the same name. I don't know about the original story of the theme, but this one was about a princess of a kingdom that was defeated by a evil wizard, that was turned into a swan for no one to be able to fall in love with her. The thing is that Siegfried, a prince of a kingdom nearby gets an interest on the pretty bird on the lake, the rest, as they say, is history.

I found interesting the fact that they used the wizard as a friendly ... fellow instead of a dark ebil wizard. The princess was cute as was all the art on the film, the animation was disney like but not as expensive, it did it's trick well however.

Oh yeah, we even get "Swan Lake" in a japanese version as bonus.

Very good. 8/10

[This review is spoiler free]

The first thing that you naturally notice when you start watching Rose Of Versailles, are the marvellous character designs done by Shingo Araki, the man did a lot of character designs on the seventies for some famous titles but here he was in his best shape and developed his trademark style, which he later also used on Saint Seiya for instance.
Not only the character designs but the style and the peculiar 70s filled directing approach are very appealing and are added with a consistent and clever animation for ’79, and dare I say that some scenes are so well animated with ... the character movements that they even defy the commodity of modern animation from these days. Some examples being shown when there is a dance scene and in some crowd scenes where most of the individuals (if not all) of the crowd make independent moves of their own.


Unfortunately Nagahama Tadao died early on in the making of the series and with him died some of the “acid” aesthetics the series had in the first few episodes, because the acclaimed 70’s director Osamu Dezaki which came as substitute didn’t pick those more “acid” scenes but that is not to say that the series lacked quality from there on from there, au contraire, Dezaki, one of the men who define quality anime in the 70’s also fulfilled his duty with excellence and ended the decade in the highest note. I especially love how the shots of the camera are taken from various angles throughout the series. And a very special Dezaki watermark, the dramatic stills at the end of a scene. O

If you’re a History Buff the story couldn’t have been better, for it’s almost entirely consisted of actual historical facts and intrigues that actually happened just before and which led to the French Revolution of 1989 covering a span of 20 years.


The story starts using the shoujo formula of “newcomer female arrives and gets picked by older already established female at the place”, but it soon drops those shoujo anime standards, not only because of the historical facts from which the story cleverly was based from but also by the clever excellent use of real character mixed with just the introduction of two fictional characters to drive us through the developments, the director does a brilliant job there.
The script had a good use on the critic of the society of the 17th century, especially the aristocracy corruption problem. If you have watched Legend of Galactic Heroes before, you’ll definitely recognise a familiar critic Perhaps dare I say, that LOGH, author or director got direct inspiration from ROV.


The music is perfect for the anime, it was very competent as it was usual of high quality anime of the era, or just overall soundtracks of the 70’s, which are just some of the best music you’ll find in my opinion. I’m hearing the OST as I write and it does have very powerful songs, jus check Magical Rose on the tube, you’ll get hooked!

I am still impressed at the quality of this anime, [EDIT]years after[/ EDIT], and the only thought around in my head these days is to rewatch it again.


“Classic” can fit several works, with “cult” the range is shortened but “Masterpiece” only fit a very few works and Rose Of Versailles is exactly that.
No wonder it is still big back in Nippon, there are things that are just immortal.

10/10

Interesting movie we got here, despite it’s clichéd synopsis of the esper guy who has his limited powers and only can use a great amount of power when cornered like a mouse. I’m sure I’ve watched something with a similar synopsis before.
The thing about Ai City despite it’s clichéd synopsis and corny title is it does have more inside than meets the eye, especially it’s visuals, the animation is pretty good and provided some very interesting scenes and allied to the esper/psychic nature atmosphere of the anime, it had some very good scenes in it.
It tried to include a wide concept into one hour ... and half, due to that, some stuff was compressed and left outside of the anime, some other stuff was left unexplained [spoiler] I’m still am trying to figure out what happened there. [/spoiler]. But due to it’s crazy aspect about espers and psychics, I think that the random crazyness of some scenes can be left aside, and better than that, can be widely enjoyed.

A pretty decent 80s anime movie that will please your hunger for the sci-fi genre of it’s time.

Rate; 6.7/10

[Before reading this article be aware that this is not a complete review of the full anime as I've only watched 25 episodes out of 75 episodes of this series, so this review will most likely change throughout the times and also be aware that English is not my native tongue]

Fang Of The Sun Dougram... a flashy name as most of Mecha series names, especially the old school ones. But if you're into the genre you won't be bothered by it.

[spoiler on the early plot of the first three or four episodes below]

The Dougram series are set somewhere in the future in a space ... colony of Earth called Deloyer and starts when Deloyer wants to claim independance from Earth's Tyranny. Due to the fact that Earths not conceding Deloyer independence, there are lots of Guerrilla's action being made in Deloyeran territory against Earths people on that colony. One of these guerrilla kidnaps the ambassador Cashim of earth and demands the freedom of Deloyer, Earth doesn't want to give freedom to Deloyer just like that, so develops a big political scheme in order to control the Deloyerans with some treatys and using important Deloyeran people in search of more power to betray and control their people. In the middle of this, young Crinn Cashim, son of the kidnapped Ambassador, flies to Deloyer in order to save his father just to learn there that his father was pretty well and that it was all one of his schemes in order to raise hate against the guerrillas and an oportunity for him to make his victorious comeback. Young Crinn doesn't understands well the political plays that are taking order but he feels that they are wrong so he ends teaming up with the rebels who have developed an new mobile armour prototype (mecha) called Dougram and settles his goals to fight the tyranny along his new Deloyearan team mates.

[End of the little spoiler on the beginning of the story]

The story, as well as lot of other mecha anime that came in early 80's, is pretty influenced by the original Gundam series and uses a lot of political plays and schemes and sometimes it even makes me wonder how young Japanese kids would have understood what was going on on there back in the early eighties. But it is not Gundam and, dare I say that is is more well thought and more concerned with small details, it mixes more mature elements than Gundam did and the characters are satisfactorily developed, sure there is no Char Aznable here, but the villains are not the "100% evil bastard" and you can get their points and understand their options and decisions for their own survival.
On this record, you can feel Ryosuke Takahashi vibe, the guy that later went to do the manly mecha Votoms. The seriousness of some scenes and topic approached allied with well thought rich dialogues were a strong point of Takahashi back then.

The animation is from 1981, so you won't find a very good animation around here, but it does it's trick, I think the mecha battles suffers greatly from the animation issue so I don't quite enjoy the mecha battles here very much (not that I usually really enjoy them anyway). The character design is pleasant and lets you forget the animation a little bit.

Opening and ending are very epic and have been climbing on my OP/ED sequence of the 80s. They are melancholic and do have a certain 70s influence on them.

I have reached now the 25th episode of this series and am amazed at how detailed some scenes/discussions/dialogues are, unlike other of their contemporaries. It's a mystery why Dougram became such an underground unkwnown series, until this day. Thanks to X-Nebula fansubs, we westerners are able to watch this cult anime. Only the ending of the series will tell why it has become forgotten, or maybe perhaps why it was purposefully forgotten?

This one is for sure the most ancient piece of Japanese animation that I have seen, but its a good piece of history. And the best thing is that it has been fansubbed for our historical hunger and pleasure.

The little film is a black and white pretty old version of a karaoke song. We have a song playing and the Japanese characters coming and going along with the lyrics, pretty much in a modern Karoke fashion telling us about the Harvesting theme. This shows us how far back Japanese people have been into Karaoke and how important it must be for them.

This Gainax video was missing in my library. And I’m very glad that I finally got to watch it.

The Gainax animation in ’91 was excellent and this OVA was probably the first in it’s kind to thread some experimental paths in animation, a style that it was copied later on on titles like Tylor and became Gainax trademark in Eva and Kare Kano and on.
As Gainax universe is concerned you see obvious links and the same style used in Gainax productions, if you put Otaku No Video>Evangelion>Kare Kano one after the other you can clearly see the evolution of the studio in that ... particular style. Obviously they are different approaches but each of them ended being a timeless classic with their similarities in animation.

The OVA starts off in ’82 telling the story of a average Japanese person slowly getting more and more into the otaku universe throughout the years.
Interesting point is that Gainax interview several real life otakus (or persons that had been otaku in their college days), these occasional small interviews add some sad and depressing mood to it, but it doesn’t decrease the quality of the OVA, in the other side it raised the quality.
As the story goes by, it surpasses it’s air date year (1991) and goes further into the future, this led the story to leave the depressive parts behind and ends in a rather cheerful, comedic and happy ending.

I loved the OVA and would recommend anyone to watch it.

Rate; 8.0/10

The story is pretty entertaining and the Otomo vibe is definitely there. You can see Otomos trademark for example in the character of a guy pretty similar to the character of the colonel of Akira and in the animation too, which is pretty good and you feel familiar with it, even though Otomo being not credited for the animation I get the feeling that he did something in that department.
The story is about a new invention, a super bed that is able to take care of the elders like a nurse can take and even more. The thing is that this new invention goes berserk ... as there is more to it than meets the eye.
We also had a little of a Akira vibe in the story perfectly mixed with Shynia Matsumoto “Tetsuo the Iron Man”, in the department when [spoiler]the machine went berserk and started to assemble parts of other machines into its own body, that was pretty “Tetsuo” influenced, I wonder if it was intentional.
The characters were all decent, except perhaps some moments of the lead girl when she was running around screaming “Ojii-chan!! Ojii-chan!!” And in the end “Oba-chan!! Oba-chan!!”[/spoiler]
In terms of entertainment and overall feeling, I can relate this one with Otomos Stink Bomb. The little bits of well thought comedy, allied with political critic are very similar.

All in all a nice watch for an hour and 20 minutes.

Rate; 7.5/10

Finally I watched this cyberpunk classic which was lacking in my list.
This anime (more than Gall Force) was considered something like a groundbreaking for opening the way for groups of female heroines.

The story is set in Megatokyo year 2032, a blade runneresque society where androids are quite developed to even look like normal humans, except that they do not have the hability to speak.
Our heroines are an secret and independent force called the Knight Sabers, with some high developed suits and they do the work that the cops, in this case the special force of the police, the AD Police, can't do. Which is mainly ... to fight the androids that went berserk and the other kind of special cases just like Rick Deckard did in it's Blade Runner Universe.

We have four main girls here; Stylia, the calm intelligent and founder of the group, Priss, which is also a popular singer in bars and it's the "action" girl of the group, Nene, the infiltrated girl in the police but pretty coward and annoying in the action field and Linna, the average girl.
We also have Leon McNichol, the AD Police detective which is interested in Priss the singer and he turns out to be a pretty dependable and interesting character (thus leading into his own OVA series).

The overall mood of the series runs smoothly ranging from comedy to dramatic and cyber punk obscure scenes and the story flows without much relation from one episode to the other making the series quite episodic, there are indeed some episodes that are stronger than others, but in the end they tend to be a "Case of the Day" alone episode type of stores with just small links between them.
We have either good characters like Priss Leion and Styllia and annoying characters like good for nothing Nene, though she redeems herself in the last episode which was also a nice way of putting things.

Oh yeah, the opening scene of the first OVA is simply great, with Priss singing her popish 80's cheesy songs and showing some police scenes in between. Classic. Hearing that music these days sounds pretty nostalgic.

It is definitive a classic anime sci-fi of the 80's and a must watch nevertheless. The classic Blade Runner atmosphere just can't be ignored. Recommended.

Rate; 7.2/10

This is a prequel of Bubblegum Crisis and is set in Megatokyo year 2027.
In AD Police Files, we have a younger Leon McNichol when he was a newbie at the AD Police force and way before Knight Sabers came to be.

This is a lot more darker than Bublegum Crisis and carries the Blade Runner banner more properly than Bubblegum could ever carry with it’s comedy and Female cast. The animation gives a little help at turning the thing darker and it was made in a proper way. The music was just awesome and the ending music of the final episode made me want to ... look for it in the web (still hadn’t had any luck yet).

The story of its episodes, though not spectacular, can fit very well the dark atmosphere generated and it isn’t decidedly your light everyday story.

Definitely a must watch for cyber puk fans.

The only flaw that I find here is the number of episodes, they could have exchanged this one with Bubblegum.

Rate; 7.5/10

To speak frankly, one of the reasons that made me watch crisis, other than having the series in my want list since ages ago, was the fact that I had bought the DVD some time ago and it was getting old in the shelve.

With Crash we pick up again the series some months after the last episode and events of Crisis. It is now 2033 and Megatokyo has become more dangerous and AD Police is getting it’s hands tied because of political powers from above. The Saber Knights are nowhere to be found and the city is collapsing. Then… Naturally of course they’ll turn around ... again to save the day.

In these OVAs we had some improvements regarding the first OVA, like Nene, she’s pretty more dependable now than she ever was.
And also some bad points, while Nene became a dependable character, Priss on the other side, became a more shallow character, unfortunately.
There’s also the Seyuu of Priss, which was the best of the first OVA and here she had left the task to pursue her singing career leaving a new seyuu for the character, but she still managed to sing for the opening and ending songs of the anime, it was still pretty cool.

All in all it was a nice way to end the series. I’ve read before the two OVAs were intended to be a series, but I don’t know how they ended up being two OVAs instead. Perhaps they had lost some story in that transmission and some episodes didn’t went as well as others, but they’re still good episodes.

Rate; 7.0