I bought a set of Anime movies from a friend and that included Battle Arena Toshinden OAV. Looking at the cover and since I know the fact that it was inspired by a video game, I thought this is just another crappy anime movie that was only made to utilize the popularity of the game in an attempt to get the gamers to watch it. But one day, I just decided to watch it (maybe I had nothing else to do, or to watch at that time). Well after watching it, I could say that it’s not as crappy as I expect. I actually enjoyed it.

This OAV (which was released in 1996) has the feel of pure action (common to anime based on some video games) but they tried to mix it up with some drama and there’s a very small amount of comedy in it. I remember only one scene where I felt like they were trying to make me laugh (and they weren’t successful). The OAV has two episodes, each having less than an hour of runtime. The story happened in, what seems to me, a future world.

The main character in the story is Eiji Shinjo. He has a close friend, Kayin Amoh who, like Eiji, is good at fighting. Their enemy is “The Organization” which is lead by Uranus. The Organization targets the greatest Toshin fighters (including Eiji and Kayin), brain-washing fighters who they like to join them, and gather data for their “Man-Machine Project”. Sounds familiar? Well I think they patterned the game as well as this anime from Street Fighter II but twisted it a bit and added their own creative touch. At least it’s not as low as to what “Captain Barbel” did to copy “Smallville” (What a rip-off! But lets not talk about that crap and go back to the OAV).

Another character who diligently fights the organization is Gaia, a big guy who seems to be the mortal enemy of the most sophisticated man-machine, Chaos. Also on their side, there’s Sofia, Tracy, and the other Toshin fighters who came out of nowhere and showed up in the final scene.

All in all, I enjoyed watching it. The fighting scenes are above average and some are pretty cool. I didn’t like the way they added the emotional factor very much because I think this is an anime of pure action that doesn’t need to have a deeper meaning. Another thing that I didn’t like about this is (like what I already said in the previous paragraphs) that some of the characters came out of nowhere and it lacked transition. I know it’s hard to put all the characters in the story of a two-hour long video but Street Fighter II (the anime) did a good job with it. Two characters that I recall who only appeared in the last parts are Duke and Mondo.

Younger people will appreciate this more than grown-ups who like to see more twists in the shows that they watch. Also, people who like martial arts action can enjoy this OAV.

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Category: Movie Reviews

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