Setsuna Mudo always knew he was different from other people- after all, you can hardly be said to be normal when you’re tortured by improper feelings for your own sister. What he doesn’t know, however, is that he is also the reincarnation of Alexiel, a powerful angel who was cast out of Heaven. Now, even as he struggles with his own inner conflict, Setsuna finds himself drawn into a war between Heaven and Hell; a battle where the angels may themselves be more corrupt than the demons they pursue.

With its themes of incest and heavenly battles, it is no wonder that Angel Sanctuary made a name amongst more conservative viewers for being a controversial title, but personally, my attraction to it was based entirely on the beautiful artwork. And fortunately, unlike most short OVAs based on aesthetically pleasing yet long-running manga series, it also proved to be quite satisfying to watch.

Although a lot is left out even from the one volume of the manga that I’ve read thus far, Angel Sanctuary does a much better job than most short OVAs in communicating its themes and characters in its limited runtime. Everything from incest and heavenly wars to cross-dressing demons somehow finds its place, yet rather than feeling confusing or dull, the OVA manages to flesh out each element enough to make it worth watching. Yes, it’s still just an extended advert for the manga, but it’s one that proves enjoyable rather than frustrating.

Visually, Angel Sanctuary may be showing its age a little, but nonetheless the beauty of the character designs shines through, with fantasy and reality woven together into one seamlessly attractive blend. Background music is largely forgettable.

Final Thoughts
A three episode OVA could never do a twenty volume manga justice, but Angel Sanctuary does the best it can, standing head and shoulders above other brief OVA adaptations such as Grandeek and its ilk. It will almost certainly leave you wanting more, but the time spent watching it won’t feel like a waste of time.
Tier: Bronze+

Growing up is something we all have to face eventually, and for elementary school student Tsubomi, the time to start the transition from childhood to adulthood has arrived. With a younger sibling on the way, her first period and the realisation that boys can be more than just friends, Tsubomi has a lot to deal with- but luckily a mysterious new student at her school is always there to offer support and advice through these important times.

A tale of growing up, Naisho no Tsubomi is a little different from the average anime- it isn’t every series that tries to tackle pregnancy, menstruation and first love all in the space of three episodes. With that in mind, however, it’s hard not to watch it with mixed feelings- on the one hand, it’s quite a sweet tale based on the feelings that everyone experiences at that age, but at the same time it’s slightly creepy to base a series on 10-11 years going through puberty. Certainly, whilst watching it, I found myself changing my mind several times as to whether it was okay to enjoy it, or whether that made me some sort of closet pervert.

As far as characters go, Naisho no Tsubomi has an effective if predictable cast, consisting of title character, potential sweetheart, best friends and family. The only enigma is the mysterious transfer student who quickly becomes Tsubomi’s confidant, but an educated guess will quickly reveal who she is and how she ties into the story.

Despite being an OVA, Naisho no Tsubomi is not particularly impressive in the animation department, featuring largely average visuals and forgettable music. Still, this is not the kind of story that demands highly polished presentation, so the look is appropriate to the content.

Final Thoughts

If you can put aside the vague feelings of perverted creepiness that crop up whilst watching this series, Naisho no Tsubomi is a pleasant little tale of growing up that is enjoyable enough without being particularly ground-breaking or original. If you want something a little different from the usual high school setting, then this is a good alternative.

Tier: Bronze+

Together with her intelligent sword Grandeek, itinerant warrior Tia travels the world in search of the greatest weapon in the world. It’s no surprise, therefore, that she ends up on the Isle of Weapons, a place where numerous blacksmiths practise their craft in search of that same perfection; but on arriving, it becomes clear that all is not well. A stolen sword has possessed its owner and forced them to go on a killing spree to sate its anger, but with the murderer having gone beyond what it means to be human, can anyone stop them?

After stumbling across some attractive pictures drawn by Kohime Ohse, I knew I had to learn more about what she had done (which, ironically, included some character designs for Gust’s Atelier Elie), which naturally led to investigating her fantasy manga series Grandeek. Unfortunately, with the manga itself proving elusive to track down, I decided to make do with this one-off OVA.

As with so many of these standalone OVAs, Grandeek may look nice, but it isn’t really anything special- since we don’t have the necessary background on the main characters, all we can do is watch them go through the motions of solving one particular case without having any deeper questions answered. Worse yet, Grandeek’s plot is far less exciting than it sounds; despite being about a cursed sword on an island filled with weapons, there is precious little in the way of action or noteworthy events- instead, everyone just sits around talking about swords. Admittedly, this provides great fuel for a parody (expect to see such a thing soon), but in terms of actual enjoyment, it doesn’t achieve a great deal.

As well as Tia, a girl who may actually be a demon, Grandeek boasts one more main character- a blonde swordsman hired to deal with the possessed killer. Presumably both of them are well developed in the original manga, but here there is no time for that, so viewers can only speculate on their back stories.

Visually, Grandeek has well drawn settings and the attractive character designs that first drew me to the series, but overall the look seems rather washed out and bland. As so often happens, the background music is so forgettable that it cannot be recalled at the time of writing.

Final Thoughts

Like so many other brief OVAs based on long-running manga series, Grandeek is something of a pointless endeavour that fails to entertain and doesn’t really provide much insight into how one might enjoy the original material. Even if you have a spare hour to fill, there are many other, better, ways to spend your time.

Tier: Wood+

Shed by the legendary tree Yggdrasil, the mysterious Fruits of Time are both a blessing and a curse, granting immortality to women, but condemning men to a fatal, bloodthirsty hunger. Rin Asogi is one such immortal, and as the ages pass, she and her faithful companion Mimi can only watch as the world turns and each generation succeeds the last. Their endless lives are far from uneventful, however, for in the background a shadowy force is slowly but surely hatching a deadly plan that could change the world forever.

A six-episode OVA, Mnemosyne started out most promisingly, offering us an invincible female hero, spy-style action, slick (if not especially sophisticated) action scenes and an all-round solid experience. If you enjoyed the likes of Alias, you just had to be on board for this one.

Unfortunately, once the sheen had worn off, the later episodes of Mnemosyne consistently managed to disappoint. Amidst a wave of gratuitous sex and violence, any vestiges of a story were quickly lost, leaving the viewer to flounder around in what was presumably meant to be the 21^st century’s answer to the cyberpunk titles of the 80s and 90s. Worse yet, after the first couple of instalments, each episode jumped ahead several decades, making it even harder to discern what was meant to be going on. Yes, there was an evil force in the background, but what were they trying to achieve beyond some rather extreme S&M? Even if you could figure out what was going on, would you even care that much? Sadly, it seemed unlikely.

Worse yet, despite seeming so worthy at the start, Rin gradually proved to be as disappointing as the world she inhabited. Instead of being the strong woman she initially seemed, Rin seemed to spend far too much time either battling an uncontrollable lust for the male angels or otherwise at the mercy of various male antagonists. I may have hoped for a smart, sassy female who was basically invincible no matter what the enemy tried, but what we got was a largely ineffectual character who seemed to ultimately be driven by centuries of frustrated love.

Meanwhile, the supporting characters are largely underwhelming; Rin’s constant companion, the “not as young as she looks” Mimi may provide a lighter touch to the show, but she becomes increasingly redundant as the series progresses, whilst others such as various generations of the Maeno family, blonde antagonist Apos, an unrelenting cyborg and various others are as bland as they are forgettable.

Visually, Mnemosyne offers a range of character designs from the attractive to the generic, although whilst the base material is good, the animation seems surprisingly shoddy and low-budget for an OVA- perhaps an attempt to recapture the ‘gritty’ feel of the 80s and 90s series it wants to emulate. Background music is mixed in quality, although there are some good tracks that make acquiring the OST an attractive prospect.

Final Thoughts

Despite a promising start, Mnemosyne quickly went downhill, attempting to emulate the retro OVA style for an audience who had long since moved on from such things. Ultimately, what we ended up with a confusing morass of gratuitous sex and violence that was barely worth watching once, let alone returning to.

Tier: Wood

With the directorial reins of this Ghibli film having been handed from the legendary Hayao Miyazaki to his son Goro, Tales of Earthsea was always going to be a film that attracted much comment and scrutiny, but for me it was something I could never really be bothered to watch- until the day family members unexpectedly came home with the DVD. By this late stage in the game, I was already aware of the mixed reviews the film had accrued elsewhere, but how would it fare on the Azure Flame “400 anime” scale?

Unfortunately, for all the hype that the creators and distributors might whip up, Earthsea is something of a disappointment- a film that will please casual anime viewers, but not one that will do much for committed fans. The framework of the story is the usual one of pure-hearted good versus ambitious evil, and whilst we can forgive the film for going down such a well-travelled route, there is still much to complain about. The reason why Prince Arren killed his father and the alternate personality he seems to possess are never properly explained, and in fact make less sense at the end of the film that they did at the beginning. Revelations involving other characters are equally sloppy, whilst throughout the film entire outlooks and ideologies are easily swayed by a few paragraphs of clichéd rhetoric. Even the customary final boss battle is something of a disappointment- quite a hard feat for such an overused gimmick.

Visually, Earthsea is up there with the other Ghibli films, offering impressive settings and well-choreographed action scenes alongside the usual simple but technically competent character designs. Background music is solid but largely unremarkable; however, overall the presentation does help to improve the viewing experience, offering a well-polished sheen that ensures some scenes are more enjoyable than their basic content would suggest.

Final Thoughts
Earthsea is one of those films that you watch more to say you’ve seen it than to derive a great deal of enjoyment from it, for whilst it isn’t particularly awful, nor does it really make it past mediocre. It’ll please family and friends who want to pick up a readily available DVD that’ll let them say they’ve watched some anime, but for the more discerning connoisseur, there are many other series, films and OVAs that your time could be better spent on.

Despite its name, Treasure Town is infamous not for being a place you would actually want to visit, but for being a hotbed of gang wars and yakuza activity. In amongst all this chaos, two young boys- canny streetwise Black and childish idiot savant White- fight both to survive and to protect their home turf from outsiders and the changes they bring.

For a long time, Tekkonkinkreet wasn’t a movie I had much inclination to see; not only were initial glimpses of the art somewhat off-putting, but it seemed to be getting hype from all the quarters whose opinions rarely agree with my own. Nonetheless, as time passed and more reliable sources began praising the movie, I decided to take the plunge and give it a fair chance- and fortunately, my bold endeavour was rewarded.

It’s hard to describe the appeal of Tekkonkinkreet from basic descriptions alone; on the surface, it sounds like little more than a hash of clichéd concepts- yakuza gangs, wild children, we’ve seen them all before. What really makes the film come to life, however, is its leads and the relationship between them, a relationship neither can live without. Perhaps one of the most touching and memorable scenes in the film is when White explains that both he and Black are ‘broken’, but together they can make up for the missing pieces in each other’s hearts and souls. It is in this moment that we see and understand how deep and powerful the link between them is- far more so than the numerous superficial relationships that often grace our screens.

Of course, every relationship is highly dependent on the personalities of the people involved, and happily both Black and White have much to bring to the table. As the older, more grounded side of the pairing, Black effectively encapsulates the action side of the movie- he’s practical, pragmatic and not scared to fight to protect what he believes in, but no matter how good he becomes at keeping the outside world at bay, he remains vulnerable to the darkness that lurks within his own soul. In contrast, White is as innocent and naïve as his name suggests, apt to wander off into whimsical daydreams or flights of fancy but always safe in the knowledge that Black will look out for him.

Although Black and White are undoubtedly the main draw, it has to be admitted that there are other characters who have a part to play as well. Whilst many of them are there to perform little more than a basic supporting role, there are those who stand out- even the yakuza who are initially portrayed as the antagonists have a chance to evolve into something more than faceless enemy goons.

As mentioned above, Tekkonkinkreet’s ‘distinctive’ character designs are not the most aesthetically pleasing, but if you can work your past those initial impressions, then the film is actually very technically accomplished. Background and establishing shots are always grand in scope, whilst the animation is always smooth and fluid. The music is a bit more hit-and-miss, but generally suits the tone of the film, even if it is actually most memorable when you are in the process of navigating the DVD menus.

Final Thoughts
More than the mere ‘wild boys vs. yakuza with questionable character designs’ that it appears to be, Tekkonkinkreet plays on the strong relationship between two strong leads to provide something that is oddly touching and memorable. And with a technically inspiring visual presentation to back it up, the film is well able to draw you into its world, if only for a little while.
Tier: Silver

When a strange incident leaves 17-year-old Makoto Konno with ability to ‘leap’ backwards through time, she does exactly what most people would do- uses her ability for her own personal gain. Nonetheless, as fun as it is to avoid mishaps, pick up extra pocket money and improve her grades, it gradually becomes clear that messing around with time has its consequences, and that trying to change one thing for the better can make something else far worse.

By the time I got around to watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, it seemed to be one of those films that practically everyone had seen and written about long ago. Nonetheless, having finally sat down to see the movie, I enjoyed it so much that it felt wrong not to let it pass without at least contributing my thoughts on it.

Throughout the first part of the film, the most refreshing part about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is that, title aside, it isn’t yet another cookie-cutter time travel ‘epic’; gone are the usual clichés of people visiting dull periods in history or trying to save the world- instead, Makoto does what we’d all like to do with this ability. Failed a test? No problem, just memorise the right answers, then go back and ace it. Missed out on the last dessert? Never mind- you can always nip back and poach it from the fridge before someone else does. These are exactly the kind of things that motivate Makoto, and watching her early exploits with leaping is both fun and entertaining.

In time, though, the tone starts to get a bit more serious- after all, when you’re busy improving life for yourself, what effect does it have on other people? Even if you only change little things, after a while they begin to add up- and what makes life better for you may end up causing someone else to suffer. If the first half of the movie was enjoyable for its light-hearted comedy, then the second half rounds it out with this more thoughtful and poignant style, illustrated by the changing relationships between the characters, and rounded off with an interesting twist.

Visually, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time keeps its character designs subdued and simple (but none the less technically accomplished), whilst settings and backgrounds are soft and bright. In still screencaps, the style may look simplistic, but in motion it attains a fluid beauty of its own that complements the mood of the film.

Final Thoughts
A film that starts light-hearted and builds into something more meaningful, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an enjoyable ride from start to finish. Time travel may all too often be the subject of worn out plot clichés, but if this movie is anything to go by, there’s life in the concept yet.
Tier: Silver+

According to legend, many years ago, a powerful god named Gestalt was banished to Earth and sealed in an island known only as ‘G’. Determined to find the truth behind these rumours, priest Father Olivier decides to leave his order and travel to G, but when he gains a travelling companion in the form of sorceress Ohri, it is only the first step in becoming embroiled in a more complicated adventure.

During my time with the Loveless manga, I happened to stumble upon an advert for another series by the same creator- Gestalt. Although said series was some twelve years old, I was immediately drawn in by the character designs, but there was just one tiny problem- no English version of the manga existed. In a strange turn of events, however, a two episode OVA based on the manga had somehow made it as far as a UK release, and so ultimately I had to settle for that instead.

As expected, a mere hour of content doesn’t really provide much opportunity for anything in the way of story and character development, so instead one has to settle for more of a brief diversion. Told in the style of a tongue-in-cheek RPG with more than a hint of harem, Gestalt starts out as Olivier and Ohri’s journey to G, but quickly gets distracted by the tale of an evil queen and sorcerer who are trying to usurp a kingdom (this would presumably have been the first arc of the manga). There are also hints of a larger plot involving a tournament between sorcerers and the truth behind Ohri’s magical powers, but with no time to do much with these elements, you just have to accept what’s presented to you and not worry too much about answers or explanations that are never going to arrive.

Despite being the centre of the plot and inexplicably attractive to the various women he meets, Olivier himself is not a particularly interesting character- like so many other leads, he has enough destined power to keep him safe throughout the story, but little in the way of personality. Sadly, the limited duration of this OVA means that the rest of the cast is similarly one-dimensional, with only Ohri bucking the trend. With her light-hearted exterior concealing her dangerous ‘true self’, it seems clear that there are mysteries in her past just waiting to be uncovered, but as mentioned above, you shouldn’t expect any answers other than the ones you deduce yourself from the evidence given.

Thanks to Yun Kouga’s talent for producing attractive character designs, Gestalt is in good hands visually, with OVA production values and good source material somewhat compensating for the fact that it was produced over a decade ago. In contrast, however, the music is largely forgettable.

Final Thoughts
Like so many similar OVAs and series, Gestalt was clearly meant to be a taster that hooked you into the original manga, but unfortunately for the English-speaking community, that manga isn’t available. Nonetheless, if you’re a Yun Kouga fan or just out for an amusing spin on fantasy RPG clichés, there are worse ways to spend an hour.

After two seasons and twenty-six episodes of flower petals, HARD YURI and angst, the infamous Maria-sama ga Miteru decided to take a rest from TV series format and adapt the next part of the novels as five fifty-minute OVA episodes. Having enjoyed the TV series, I was initially interested to see where the story would go next, but as I was soon to discover, this OVA seemed designed to weed out the true MariMite enthusiast from the milder fan.

Unfortunately, as a member of the latter group, I was soon to find that the OVA simply lacked the quiet charm that I had once associated with the series- instead it was long, drawn out and largely boring. Instead of using the fifty-minute time span to fit more in, the lengthened episodes seem designed only to slow everything down as much as possible- after all, why take five minutes establishing a set-up when you have twenty to play with? With each episode the inevitable cycle repeated- this time around it hadn’t been great, but maybe the next instalment would deliver. Unfortunately, after five episodes of mediocrity, it had to be concluded that, overall, it had utterly failed to get going.

Episode one: a vacation in the middle of nowhere
During the television series, I had never thought of MariMite as full-on HARD YURI; the rather strong friendships between the girls seemed there more to entice the yuri fangirls than to actually gratify them. This was all to change in the OVA, however, starting with an episode that featured such delights as a generic trio of evil lesbians and Yumi getting all hot and bothered at the prospect of Sachiko getting undressed.

The excitement (such as it is) begins when Sachiko invites Yumi to accompany her to the family vacation house, surely a wondrous yet simultaneously terrifying opportunity to spend some quality time with her onee-sama. Naturally, however, things aren’t as good as they seem, with Sachiko not only completely disinterested in doing anything other than aimless hanging around the house, but with Yumi also forced to cope with jealous cousins (the aforementioned lesbian trio). If anything, the vacation looks like one of those hellish mixtures of dislikeable acquaintances and long stretches of boredom, but even though Yumi uses her Tohru Honda power to ultimately foil the lesbians and spread happiness everywhere, she ultimately wastes the chance of one exciting day by electing to laze about the house with Sachiko- again.

I have to admit that I actually feel quite sorry for Yumi; much as she adores Sachiko, it seems to be quite a difficult relationship. Sachiko seems to take an almost sadistic pleasure in acting coldly or formally towards Yumi, whilst always making sure to show just enough affection from time to time to keep the younger girl cruelly bound to her. Meanwhile, poor Yumi has to navigate the difficult waters of keeping onee-sama happy, ever fearful of making a mistake that would incur her wrath. She cannot even take it out by playing dominant on her potential petite-soeurs, since Touko is more openly evil and Kanako is a crazed psychotic stalker (more on this later). What’s a submissive girl to do, except give in and take that whipping?

Episode two: overcoming androphobia
It’s back to school for the second OVA episode, and surprisingly our HARD YURI girls are ready to open a dialogue for BI with the Hanadera boys’ school that Yumi’s brother and other named male characters attend. Unfortunately, despite having grown up with close male relatives in the family, Sachiko has a terrible aversion to anything containing the Y chromosome, and so the others must plan how to introduce her to the male of the species. Should they trick Sachiko into an unexpected meeting with the boys’ school student council and see how she fares? No, says Yumi, for how can she deceive her beloved onee-sama and face the inevitable whipping that would result?

Even knowing the truth, however, Sachiko is not one to chicken out and lose face, and so even though she goes weak and feels faint at the sight of so many males in one room, she boldly meets the Hanadera council. And, just in case you were beginning to think that spending fifty minutes on this one rather insignificant event was going a bit overboard, fear not, because the episode also has Development for Characters You’ve Never Met Before and Hardly Care About! In particular, we learn that one of the Hanadera boys is actually a transsexual who always longed to attend Lilian and become Sachiko’s petite soeur. A tragic tale indeed, but are we really supposed to invest time and emotion in someone who has just been introduced?

Episode three: now they’re into cross-dressing!
The first two episodes may have been slow and boring, but it was at this stage in the OVA that things were to take a turn towards the bizarre. Having agreed to help out at the Hanadera festival, the lovely ladies of the Yamayurikai tentatively venture into the realm of HARD GAY sex-starved males, who become so overwhelmed by the presence of women that they start acting rather strangely. From bizarre events like climbing up a greased slope to get to a girl waiting at the top, to kidnapping Yumi (they mistake her for her brother due to the aforementioned cross-dressing), Hanadera’s festival is a strange and scary one indeed, and the sight of Sachiko running towards Yumi in a panda suit only cements the surreal nature of it all.

Also making her debut in this episode is Kanako, the psycho lesbian stalker with an obsessive desire to be with Yumi. Unfortunately, Kanako has more issues than these trifling matters- ever since her father had an affair, she has developed a hatred of man that would make Sachiko look like a nymphomaniac- and when she finds out that Yumi actually has male relatives and even talks to men, she turns against the ‘tainted one’. Most people would rather have nothing more to do with Kanako at this point, but Yumi maintains a relationship with her, even though Kanako’s possessiveness makes the previously evil Touko now seem like a reasonable choice of petite soeur.

Episode four: Sports day at my school was never like this
In case you thought that the strangeness was restricted to Hanadera, however, the fourth episode went a long way to prove that this was far from the case, with Lilian’s sports festival proving to be quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen on a sports day before. When you think of such an day, one tends to imagine an emphasis on standard track and field events, but not so here- instead we see bizarre and quite childish ball games, pointless cosplay, dancing and a ‘centipede race’. Now admittedly I didn’t care much for PE in school and never paid much attention to sports day, but I can say with no small degree of confidence that it bore very little resemblance to anything seen in this episode.

Episode five: How can they even make Italy boring?
The final leg in this marathon of torturous melodrama and drawn out nothingness promised a school trip to Italy, and despite the disappointment of episodes one to four, I was certain that even this OVA could not mess this one up. Unfortunately, I should have known better- not only did it take ten minutes just to get on the plane in the first instance, but after that, we had to have lengthy sequences both in the airport and the hotel room, where in a dramatically shocking turn of events, Yoshino contracts a slight fever and is completely recovered by the next morning!

After this rather unexciting build-up, we do actually get to see some stills of the various sights of Italy’s most well-known cities, along with a cameo from Rosa Canina, who appeared so long that I had forgotten she was even studying in Italy in the first place. Naturally, Yumi’s enjoyment of the trip is marred by the fact that she has to spend an entire week away from onee-sama’s arms, but to make up for it, the episode sprinkles in hints that Sei has secretly travelled to Italy and is keeping an eye on them from afar (why? What was the point of this whole inclusion?).

And so, finally all is said and done, with 250 minutes of life irretrievably lost to the watching of this OVA, and a fourth season waiting in the wings to air when it will. I, for one, can hardly wait.

Audiovisual
OVAs are usually known for having better production values than their respective TV series, but MariMite is very inconsistent on this score; sometimes the characters are drawn well, whilst at other points the animation staff seems to have gone on a long break. Distance shots are especially poor, with characters often sporting exceptionally long limbs that would not look out of place in the infamous xxxHOLiC anime. Background music is the same quiet and inoffensive selection as in the TV series.

Final Thoughts
Once, the quiet setting and angsty melodrama of MariMite was enjoyable to watch, but this OVA really pushed it to the limit, ranging from the long and drawn out through the tiresomely clichéd and all the way to the bizarre. Unless you are dedicated fan of the franchise, give this one a miss and just read novel summaries to get caught up on the story.

After being abandoned by her owners one rainy night, “Chibi-Neko” the kitten is saved from an untimely end when a student named Tokio picks her up and takes her home. Despite the fact that his mother is allergic to cats, Tokio’s parents decide to let him keep Chibi, in the hope that caring for her will help alleviate his depression over failing to get into college. For her part, Chibi comes to adore her new owner, and in her naïveté, she hopes that she will one day turn into a human so that they can always be together. Even so, the world has many lessons for a young kitten to learn, and it seems for sure that she will one day realise that no cat can become human.

As a cat lover, there are some things which it is almost compulsory to watch, and as a film where the main character is a kitten, The Star of Cottonland must surely be one of them. Produced way back in 1984, the film presents feline life with what was then a rather unique twist; all the cats in the film are portrayed as humanoids with ears and tails- the early form of what was to become the familiar catgirl (and boy). To the humans in the film, their feline companions just look like regular cats, but the viewer sees them as they perceive themselves- as just a slightly different sort of person.

With our furry friends thus transformed, The Star of Cottonland starts off less as a movie and more like a documentary into the mindset of the cat. Ever wondered why your feline companion acts like she does- well, puzzle over it no more, because with this film, you can understand her that much better. It’s largely amusing and entertaining fare, only soured by one element- Tokio’s mother. Less allergic to cats than she is completely “nekophobic”, this is a woman to whom the sight of one kitten can induce trembling, screaming and fainting fits- a somewhat implausibly extreme reaction that goes beyond even the classical image of an entire generation of women screaming and climbing on chairs at the sight of a small rodent.

Even so, this one blot cannot really dampen the enjoyment of seeing the world through a cat’s eyes, but it does have to be admitted that the film loses a little in its second half. Yes, it is still a fun family film, but when push comes to shove, the focus starts to wander a bit. One minute, Chibi is trying to become human so that Tokio will like her instead of the girl he has a crush on, then she immediately switches to trying to get him together with said girl before leaving the household completely to go on a journey of her own with wildcat Raphael. This journey is supposed to be a search for the mythical Cottonland of the title (a sort of feline paradise), but when Raphael doesn’t show up, it becomes more of a random tour through town with the aid of various wildcats, which ultimately turns into Chibi and another cat trying to get to Persia. In the midst of all this, the film also has a tendency to digress into somewhat bizarre dream sequences, which only heighten the sense of not really knowing where the film is going.

Character-wise, this is truly Chibi-Neko’s story, with other characters generally tending to come and go, although some focus is placed on Tokio. A young man who has reached rock bottom after failing to get into college, he tries to study but lacks even the motivation to go to prep school, but who will be his salvation- Chibi-Neko or the braided girl he has a crush on? Other interesting personalities include Raphael the elegant wild cat, and “Neko Maniac”, a man obsessed with capturing Raphael so that he can hug him and generally give him a life of ridiculously over-the-top luxury.

Since it was made over twenty years ago, The Star of Cottonland is understandably not the most visually impressive of series, but nor does it look as bad as you might expect- with a movie budget behind it, the animation is generally clean, and Chibi-Neko’s character design is nice even if everyone else’s is somewhat pedestrian. The music is not particularly memorable, but suits the tone of the movie well.

Final Thoughts
Despite its tendency to wander off on any and every tangent in its latter half, overall The Star of Cottonland is an enjoyable family film that will capture the hearts of adults and children alike. Whether you plan to use it to convert younger relatives to the ways of anime, or just fancy some easy viewing to entertain yourself, this is one movie that deserves to be checked out.
Tier: Silver-