I’m always wary of a Masami Obari project but this one was quite a surprise.
What They Say:
In the year 2020, Earth is conquered by a malevolent alien life form. The last remnants of humankind barely escape death by hiding in the oceans and creating underwater .”Aqua-bases.”
One hundred years later…they are attempting to retake their world. The human survivors create a deadly strike force composed of one human and four, cybernetically enhanced, voluptuous young women: the motherly Midi, the spirited Voogie, the hard-hitting Rebecca, the innocent Merrybell, and the pensive Shiori.
Specially trained and armed with the latest weaponry, they carry out guerrilla attacks against the alien invaders!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with the English language dub, both of which are encoded at 192kbps. The show is pretty standard late 90’s fare when you get down to it so there isn’t a ton of directionality to be had and most things come across largely through the center channel or a full-sounding design. Throughout the run, we didn’t notice anything in the way of distortions or dropouts of this stereo track. Most of the dialogue is center-channel based with very few movements across the front soundstage. The music and sound effects made good use of the forward soundstage overall, but this is your basic stereo anime mix.
Video:
Originally released in 1997, the three-episode OVA series is presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio. JC Staff handled the first two episodes of the series released in 1997 while the third episode was produced by Frontline in 1998. There isn’t a huge difference between the two production houses and these three OVA episodes have some good-looking animation with something of a budget and what appears to be good source materials. Other than a few soft areas and some minor rainbows in one or two areas, there’s little to really nitpick about with this transfer. The colors look good, blacks and grays during the flashback sequences are solid and the look overall is quite good.
Packaging:
The front cover features an array of cute yet serious-looking women in skimpy outfits wielding weapons. It’s a good-looking cover that should easily sell towards the younger male crowd with lots of disposable income. The back cover offers a number of animation shots and a good summary of what the shows are all about. The insert’s a pretty simple affair with the chapter listings on one side with no new artwork and adverts for other shows on the back.
Menus:
Simple is what makes up these menus. The main menu is a static piece of artwork with the selections in the corner, each quickly accessed. No music plays during the menus, but moving around them is pretty fast, and with there being little to do, quick to get out of.
Extras:
None.
An original OVA series created by Aoi Takeuchi, who directed the third episode after Masami Obari handled the first one, Voogie’s Angel is a pretty decent piece overall. But it’s also a surprising one that, having started out as an audio drama back in 1996, is still running. There are twenty-four installments on that side of it with a reboot of it getting underway early in 2021 with a new CD release. The original anime was picked up by Media Blasters not long overall after it originally came out and while I was wary at the time – Obari had burned me with shows like Growcaizer – Voogie’s Angel proved to be a decent bit of fun. Plus, it has a fun cast on the Japanese side with Aya Hisakawa, Kotono Mitsuishi, and Kikuko Inoue in the leads while also having a perennial favorite with Sakura Tange. The dub has some love too with Amy Tipton and Juliet Cesario involved there.
Sometime in the future, humanity has been forced underwater as the Space Emigrants have arrived on the planet and taken over. Their disgust at how humanity has treated the planet has forced them to bring mankind to extinction, and after 100 years since their arrival, the time is getting close. Humanity has only three years left before their time underwater will be done. To combat this, Dr. Crimt has created a team of cybernetic women along with his android assistant Midi. The women are all talented in their own way and when combined together as a team, can cause quite a lot of damage. So with time being short, Crimt and Midi send out the girls in their mini ship that looks a hell of a lot like a pig to take on the huge particle cannons that the SE’s use to devastate any ships that come up from underwater.
After saving one of the attack fleets, the girls end up on board the ship to help out more only to find themselves the subject of racism. The crew in general doesn’t like the cybernetic women, often calling them simply dolls or other derogatory things, even after they had just saved them. Not all are like this, but it’s a very strong feeling. The team is placed at the back of the fleet and won’t be involved in the next attack.
But of course, they say screw the orders, load up the pig and head out to do battle. When they encounter an enemy similar to them (but in male form) we end up moving into some interesting territory where the character’s true natures are revealed, with one of them actually being over a hundred years old. These flashback sequences, done in black and white, work quite well and actually had me really interested in their pasts, as these moments were used to illustrate the invasion and the time between then and mankind’s movement underwater.
In Summary:
Voogie’s Angel isn’t going to be a standout show, but it’s a good solid three-episode OVA release that presents a segment of a larger storyline well enough that you don’t feel ripped off at the end knowing that there isn’t anymore. I remember a sense of dread when I first started looking at this when it originally came out and realizing it was Masami Obari behind it but then really enjoying it. It was one of those welcome moments that really hit well. As it stands, all this time later, this continues to be a good show to pick up for a late-night viewing with friends just to have fun and enjoy taking it in. Especially if you’ve got an affection for this period and style of animation.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B-
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Media Blasters
Release Date: August 28th, 2001
MSRP: $29.99
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
