Related Titles: Tokyo Babylon (manga) | X (anime tv series) | X (anime movie) | X/1999 (manga)

Genre: Supernatural | Occult | Fantasy | (hint of) Shounen-Ai
Company: ???
American Licensing Company: NuTech Digital | Central Park Media
Format: Two OVA 50-55 minute episodes
Dates: 1994
Original Creator: CLAMP
Age Rating: Not suitable for young children; 15-18 and up

Synopsis: Subaru Sumeragi is a 16 year old Onmyou (ying-yang) medium who is already the head of his family's clan that has served Japan's governments for a thousand years. First Subaru must face a power hungry businessman who has infailable luck. Then, Subaru meets a fellow psychic who can see the past, including murders. Subaru is a kind and gentle soul who genuinely tries to help every single person he meets in his exorcist assignments. But in each adventure, he just might need the help of his older twin sister, Hokuto, and his mysterious gentleman friend, Seishiro.

SCORE: 72%

Gotta love bishonen! Subaru is so pretty, it's fucking scary! He's worse than Kamui! He looks so much like a girl in what I have dubbed as his "Micheal Jackson" outfit (which kinda makes fashionable sense for the time period the manga was written, early 90s). The only way you can tell him and older twin sister apart is by their clothing (which doesn't help much sometimes too, but Subaru sticks to his Micheal Jackson outfit and hat and never wears something too extremely weird, like a skirt) and that Subaru lacks boobs (even though poor Hokuto is frickin' skinny and has small boobies). lol

Plot: As mentioned in my manga review of Tokyo Babylon, sometimes I couldn't care less about the extra characters that Subaru helps out. I actually do like quite a few of them in the manga, but the characters made for the OVA got on my nerves and took up precious time that could have been used to further explain "the bet" between Seishiro and Subaru, or just develop them and Hokuto better altogether!

The first episode was a fun little piece full of the classic bad early 90s anime music and story. It was enjoyable to watch, and the plot worked pretty well, even if the concept of an inugami (dog spirit) was borrowed from the manga and used in a completely different story. Infailable luck, eh? Well it ends well, and the plot was only average. Listening to conspiriacy theories surrounding business men (even if supernatural) however, was not the entertaining for me.

Episode 2 had a highly, highly cliched romance plot of the new characters of this episode. I'm not the brightest blub shining out there, but if I can even predict what is going to happen, that's sad. Too much flashbacking and especially foreshadowing that setup to the climax is to blame this time. I wish I could have been surprised. I will say that I do like this episode better however, for two things; one is, what little development and information we get about Seishiro and Subaru is in the episode. And two; the mood. This has more to do with the music and visuals, than the plot, but the mood of this episode was indeed a darker one than the first ep. If it had been just pushed a little bit more, it could have been a truly dark and eeriely creepy anime.

Not only did this OVA have wasted potential, but us fan girls didn't get any of our fun shounen-ai humor that is one of the factors why the manga become so popular. One nice thing about this is that more general audiences can watch this series and not be like, ewww, since it is only hinted at vaguely and only joked and teased about once by Hokuto (who relishes confusing Subaru's sexuality in the manga, lol). Actually, that one joke is a third reason why I prefer the second episode to the first! ^_^

The manga of this series had some very simple stories, but they all add up to a more darker and far more impressive storyline and plot twists in time. This OVA had potential to do a lot of things, but the plot and story itself was way too simple.

Visual: No CG in this one, baby! And there wouldn't be for the age it has (1994, afterall). The visuals were not vastly impressive. They served their purpose well, but weren't an overabudancy of prettiness that CLAMP titles sometimes get carried away with. This OVA was not poorly animated, and wasn't exactly mediocre, but I wasn't too impressed.

However, I will say that Subaru's dream sequence in episode 2 was very good though. It was animated well, and I loved the use of red tones. The way he floated is just the way I feel when I have dreams. So, that was really good and impressive.

Hokuto's great fashion sense was well perserved. I'm just happy that the animators didn't go to the really, really extreme outfits Hokuto had for herself and Subaru. Afterall, those outfits would just become a distraction to the story, which sadly but honestly, is and almost always is more important than the visuals.

Sound: So, so very old! I've heard these sounds in so many other anime. Nothing to really note about the sounds of the anime, folks!

I love the voices! I mean, it's Kappei afterall folks, and he's of my favorites! Seishiro's voice was excellent (the same guy who is Sakano of Gravitation; now that's a really different role from Seishiro!). Hokuto worked very well, but...still lacked I think. She needed to work on Hokuto's laugh, which I think should have been even more outlandish, since Hokuto's laugh is such a hilarious trademark of her character in the original manga. I just imagined it'd be more wacky. Ah, well.

Music...hurt me...badly. LOL, well, this music is definitely a very pop, early 90s kinda music, with the interlude song, Strawberry Kiss sung in the first episode in (actually) very accurate English, that couldn't quite lose the singer's accent. Such an Engrish piece, baby! I didn't like any of the main pieces or background music of episode one.

However, I was very pleased with the music of episode 2. While not extraordinarily impressive, the music helped the darker and more eerie feel of the 2nd episode, helping establish the 2nd episode as the more darker of the 2 eps. Like I said before, plot was actually worst in the 2nd episode than the 1st, but since the mood setting was so much better, I liked the 2nd episode better. The music really helped to convey this.

The Dub: So...so...very, very painful! Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Acting...bad! Subaru, Hokuto and just about everyone's voices did not fit them well. But the worst part was the inaccurate transition of the English version of the script from the Japanese. Now, I do enjoy some dubs, but not this one!

On another note, the company who has the rights to licensing this anime in America, was even bad with the subtitling of the Japanese version!!! Even I, who has no skills in the Japanse language at this point as I type this, can tell you that the subtitling was inaccurate. I mean, if Subaru says Seishiro's name, but the subtitling says "Good Morning" instead, that's pretty sad. And the subtitling was horribly, horribly timed! There were spaces of time when characters said things and I'm pretty sure they were not translated also. Sad, sad.

Dub Letter Grade: F

Extra Rants and Bitching: Enjoy, enjoy this anime! The DVD is actually pretty good tracking quality for my DVD player, but that doesn't make up for the horrible editing and work of the American licensing company that dubbed and subbed this anime. So, wretched!

I really like this anime (mostly for the manga it is based off, to be honest), but it is not a favorite of mine, since it is a prime example of wasted potential in an anime. Such better material could have been executed. But, this show was too cliched and predictable. That's too bad.

Score Comments: I wanted to give this anime a better score, since I really do like it, and I did buy it on DVD. However, unless you just really like this title or are a very devoted fan to TB and its original manga, this title is just not all that good. It's average; mediocre. It's worth at least watching once, like for a rental. Unless you're a really big TB fan (like me) I wouldn't suggest you buy it.

Websites:

Have a website about this series, or do you know of a good one? Want me to link to it on this review? Well, the feel free to email the sucker to me! Just make sure to put "Review Link" in the subject.