Meisou-Ou Border

Meisou-ou Border is a forty five minute OVA from '91. It's based off of a Caribu Marley manga and was brought to life by Artland. That's right, the studio behind such pieces of complete tripe as Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu and Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. But they also did Mushishi and Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino, so we can't assume the worst. Story: We open with two blokes living in filth in a sketchy flat complex being hired to do a job. Since it's good money and they're incredibly stupid, they don't think to ask what the job actually is before taking it. From there the plot just meanders. Therein liesthe big problem with this OVA. There's some build up leading to their job but the actual work ends in five minutes and, after that, it's just these idiots faffing about for the second half of the OVA. Even the job doesn't get resolved well. There's never a point where anything really engaging, funny or interesting happens. Which makes watching this roughly equivalent to staring at your wall. You probably won't be too bothered by doing it but you also won't gain anything from it. Characters: I'm just going to refer to our protagonists as young scruffy guy and old shabby guy. Yeah, I could take ten seconds to look at their names, but I don't care enough. Scruffy is one of those protagonists who's an amicable, well-intentioned slob. Shabby is more the hedonistic, cheapskate but good on the inside type. They're both incredibly stupid and we get the same problem with them as we have with the narrative in general. They're just devoid of anything noteworthy or compelling. You could replace them with stray dogs on an adventure with no dialogue and at least the dogs would be cute which would make them better. Art: In terms of artwork and animation, it doesn't look bad. It's not the world's most polished looking work, but it's fine. And that's, unfortunately, the highest praise I can give any element of this OVA. The worst part of the artwork is the character design. A lot of the major dudes who show up are just these kind of generic looking mangy guys. So, a lot of it ends up looking the same. It's kind of like Marvel's old GI Joe comics with clean cut blonde, blue-eyed dudes you can't differentiate at a glance. Except that those gave them distinct outfits and these guys all dress similarly too. Maybe Caribu just likes having generic mangy guys as characters as much as I like writing LGBT characters. Sound: The main characters are voiced by Yara Yuusaku & Horiuchi Kenyuu. Their performances aren't particularly impressive but they're perfectly passable. I've heard better performances from both of them in the past, but those were in series where they were doing things that warranted range. The music is entirely forgettable. It's all just rather generic. Ho-yay: There isn't any on display. Areas of Improvement: Focus on one story line. Part of the problem with this work is that, instead of giving us one cohesive narrative and doing it well, it gives us a mesh of thrown together, half-assed plot lines. Focusing on one story would have given it a chance to develop the conflict and characters better. Characters need personality. If you're going to waste more than half the work doing nothing, at least use that time to give the characters some complexity. Distinctive Designs. These guys looking very similar and just generic in general does not help this OVA. Even if you want to maintain the aesthetic of having them both look shabby, you can do that while also giving them more differentiated facial features. At the very least. Final Thoughts: In the end, Meisou-ou Border isn't a bad OVA. Its biggest failing comes down to one simple factor, there's nothing to it. So, unless you need a sleep aid I can't really recommend it. I'll give it a 4/10 for being dull and tedious but inoffensive.