Hana no Asukagumi! 2: Lonely Cats Battle Royale

Oh well let's do this one more time, an anime without a review. I must say this first, I watched this thanks to the youtuber called Kenny Lauderdale who loves watching old and obscure anime stuff like me and made possible that this OVA be released finally to the whole internet. So without further ado let's go. With Old anime you must have some things clear, there is a difference between Tv anime and OVA anime during the 80s and 90s, because with TV anime they follow mostly the source material they had, be a manga, a book, a light novel, etc and with the latterexpect so many WTFs because the stories are really messed up sometimes and you have to read that source material to understand what is going on and not like the opposite like it is done today. Having said that we have a clear example with Hana no Asugami 2. This OVA is based on a manga that features girl delinquets or sukeban like it is called in japanese which was very popular during those years cause if you have time to look at OVA being sold during that time, there is a lot of that genre. Although with this one it is just so random in the sense that things happen and it is just way too convuluted to comprehend. The story is about a battle royal that will happen among the strongest delinquent girls around the city this show takes place because... reasons and the winner will get... something I guess (?). This is the premise of this thing which shows that you have to read the manga to understand what the hell is going. This OVA is just pure fight scenes and some flashbacks that doesn't make sense at all and that's all that you can get. In other words it is just bad. It has some cool fight scenes but it is so static. The characters are delinquents and just that. It is hard to see some development when there is none and even calling them tropes is just not ok. These characters are just girls fighting and nothing more. The animation is bad. I can pass on anime being old and and not having flawless animation like it is done today but this one looks so effortless by Toei. The fight scenes are so quick and don't have an impact except for one that happens during the night and the way Asuka uses her coin weapon it was cool. But again it is static and without any emotion to every punch or any attack. The character desing is also bad. Many girls look like they copy and pasted the same face on them and just added different hair cuts and that was all. Looks kinda boring in my opinion. The sound is ok, with all these weird OVAs you get a lot of synthwave soundtracks which is enjoyable and some random pop music of the time that sometimes you don't expect. The inserted songs are good and enjoyable but the voice actors are just meh. Nothing stands out but they do the best. Overall this is just one those old anime that if you are curious about anime history you should check it out, but again there is nothing of value of this thing except that is not lost media. It isn't that horrible like many other stuff I have found in this website but again don't raise your expectations and just look at a piece of media that was made in 1990 just to find out that the ammount of many kinds of anime that exist.

“Lonely Cats Battle Royale,” a spinoff of 1987’s “Shin Kabukicho Story: Hana no Asukagumi!” OVA, has some positive aspects, such as a promising start and decent music, but it’s rather subdued and lackluster compared to the original story. The gist of the plot is that Asuka, and her friends Hime and Miko, have been put into a “battle royale”-style fighting bracket without their knowledge or consent, and they have to fend off various groups of delinquent girls attacking them while trying to get to the bottom of who created this bracket and why. Provided you know who the characters are, the setup is okay and iseasy to follow, but as the story unfolds, it begins to fall apart. The reveal of the culprit behind the bracket, as well as the reason for making the girls fight, is explained clumsily. The climax is drawn out and boring, and although they try to wrap it up at the end, the characters’ interactions with each other don’t feel genuine. Compared to the over-the-top antics of “Shin Kabukicho Story,” “Lonely Cats Battle Royale” is underwhelming. The characters act roughly the same as they do in the first OVA, but since there’s a different character designer here, some of them look different, particularly Miko. I didn’t even realize she was supposed to be Miko at first. Asuka is even tougher and meaner than she was in “Shin Kabukicho Story,” and she comes across as not being very likable here. Neither Hime nor Miko stand out very much, and Yasuhiro shows up briefly and adds little to the story. “Lonely Cats Battle Royale” has its own set of bullying schoolgirls, just like “Shin Kabukicho Story,” but the interactions between the bullies and their victim, as well as the bullies’ motivations, seem forced. Asuka’s way of dealing with them in “Lonely Cats Battle Royale” also isn’t as satisfying as it was in the first OVA. The animation is serviceable, but subpar, and as touched on above, the designs for some of the returning characters are different. Also, many of the new characters look bland, compared to the outlandish designs in “Shin Kabukicho Story.” The voice acting is average. The music is decent, particularly the catchy, upbeat ending theme. The direction isn’t very good; it’s hard to tell what’s going on at times. As for potentially objectionable content, “Lonely Cats Battle Royale” has fighting, blood and references to drugs. Also, gambling plays a major role in the background of the story, as do anorexia and bullying. This OVA is a bit tamer in general than the first one, though. Overall, while there are a few positive aspects to this OVA, it’s missing the spark that the first one had, and thus comes across as dull, and with a messy plot on top of that. Not recommended.

I don't think this was truly ever lost media. I think that's more a product of kenny lauderdale not living in Japan and not knowing how to google things in Japanese, because I saw tons of comments on the video that probably led you here reporting that it was super easy to find secondhand copies of it on Japanese auction sites. So yeah, you're probably here because that guy on youtube told you that this was an unwatchable show, but you got clickbaited because the whole thing is on youtube now with subtitles and everything. And it's... not very good. It's basically the story of thesedelinquents who are constantly fighting and an underground illegal gambling ring that bets on the outcomes. You don't need to watch the first one or even be familiar with the franchise at all to get the gist of what's going on. It has a simple story and a simple conclusion, and it isn't really anything special. It only got attention for being "lost." 6/10

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