Sousei Kishi Gaiarth

Gaiarth is an interesting mish-mash of a lot of things that were "cool" in the 80's and 90's. With a little bit more attention given to the characters and the story itself, it could have risen to the status of being an unforgettable anime. Gaiarth mixes sci-fi and fantasy genres, featuring individuals jacked into machines, data hidden in city-sized cyberstructures, but also magic spells, (mech)armor and swords, elves and the like. The setting isn't half bad. Gaiarth could be described as a quirky blend with visual/storyline traces of Appleseed, Bubblegum Crisis, Final Fantasy, Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian/He-Man, Highlander, Heavy Metal and Neuromancer, to name afew. Hell, the movie Knights (1993) is probably a near facsimile of Gaiarth. With power metal blaring in the background during the time of action, what's there not to like? Personally I enjoyed the animation quality, which isn't spectacular for an early 90's OVA series, but enjoyable nevertheless. Characters were expressive and the action scenes worked out quite well. The wardroid designs look cool as heck! Soundtrack gets a bit repetitive, but is by all means not that bad. All this may make this OVA series sound better than it actually is. The story is actually well-paced, but leaves a lot to be desired for. In the first episode there are many mysteries waiting to be solved, but the last two episodes never really manage to unravel them in an enjoyable manner. The character interactions and lines get repetitive and shallow, never reaching the full potential of what they could have been: interesting love/hate relationships, realizations of what it means to be human rather than a machine, how should the world go on after experiencing a near-apocalypse in the grip of inevitable war... Anyway, if you're up for a neat little trip through magic cyber-spells, power metal and high-fantasy cyberpunk, I do recommend checking out the first episode (and leaving it at that).