Rakushou! Hyper Doll

You ever watch an anime and one or several characters are gathered around a TV screen watching anime? And the show that the characters are watching always has scantily clad, magical robot girls girls fighting ridiculously laughable monsters while quoting generaically overused catchphrases? I believe that the show they all are watching is Hyper Doll. Back in 1997, I first saw this show and kinda loved it. It's pretty generic, unoriginal, and cliche-ridden, but that doesn't mean it's bad at what it does. I recently rewatched it and wish that there was more of it in OVA format. With a pretty simplistic premise, thereis no real need for Hyper Doll to devulge on any sort of exposition in terms of why Mica and Mew were sent to earth. The fact that they are too lazy to actually care and being Earth's protectors fall into secondary behind snacks and food is frankly all you need to know. It tells itself everything shortly after the opening monolouge when Acai, the poor young man who knows their secret, attempts to remind them of their tasks. As far as animation goes, this is actually pretty well done, given the era it came out. Preferably episode two looks really good, with slightly more vibrant colors and the visual gags are a little better. The girls, Mica and Mew, carry the old Asuka Langley/Rei Ayanami-esqe yin and yang dynamic. Mica, the spicy, long haired red-head whose more outgoing, and Mew, short blue-haired, presenting a calm, more laconic demeanor. Nothing too special aobut their appearance, but they are pretty good-looking and their Hyper Doll outfits are snazzy and leave little to the imagination. The other two prominent characters, Acai and Shouko, look noticably more bland, but by design. Acai is every kid in a 90's anime; beautiful gals wreck his life (wait, that every anime) and Shouko is the best friend who has undisclosed feelings for Acai, but her time is spent speculating the origins of the Hyper Dolls. You don't get much information on main villains except a young, beautiful blonde woman who has a history with the Hyper Dolls and this old, mad scientist guy who looks like Dr. Insano, but this is probably more explained in the comic. I can assure you that these are barely caveats that will hinder the enjoyment. IN CLOSING: I've actually typed about this OVA probably longer than it's running time. While this is an hour long venture that wouldn't hurt you if you passed it up, there would be nothing wrong with stopping to enjoy some pretty fun, yet kind of useless mid to early 90's anime comedy. It's one the titles I grew up with and am pretty fond of it, mostly because I like this sort of thing. Hyper Doll is indeed far from groundgreaking on a mainstream basis, but Mica and Mew look like the prototypical anime super hero girls that can be found in almost anything you're watching if you catch it. STORY: 5 ART: 7 SOUND: 7 CHARACTERS: 7 ENJOYMENT: 8 OVERALL SCORE: 7 out of 10 PROS: A small but fun cast of characters, Mica and Mew are easy on the eyes, surprisingly good english dub, the "Power Gauge" gag in episode 2 CONS: It's not hard to find a better title of the same genre like Shinesman