Eiyuu Gaiden Mozaicka

Eiyuu Gaiden Mozaicka is a thoroughly classic example of the standalone 90s OVA- It's a sci-fi/fantasy adventure romp that's only a few episodes long and manages to be both extremely unique and doggedly formulaic at the same time. This characteristic is omnipresent throughout the anime, and especially its setting, so as such we'll begin this analysis with the story that forms the foundation of the work. Its worldbuilding is immediately representative of this dualism, in that it feels like an extremely classic sword and sorcery type hero's journey, complete with heroic knights and warrior women in skimpy armor and ancient prophecies, while on the otherhand it's bizarrely syncretic with science fiction, with bad guys flying spaceships around the planet, weird energy weapons, and "castles" that look like distorted air traffic control towers. So, in this way, it is both utterly formulaic and utterly unique. If I had to make a distinction as to how it can maintain both identities at the same time, I'd say it comes down to the fact that the story is formulaic but the setting is unique. That's not to say the story is bad, just predictable, and the strange, otherworldly setting certainly pulls its weight in terms of keeping the viewer on their toes. This brings me to the art, which exhibits this same inner conflict. Once again, the setting is very weird, and this anime reminds you at every moment that there are equal parts evil sorcerers to giant automatons to be dealt with. On the other hand, the way that its executed feels very old school, almost more like an 80s or even late 70s anime than a 90s one, with plenty of background detail but a somewhat limited range of animation, which itself is guilty of clumsy stage-fight style action sequences and limited character detail, often having a particular issue with illustrating and animating faces. The sound is more cut and dry, meeting all basic standards of quality for the time, even if some of the voice work is rather hammy and amateurish. The characters leave little to say about them, as they're all fairly generic executions of various tropes. Of the cast, U-Taruma and Moruka are the best characters, U-Taruma for being a completely unoriginal yet nonetheless cool execution of the selfless heroic warrior archetype, and Moruka for being a boisterous, alcoholic Chewbacca stand-in. The two of them together again embody this OVA's central theme by one being completely unoriginal and the other being a unique, bizarre inclusion in the story. Overall, Eiyuu Gaiden Mozaicka is an odd little OVA, and while it's not necessarily good or bad, it's still on the whole a generally entertaining way to spend a couple hours, especially if you like old OVAs. If that era's not your style, then you definitely wouldn't enjoy this anime, as the experience essentially consists of that time's distilled cultural essence from start to finish.

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