Makaryuudo Demon Hunter

“Makaryuudo” is a one-shot half-hour OVA based on the manga of the same name, and it’s basically about a demon girl whose job it is to hunt down evil demons causing trouble on Earth. While this OVA has an all-star voice cast and interesting demon designs, it is lacking in just about every other aspect. Short, one-episode OVAs from the ‘80s tend to be one of three things: an advertisement for the manga they’re based on; a “bonus” video for fans of the manga; or a pilot to a potential TV series. “Makaryuudo”tries to be a little bit of all of these, and succeeds at noneof them. The plot and character introductions are rushed, and everything moves way too fast. It seems like the OVA starts in the middle of the story, so it expects you to have a general idea of who the characters are and their relationships with one another. And before you can even get a grasp of what’s going on, the whole thing is over; the monster-of-the-week plotline has been resolved, everyone is okay and our heroes (?) live to fight (and go to school) another day. The characters receive little development. The main character, Yama, gets some backstory to explain her current situation, but it’s glossed over. She’s kind of like Miyu from “Vampire Princess Miyu,” except a little friendlier to people. She has a crush on Sho, your run-of-the-mill Japanese high school student, for reasons unknown. It’s implied that they knew each other in a past life. Sho has a friend (girlfriend?) named Kaoru, who’s nice but bland, and another friend named Sawaguchi, who unwittingly gets involved in the demons’ nefarious plans. There are two other “good” demons, and some delinquent kids, and the main antagonist, the school principal’s granddaughter. All of these characters are one-dimensional. There are also 3 characters who work/live in a a cafe who seem to be integral to the plot, although their backgrounds are not explained. The animation is subpar and downright choppy at times. The humanoid character designs are okay, but they look rather generic, with the exception of Yama, who has cool hair. The demons, on the other hand, sport intriguing designs and variety: there are harpies, nautiluses with tentacle heads, skeleton dragons, etc. This may be worth watching just for the demon designs alone. The all-synth instrumental soundtrack is okay, but mostly forgettable. And I’ve definitely heard some of the exact same sound effects in other ‘80s OVAs, so they’ve probably been recycled here. The voice cast, surprisingly, is robust. The entire cast is well-known voice actors. Even the minor characters who went unnamed in the credits were voiced by the likes of Emi Shinohara, Shinichiro Miki, etc. Unfortunately, the substandard dialogue and rushed writing did not do a good job at showcasing their talents. Regarding objectionable content, there is a lot of nudity (the topless harpy demons), occult imagery, gore, death and some body horror. However, the whole tone of the OVA is, strangely enough, rather lighthearted. Overall, while there are worse OVAs out there, “Makaryuudo” is rushed and incomplete, and has subpar technical aspects. The demon designs are pretty neat, though, and this is a rather “harmless” OVA and not hard to sit through, so you may want to watch it for the cool ‘80s aesthetic.

First of all, this is a short anime with size of one standard episode, so there's not much to say here. This is a pretty simple and standard horror OVA of its time, without any extremes in any aspect. Almost nothing stands out either in a good or bad way. The visuals are good, atmosphere is fine, the characters are there, some standard plot about "hunting demons" is also there, some action and gore are also there, in general, nothing special, but all these ingredients are "cooked" well together. The only thing that stand out in this anime is a little unique appearance of themain character (like her a lot) and the design of those small flying monsters. In summary, this OVA is too short to leave any emotional trace or even just to be remembered, but it's high-quality enough to be a nice tasty "snack" for one evening for enjoyers of old anime.

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