12/5/02
Anime
Iria: The Zeiram Animation
Iria is a short, six half-hour, OVA series loosly based upon a Japanese live action film called Zeiram. The story follows a female bounty hunter in training named Iria as she is forced to battle the supposedly unstoppable alien monster Zeiram as it wreaks havoc across planets and space itself. On her side are her brother Grenn, her rival Fujikuro, and their boss Bob. There is a conspiracy afoot in the midst of the usual political intrigue. Zeiram doesn't care, it has its own agenda, and it's much more nefarious than anyone expects. It's up to Iria to take the monster down, no one else can do it, nor would she want it any other way.
Iria has great character designs, and the mechanical designs are inventive and highly stylised. The plot is well paced and not too predictable although it is a very easy to follow story. The science fiction aspects of the anime are pervasive and well thought out. The action is good with a slightly over the top style and a real sense of fun. There's some nice weapons play both with modern and ancient weapons types. The characters are well thought out and quite 3-dimensional. The direction is straight forward and nothing fancy but goes along well with the flow of the story. The musical score is good with some moving pieces and it is used in all the right places and with the right amounts. It's a good straight forward sci-fi anime.
DVD Notes
The Iria DVD is one of the plain-Jane jobs with no extras other than Chapter Selection. The episodes are available dubbed in English or with English subtitles to go along with the original Japanese audio. I cannot comment on the English dub because I refuse to watch it. The first few seconds hearing the terrible English actress as Iria was nothing short of frightening compared to the glorious voice of Hisakawa Aya-sama. The video on this disc is spectacular with solid colours even on the dark scenes. The audio is of excellent quality as well. The one downfall I find to this disc is that it starts into the show immediately without going to the menu, forcing the veiwer to scramble to stop it before that terrible dubbed voice starts up.
(
Thank you for reading my review.
Bob Male)
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