Saw the second El Hazard OVA

[grysar]

Enjoyable, but definitely not on par with the first. Although at least there was more cross-dressing. Apparently there is no Fatora in the Wanders and thus no cross-dressing. This is a travesty.

Main advantage of the second ova is that clearly establishes that Makoto's power doesn't automatically cause androids/demon gods to fall in love with him.

Main complaints is that Jinnai was nicer to his bugs in the first OVA. kamalloy accurately described the second OVA version of him as more of a caricature of himself and thus lost so of his unique charm.

Handling of Ifurita wasn't great, but wasn't terrible. Would have been better without her though. Although really, the poor priestess never really get a chance to kick big boss ass in either series. That's a shame. Kalia was uninteresting but eh.. whatever. ::reads the wiki entry about Ifurita in Wanders:: My God. Destroy it with fire.

Main other thing I missed in the second OVA was just the art of the first one. The Priestess powers were more generic summon types and the backgrounds just were not as exotic and interesting. Similarly, Ura rarely acts as armor and is mostly just a mascot.

Finally, the very end joke of the second OVA was kinda misogynist. Ah those wacky women, they'll turn on you once you're married and crush your soul. Best thing to do is to run away humorously. Although at least only Makoto and Miz are out of character. Fujisawa, Nanami, and Shayla get to act reasonably.


So on the whole still enough in the spirit of the first one to be enjoyable. However, if it was sold separately, I couldn't really see paying extra for it. Interestingly most everything I gripe about was a reversion to more generic anime. I suppose that isn't really surprising.

Also, this (from the wiki) just puzzles me: "The Wanderers is a simplified version of the original OVA storyline, stretched to twenty-six episodes and eliminates or alters several of the OVA's major characters."

Who simplifies a story when expanding it into a longer form? That's not a classical or clinched error. That's just nonsensical. Did they do a bunch of shows->OVAs or OVAs->movies first and forget that the reason you simplified was that you had less time? Weird.

Anyways, that's enough of it for me. I may well re-watch the first OVA at some point, but I feel no temptation to check out the other series.