04/05/96
Brought to us by Pioneer, with their usual top notch dubbing job, but
also available with subtitles if you prefer. This is an excellent series
of OVAs that start out briefly in our world (in Japan of course) but then
quickly moves to the fantastic alternate world of El Hazard. El Hazard is
a place of strange creatures and civilizations, ancient technologies no
longer understood by those using them and a place where people drawn in
from our world gain strange and unique abilities in the transition.
The focus is on a high school student named Makoto who, after a strange
encounter with a mysterious woman is drawn into El Hazard along with his
girlfriend Nanami, her scumbag brother Jinnai, and Mr. Fujisawa, their
alcoholic teacher. Soon upon arrival Makoto and Fujisawa are beset by
Bugrom soldiers; insectoid creatures bent on conquest. Mr. Fujisawa then
discovers he has gained superhuman strength, trashes the Bugrom and
rescues a princess, which gets them an invite to the capital as heroes.
Nanami and Jinnai arrive in separate places and we learn about them
later. I don't want to give too much away; suffice to say that Jinnai
falls in with the Bugrom, which will set him against Makoto, who he sees
as his ultimate rival. There are big battles, mass destruction, strange
intrigue with a mysterious hidden race, all in a vaguely Arabian Knights
like setting.
The story is unusual and interesting, the animation is superb and the
musical score is fantastic. Like the architecture, the music has an
Arabian Knights-ish feel to it.
There are 4 laserdiscs or tapes with 2 OVAs each. As of this writing 3 of
the volumes have been released with volume 4 due out at the end of May.
There is also a TV series version of El Hazard in production in Japan
that Pioneer will likely release in the future. Apparently the TV version
features most of the same characters with a somewhat simplified story
line and has a couple of the characters a little younger than they are in
the OVA series.
This series is truly excellent. I highly recommend it to all anime fans, big & small.