Ah, the 1980's, an innocent time in anime when a sexy heroine didn't have to have breasts the size of watermelons.

That's Yohko, a high school girl from Earth who gets sucked through a portal to a different place called Ashanty. It's a wasteland. Yohko turns out to be the Leda's Warrior, Leda being a goddess of some kind.

The dog is able to talk; his name is Lingam (or Ringum, in the subtitles). He can fly, too. There's also a loli running around named Yoni. She's a miko, and in fact the last miko serving Leda. The temple complex where she lives is full of interesting artifacts, some of which have fables associated with them. There is, for instance, the "Wings of Leda", a fighting mech which only the Warrior of Leda can use. It responds quite nicely to Yohko, further proof of what she is.

As I post this I'm about two thirds of the way through it and I'm really enjoying myself. But it also scratches an itch. I've seen pictures of Yohko in fan art, and never knew who she was or what she had been in. Now I do.

It's far from perfect, but nothing is perfect. Probably my biggest complaint so far is Yohko's voice. It's the same seiyuu that does Bulma in DBZ, and while I really like that voice for Bulma, it doesn't work for an epic heroine. At least not for me, not as well.

But it's only mildly annoying, and overall it's really quite good.

UPDATE: Finished now, and I'm glad I watched it. Quite enjoyable.

It's from 1985, and I can see how it may have inspired some other series. Most notably, it clearly is a predecessor for the El Hazard series.

One of many things that's nice is that Yohko isn't convulsed with angst. Given the capsule story, it could have been a dreadful angst-fest, but they steered clear of that, and thanks to them.

UPDATE: In case anyone's curious, I got it here.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Wow, that takes me back.  I have it on VHS, probably would have bought it around 1995.  I quite enjoyed it at the time too, and I'm glad to hear it still holds up well.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at July 28, 2009 03:10 AM (PiXy!)

2 It's one of the very, very first OVAs, too. 
If I remember correctly the very first anime OVA was some weird thing that took place on the Moon.  I think Oshiii was involved with it.  Anybody help me out here...?

Posted by: Toren at July 28, 2009 11:53 AM (T8y65)

3 Moon Base Dallos, 1983.  (No, I'd never heard of it.  Google plus  Wikipedia. )

Posted by: Pixy Misa at July 28, 2009 04:16 PM (PiXy!)

4 Apparently Leda's still got plenty of fans in Japan; the out-of-print DVD starts at ¥15,500 on Amazon.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at July 28, 2009 04:55 PM (9Nz6c)

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