I've been on an OVA binge. Recently I watched Baoh, an anime from the same creator of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The series is pretty unknown, even to Jojo fans. The manga also got canceled very early too so its got a real, "lost treasure" feel to it.
OVAs are still where my heart lies; I really miss the times when passionate animators would create something either beautifully esoteric, or gratuitously over the topic; often both.
In a sense, most Anime, especially OVAs are obscure: Most titles, even the classics, sold in the thousands, and I mean in the four figures. The big hits sold between 10,000-20,000 units. OVAs primary market was the rental market; thus the insanely high prices per tape.
This book gives a lot of fascinating details. Even if you can't read Japanese, just Google lens the titles you feel nostalgic for and you can learn a lot.
For me, California Crisis is almost at the top. This didn't even get a laserdisc release, unfortunately.
I never watched the anime but the PS2 games were pretty kickass.
I don't really hang out with otaku so I don't know if these are genuinely unknown but I reckon the earliest anime series I watched on tv would be considered obscure by now on account of being relatively old (just like me I guess) and not part of any famous franchise (definitely like me).
Same goes for a number of lesser known shows, some of which like Silent Möbius only aired once, often late at night, so you better not forget to program your vcr.
hoooooly the Treasure island anime is GOATED Here in the middle east Treasure island is in the top 5 for our parents with grendizer, tiger mask and Sindbad, you just unlocked a core memory, i still listen to the Arabic opening for it
my obscure animes are kinda everywhere since everyone of them got discovered differently
- Submarine no 6 and outlaw stars are kinda my favs at this point cuz they both got overshadowed by Cowboy bebop and each one of them is unique in their own way but still have that oomf vibe of cowboy so please give them a watch
-GANGSTA i think this anime didn't get the recognition it deserve and the fact the studio bankrupted after it shows you that its a 10 all the way for me i was trying to find something me and my uncle can watch together (he liked gangsters movies) and luck favored me when GANGSTA dropped he became a weeb overnight watching a lot of action anime to this day
- when Chat gpt was the new hot thing at the time i remember asking it to surprise me with an anime pick based on what i like and it gave me 12 Kingdoms, one of the first Isekais and surprisingly was very good and the manga is even better
hoooooly the Treasure island anime is GOATED Here in the middle east Treasure island is in the top 5 for our parents with grendizer, tiger mask and Sindbad, you just unlocked a core memory, i still listen to the Arabic opening for it
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my obscure animes are kinda everywhere since everyone of them got discovered differently
- Submarine no 6 and outlaw stars are kinda my favs at this point cuz they both got overshadowed by Cowboy bebop and each one of them is unique in their own way but still have that oomf vibe of cowboy so please give them a watch
-GANGSTA i think this anime didn't get the recognition it deserve and the fact the studio bankrupted after it shows you that its a 10 all the way for me i was trying to find something me and my uncle can watch together (he liked gangsters movies) and luck favored me when GANGSTA dropped he became a weeb overnight watching a lot of action anime to this day
- when Chat gpt was the new hot thing at the time i remember asking it to surprise me with an anime pick based on what i like and it gave me 12 Kingdoms, one of the first Isekais and surprisingly was very good and the manga is even better
Let me tell you...
Watch this shit then spread it but don't finished it just endure whatchu just saw.
Cause you gotta share my pain what I witnessed
I will not elaborate how and why did i find it. The animation is cheap ass motive to wanting you to go back watching the
P--n straight up because they broke women privacy privileges and I wasn't prepared what i wanna watch my experience on ecchi genre. And honestly this shit just disrupted me and bad cause this broke every privilege to a women. And yeah this shit is mess even if is ecchi genre but my god... all these are plots women skirt lifting up and undressing and a Japanese guy trying to say english as a comedy gig.
I really liked Sola. I never really see anyone talk about it, but I think it might have a fair amount of fans in Japan. People who enjoyed shows like Angel Beats might like it. It feels like it would be an adaptation of a visual novel, and has that early 2000s, tropey charm to it.
(Which I guess is unsurprising, since it was written by the co-writer of Kanon, and the character designer normally worked on VNs)
Absolutely adored California Crisis! Matsuri Okuda's character designs are a favorite of mine since Shurato so it was such a pleasant surprise to see them being used them with such a degree of experimentation!
Seen it back in the days and really liked it. I've never been a fan of cg mecha but here it was used with good purposes and the overall setting and characters really appealed to me. I was less fond of some developments of the second part but overall a really enjoyable series, great production values!
I've been on an OVA binge. Recently I watched Baoh, an anime from the same creator of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The series is pretty unknown, even to Jojo fans. The manga also got canceled very early too so its got a real, "lost treasure" feel to it.
Baoh may be one of the first OVa I've seen. Always loved the character designs, music and even effects: Baoh's howl in the OVA are absolutely awesome! Character designs from Masayuki, with those lanky frames and flowing hairs are always a sight to see!
It's great to see Brigadoon mentioned here! I still have to complete it but I love bizarre shows like this and it has the late Takahiro Kimura designs, so a must watch for sure!
Actually very fun show about a girl living with 6 clones of her. Just like the name implies, I'm convinced there are exactly 7 fans of this show scattered across earth.
As a Yasuhiro Imagawa fan i planned to watch the series so much times but never managed to. I hope to finally doing it this year.
As for obscure anime I have watched a lot of obscure stuff back in the day and I always have fun trying to find new ones. Most of the things I wanted to recommend were already talked about in the thread, so here's just a few ones that came up on top of my head and that I have watched and re-watched:
Hikaruon (1987), Curse of Yoma (1989), Kakugo no Susume (1996) Puppet Princess (2000)
Most obscure one i can think of, is Haibane Renmei.
Basically about a walled in... country? Where these girls who lost their memories are in limbo, have wing and a halo so are akin to angels with halos and wings. They either succumb to their failures/nightmares and sins, or they turn into birds and fly away. Meanwhile they are basically normal girls working and living and being part of a small town environment.
The series is very slow. So it's not going to be part of the action/adventure boy crowd usual.
I really liked Sola. I never really see anyone talk about it, but I think it might have a fair amount of fans in Japan. People who enjoyed shows like Angel Beats might like it. It feels like it would be an adaptation of a visual novel, and has that early 2000s, tropey charm to it.
(Which I guess is unsurprising, since it was written by the co-writer of Kanon, and the character designer normally worked on VNs)
I recently stumbled across Noiseman Sound Insect by chance. It‘s one of my new favourites now, I’m very surprised that it never gained more popularity.
I'm not sure when I'll watch it but I do watch the sequels of some anime and thank you for mentioning it. I tend to add the first season of any anime first then once I finish it and if I liked the first season then I'd add the second season to my plan to watch list, of course if an anime does have a second season, since there's some that don't.
Lily C.A.T , a sci fi/horror OVA. Bunch of people from different countries and required jobs traveling through space with the objective to explore a new planet. One of them is that blonde you see in the picture, she brought her cute cat. All good until the problem arrives from outside the ship.
You can go watch it in youtube, is in japanese with english subtitles. Duration: 1hour7min.
If you have the time, enjoy it with your favorite meal.
Lily C.A.T. is quite an intriguing title, One especially interesting fact is that Yoshitaka Amano and Yasuomi Umetsu (who also did the key animation) did the character designs.
Umetsu and Amano are both fantastic artists, but completely different in style. On the one hand it does make each character look quite unique, but I wonder if having both these luminaries sharing the character designs cramps their style to an extent.
I'll add another to the list that I just remembered: Hell's Angels, or just Hells in the west. Animated by Madhouse with the english dub voiced by several members of Team Four Star.
I really liked the animation and just general batsthit insanity of everything. The first half is a really fun slice of life about a girl killed by a truck, toast in mouth and all, and has to graduate a school, run by Satan doing an Elvis impersonation and full of perpetually pissed off students, to get out of hell and return to the living. The world building is interesting, and the interactions between the stereotypical optimistic heroine and her asshole classmates are really funny and sometimes cute, but the second half is fake ending after fake ending after lore drop after fake ending dragged out TOO DAMN LONG. This should have been a 12 episode anime with the last 2 or 3 episodes being the dramatic finish.
I personally really enjoyed it for what it excelled at, but it's issues could make it a drag for some people to finish.
It's free on Tubi if you want a legal way to watch it.
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