SUMMARY
On a train, a young
girl is being chased by a mysterious woman. The girl is Sumire, a 12 year
old with psychic powers. The woman is Sophine, a member of Doress, a top
secret organization intent on world domination. At
the same time, Dr Kasuminome is monitoring the progress of a man he calls
Baoh. When Sumire accidentally opens the container, Baoh overpowers his
captors and the two of them escape.
Because of their escape, Doress
sends assassins and their own psychics after the two fugitives. Their
mission is to destroy Baoh before his powers fully manifest.
Easier said than done.
DVD VISION TEST
VIDEO:AnimEigo
has done an excellent job with the restoration. While not on par with their
Macross release (hey, what is), the colors are solid, with no color bleeding,
wrinkles, or pixels to be seen. The image is sharp and the washed out look of
the original video is gone.
AUDIO: The Japanese
2.0 audio track is pretty sharp and clear. Despite it being a 12 year and counting
OVA, the it sound almost like new. There is a richness that is sorely lacking
on the English dub track. The English 2.0 track sounds muffled, and there is
not as much directionality as the Japanese.
EDITS: Not
a single frame has been edited. The original open and close are still there,
with optional subtitles during the closing segment.
EXTRAS: Pretty
skimpy. A series of stills, and the credits for both versions make up the extras.
At least they didn't try to make "animated scene selections" an extra
feature.
WIDESCREEN REVIEW
STORY:Kenji Terada's screenplay
is pretty standard for the kind of nihilistic anime that was quite popular
in the mid to late 80's. With a limited amount of source material, it
really doesn't have much plot, other than to set up the next big fight
scene. Not that this is a bad thing.
ACTING:The
cast on both versions perform very well. On the English side, this is
one of the best dubs AnimEigo has ever done, next to Your Under Arrest
and Oh My Goddess. Kem Helms does a better job than Noriko Hidnkn, by
not using the typical "cute little girl"voice that most Japanese
use. Unfortunately, with only a 50 minute run time, there just isn't enough material for anyone to really stand out.
FAN SERVICE:None. Despite it's gory
visually, there is nary a panty or breast shot to be found.
CONCLUSION:
When Baoh came out in the early days of American released anime,
this movie was the bomb. It had action, gore, way cool transforms, and awesome
character designs. Now, almost 10 years latter, Baoh is still going strong,
and is AnimEigo #1 release.
Honestly, I had no interest in watching
this OVA. Yes, I did like "Guyver", and many of the reviews I had
read likened it to one of my favorites. Despite this fact, nothing I read about
Baoh really appealed to me. If it wasn't for the folks at AnimEigo, it would
have been a long time before you would have found a review posted here. I am more than willing to admit, I
was wrong. I enjoyed Baoh.
On a purely visual level, I was impressed.
The character designs reminded me of Megazone 23, and the animation style is
similar to the work done by Madhouse. The animation flows well, as does the
blood. About every possible way to kill someone is done here. Brain explosions,
face melting, knives, and even a good old fashion beheading are crammed into
its 50 minutes run time. The fights are a cross between "Street Fighter"
posturing, and "Ultraman" butt whoopin.
While there is a lot of visual entertainment,
those looking for complexity will be very disappointed. The story has been done
to death. From older films like "Ai City" to newer versions like "Twilight
of the Dark Master"nothing is new or different. Mind you, the manga which
it draws from was so short in the first place, there wasn't much to work with.
So they went for the through, and never looked back. At least the dialogue is
not full of "I shall grind you into....." lines. Same goes for the
English ADR script.
The dub is very well done, compared
to other AnimEigo releases. Majority of the actors do a good job, avoiding the
overly long pauses and wooden acting that plagued other OVA's like "Riding
Bean and "Bubblegum Crisis."
I do like what Anime Eigo did
with the menu setup. Setting up the DVD menus like the inside of Doress
HQ is pretty cool. I wish they had included a music and sound effects
only track. Imagine what fun you can have dubbing your own version, peppering
the dialogue with "Baoh-movement" jokes. It would be a
riot. While Baoh may not be a shining
example of 80's anime, it is an entertaining action flick. Just don't
expect a lot, and you will be fine.
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