Ozuma

Title: Ozuma Genre: Science Fiction Rating: 6.5/10

Summary: In the far future, the elevated irradiation from the sun has destroyed the environment of the earth and the birthrate of humans has drastically decreased. The government controls society with an army of cloned soldiers called “Ideal Children (IC)”. Sam Coin is a trader in a desert. One day, he saves a beautiful woman Maya, who has been chased by Theseus, a corps of IC. He shelters her in his trade ship, but the destroyers of Theseus surround Sam and Maya.

 

Review: Ozuma was one of those short series that caught my attention early on and did a rather good job keeping my attention for a good portion of its run. That isn’t say much considering it only spanned 6 episodes, but in that time it did a rather good job creating a decent character base and storyline. However, the final 2 episodes were where the anime took a bad turn and ultimately ended up being a mediocre show. The sad thing about these type of anime is the small room for error. While many longer series have the leeway of making some mistakes here and there, often going unnoticed, Ozuma was left with a poor impression and failed story climax. Everything else about the series though pushes it just above something you might consider watching.

The art for Ozuma was the number one thing that drew me in. Looking at the series you would be surprised that it was made in 2012. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were a remake. The art style has a very old fashioned look to it. One that I could see myself getting behind because it looked like a solid movie production piece. It wasn’t old to the point you thought they had budget cuts. I actually think they had quite a large budget to make the art they did. It had very bold colors and lines, everything being strongly defined. They also had a lot of great shots that stand out. For example, when the ship dived into the rainbow sand. They did a great job with environmental effects. The “underwater” scenes (submerged in sand) were really neat too. It kind of makes you wonder if that’s what it would really look like if we could swim in the desert. So all in all the art was better than average, far better. A great old school look with a new edge. I wish I could say the same for the story.

Granted that the anime only had 6 episodes, the story still could have been better developed, or at least had a better ending. I want to say that the series really should have gone at least 12 episodes to truly get the most out of it. There were a lot of places the series could have gone prior to the climax to get the audience more situated with the characters. It’s difficult to remember any of the characters’ names, not because of complexity, but because not much came out of them. Again, I understand that the series was only 6 episodes, but that is still considered a fault in my book. If the series extended their lifespan it could have easily gone more in-depth with Sam and his 'lost’ brother. They kept mentioning him and referred to his greatness but you never really got to see why. The few flashbacks you received basically had him waving goodbye which meant absolutely nothing to me. Additionally, the story for finding the mighty Ozuma was a little off too. No one knew who or what Ozuma really was, or where it came from. The mystery brought me in at the beginning, but they didn’t finish it off well enough for me to get a clear answer. Maya’s character was roughly the same, although a little more fleshed out. All the other characters played a very minor role and had no interesting traits in their name. A bunch of joe-schmos running around on a ship that is rebelling against the military. I also found Sam’s scary devotion to Maya a little unsettling. It was heroic at first because he went off to rescue her after noticing she was being chased by some unknown enemy. However, it soon turned into stupidity when he would jump blindly into a fight and have absolutely no chance to save her or get away without blind luck, which he so happened to have.

The opening by FTISLAND was pretty good. It was upbeat and full of energy with some great drum work. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the singer though, and I’m not sure why. I don’t want to say that he sounded stereotypical, however, he didn’t stand out very much. The ending song Utagoe by Kizuki Minami was nice to listen to. Too bad I kept hearing the captain yelling “Dick” over and over again and ruined it for me. Thankfully I snagged the ending without annoying dialogue and sound effects on top of it. If you are a fan of slow songs with beautiful pianos and a lovely singer then check this one out. Other than that nothing stood out in terms of music, and I couldn’t quite find the OST so I apologize if I’m skipping a good BGM. I figure if the songs aren’t that readily available they either don’t exist or weren’t that great in the first place.

Final statements: Even though the series didn’t have the best plot or soundtrack it still wasn’t bad. With only 6 episodes it isn’t going to take out a huge chunk of your time and it might be worth checking out. It’s a low priority watch for its story to time ratio.