Quake With Ennui: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers OVAs (PART ONE)

In 1988, a television anime about five bishonen dressed in multi-colored armor, carrying weapons and elemental powers aired on Nagoya Television. This Sunrise-produced series was called Yoroiden Samurai Troopers ("Legendary Armor Samurai Troopers"). It was later localized as Ronin Warriors in the United States, aired in syndication and then on Cartoon Network's Toonami block. Names were changed, as well as eyecatches and theme songs, but there were few, if any, cuts made to the bodies of the episodes.

There were also three different OVAs produced to continue the adventures of the five heroes: Gaiden, Kikoutei Densetsu, and Message. They found their way to North America and were put in with the TV series on DVD, even dubbed with most of the Ronin Warriors cast reprising their roles.

Ronin Warriors was a big deal to me back in the day. I watched them well before they were on CN. It was the first anime I watched in its entirety. When I found out there was more to be watched, I found some cheap VHS fansubs and bought them. The last OVA wasn't even fully subtitled, but I watched it anyway. This was before the DVD boxset, mind you.

None of the three OVAs are particularly great. In fact, only the second one can be considered "decent" and the last one is monumentally lackluster. But nobody ever seems to talk about them, and I've always told myself I'd review them some day, if only for some laughs.

Ever since obtaining the DVD boxset of Ronin Warriors, I've been watching the flip sides of the discs, which have the original Samurai Troopers episodes in Japanese with subtitles. So often, in fact, that I've forgotten most of the English dub names. So in an effort to avert confusion, I suggest going to the Wikipedia page where you can convert the YST names into RW ones to follow my reviews.

So let's get started with the first OVA, a two-parter.

OVA 1: GAIDEN

Episode 01, "Once again! Samurai Troopers"

Our story begins in a dark alley in New York City, where a familiar green armor (the Korin armor) brutally kills a bunch of street toughs who, by the look of things, aren't so tough. The obviously posessed armor (nobody notices there's nobody in it?) closes in on two of them and then there's a pan up for a moment. Then a powerful ghost-like thing comes out of it. He's very squat, has a big nose and pronounced earlobes.

Hm.

What kind of anti-Semitic show is this? Oh, because he's in New York, he's a Jew, right? That's fucking racism, man. Not cool, Sunrise.

Anywhoozle, the leader of the Samurai Troopers, Ryo, is given a surprised birthday party by his fellow troopers. Sans, of course, Seiji, who went to New York. Ryo notices a news report on Seiji's Korin armor being spotted in NYC and decides to go there himself. But his friends all anticipated this. Touma goes there first with Nasuti and Jun (nice job taking civilians on a potentially dangerous mission) while Shu and Shin take the plane Ryo's on. Apparently, Seiji was lured to America by a supposed find of a family artifact. As the plane flies over the city, it's attacked by Fyvush Finkel and like Sully, the pilot makes a water landing.

Touma is dumb enough to pull the knife out of a murdered photographer who took pictures of the Korin armor. He's caught holding the bloody knife by some girl who runs in terror and yet doesn't call the police. Later, the gang all meet up at Shu's uncle's most eleborate Chinese restaurant ever, in Chinatown. It's a good thing the guy's name is Chin, because he looks like he might have more than one. Suddenly, the girl from before bursts in with a knife and tries to kill Touma. Ryo disarms her and she runs off. Ryo gets into a disagreement with Shu over letting her go.

The girl, wearing the biggest loop earrings I've ever seen, apparently also lives in the sewers, perhaps with four mutant reptiles. It turns out one of the thugs that was killed by the Korin armor was her brother. But Seiji isn't controlling the armor. He's busy being stuck in some weird dream induced by a machine built by a mad scientist.

Freaky.

Touma and Shu eat at a burger joint, with Shu stuffing his face as usual, when they notice people running by. When they investigate further, they see the Korin armor using its power of lightening to damage the city. Their first response is to jump to the conclusion that Seiji's gone crazy, and summon their full armors to stop him. They finally notice that the Korin armor is indeed posessed and start to fight it, but it easily holds off the both of them. Is the Korin armor really so powerful that two Troopers with their armor on can't beat it? Shit, maybe Seiji should have taken on Arago himself in the TV series.

Anyway, the fight draws the attention of the police, who send several helicopters, but the Korin armor blows everything away that comes near it. Ryo and Shin arrive at the scene and transform into their armors. The two of them fight the Korin armor, but it likewise holds its own against them. What the hell, guys? There's more of you now and you can't take on a single armor? Can Fyvush really be adding that much to it?

The Troopers are chased off by the NYPD's firepower (firing a hail of bullets from helicopter into a busy city? Is Mad Bull in charge?), but they're offered help by the girl they saw before.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Episode 02, "Save Your Friend! Samurai Heart!"

Our heroes avoid the overzealous cops by hiding with the girl from before, who identifies herself as Luna. Her brother was killed by the posessed Korin armor, so she's out for revenge. Apparently since people in New York City seem to speak Japanese really well, this attractive sewer squatter hits it off with the gang. Well, Shu threatens to beat her, but other than that, fast friends. In the meantime, Uncle Chin gets his ass handed to him by highly conspicious ninjas and as usual, Nasuti and Jun are taken captive. Somebody should put a bell on those two. Or a homing device.

Back where Seiji is being held hostage, Nasuti and Jun are hung from the ceiling while some mad scientist speaks with Putty Head and... wait... is Seiji attached to a Star of David? Fyvush Finkle's got some kind of mad Jew science set up? What is Sunrise trying to do here? This makes Angel Cop seem tame.

Oy vey.

Wait. The bad guy lair is in Los Angeles, but Ryo and the others are still in New York. Nasuti and Jun were taken from NYC and brought to LA extremely fast. How did they transport them so quickly? By plane? Wouldn't somebody notice a woman and a child being bound up if they went by plane? And if they went by ground vehicle, then cross-country it's at least a few days, give or take. Apparently part of the plan is to lure the rest of the Troopers to LA to get their armor, too. But if this is the case, why didn't they just sic the green armor on LA to begin with? It seems like an excuse to use both cities in this feature.

Ryo, Touma, Shin, and Shu all prepare to go to LA, as per the ransom message, and we suddenly have this romantically tinged scene with Ryo and Luna. Luna wants to go with them to LA, and Ryo is too concerned for her to let her. But when she gets close to him he blanches and gives in. So if they weren't already guilty of dragging civillians into a battle, putting them in danger, there's now a new one to do that to.

No, you're not, Luna. You're some random one-off character.

After a short fight in a graveyard, our heroes get lured into a trap by Melty Face and their armors are analyzed by the mad scientist (who is given no real motivation). He plans to do a more thorough scan so that he and his master can control the armors. Luna lunges at Fyvush in an effort to save an escaping Jun, but he sees her and then... something. It's not quite clear. She falls, Ryo breaks free from the computer, and gets to her to see her breath her last breath.

She does this thing as she's dying where her lips move but nothing comes out of them. I though that maybe they return to it later so that we get what she said, like Cowboy Bebop, but nope, she just mouths something we never find out and dies. At least, I'm pretty sure she dies, because Ryo freaks out, but I still can't figure out what killed her, the fall, or Fyvush's sword. It's Rasara from Gundam ZZ all over again (seriously, that mobile suit didn't even touch her). He transforms, then everyone else does, into their armors.

The old demon guy joins with the computer and forms a ghostly version of Arago from the TV series. For some reason the computer also takes in the mad scientist, but that makes little sense. The computer analyzed the armors and combined with the demon's powers could be really dangerous, but why is the scientist part of it? It feels like they just had nothing to do with that character. None of the Troopers' attacks work against the ghost thing, so they combine their armors' powers, which summons forth the white Kikoutei armor.

We're talking about an armor than arrives on fire. That's how badass it is.

As you might expect, an attack from the white armor destroys the Araghost and the computer. And they go from that scene to the Troopers being right back to New York again where Ryo throws flowers with Luna's ribbon tied around it off a bridge (Brooklyn?). Uncle Chin, Nasuti, and Jun come running down towards the five, and there's a fade out.

THE END

There's not much to say about this OVA in terms of characterization and plot development. Very little actually happens and it seems like little more than an excuse to have "Samurai Troopers go to America". Except, really, they didn't make much use of it. They meet one person, they hop from one side of the country to the other without incident, and sometime in the second episode the backdrops of NYC come off as meaningless. They don't really interact with the atmosphere so everything feels very detached.

It's just a weird little oddity. But at least the next OVA has some significance.