IRIA: ZEIRAM- THE ANIMATION (1994)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

I wrote in my review of the two ZEIRAM films that while I originally got some mild enjoyment out of them, they didn't hold up well to a repeated viewing. I don't remember if I had looked at this six-episode OVA series-- released the same year as the sequel-- but it's on the same level of unremarkableness.

IRIA is a prequel to both films, dealing with the early history of the titular female bounty hunter. In her space-opera world, she travels from world to world, apprenticed to her more experienced senior Gren. She calls him "brother" at times, but one line of dialogue suggests that their relationship may be adoptive. Iria is shown to be impulsive but determined in her quest to graduate to the ranks of fully professional bounty hunters, and though the OVA series doesn't take much advantage of its animated status, she's seen to be capable in hand-to-hand combat and with a ray-gun.

In addition to Gren, Iria also associates with a bounty-dispatcher named Bob. In the live-action films, he's seen only as a sentient computer; here he's shown to have been an organic life-form, killed by the vicious alien conqueror Zeiram and then transferred to a computer bank. A couple of other support-characters appear to help Iria in her endeavors, but they're not especially memorable.

Since the original ZEIRAM has Iria and Bob waiting on Earth for the advent of the monstrous alien, there's no absolute reason that the prequel needs to show that Iria encountered Zeiram-- or at least one of his species-- on a previous occasion. Possibly the creators thought that they needed both Iria and Zeiram in order to cross-pollinate with ZEIRAM 2. But since the live-action films didn't make me a fan of this irritable ET, I would have preferred seeing Iria test herself against some other opponent.

Even for just six episodes, IRIA is a lot lighter on characterization than the majority of SF-anime, and so proves of no more than modest entertainment value.