There are a lot of silly OVAs from the late 80s to early 90s. While not every one of them is of the type of high quality you’d want out of an anime in terms of production and narrative quality, you get a sense of nostalgia from watching them. Even if you never grew up during the early 90s, at least for me. I’m only at the tip of the iceberg during my journey, watching many OVAs that became ever-present during its golden era. I decided that Plastic Little would be the one to start it off.
Why exactly did I want to start with this one? It is directed by one of my favorite character designers, Satori Usushihara. You may remember him for many contributions to character designs for dozens of games, manga, and anime. He even sold artbooks based on franchises he has worked on. Lastly, it seemed like a fun little OVA that lasted for only about 40-50 minutes from what I could gather from reading the synopsis.
At about the 20-minute mark, I had to think to myself: “Was this story ever thought out beforehand?” I already felt that this was supposed to be an OVA series stretched out into several other episodes, but maybe they did not have the budget, or there were time constraints to make that happen. Knowing that Satoshi’s artwork has caused a hentai studio to shutter because they blew their budget on using his designs in animation form, this might not be too far off from the truth.
Would it have been better if this show had more episodes to fill in more character development and world-building to make it more exciting? Sure, it would have at least been a solid OVA. However, the story itself is as basic and formulaic as you could get. It’s just: The girl escapes from an evil villain, the girl meets another girl who saves her, and the girls then decide to destroy the villain’s plot to destroy their world. Again, very basic. There are no exciting motivations or twists to the story to make it unique from any other sci-fi story. The side characters are almost non-existent and don’t contribute much except for mildly funny gags here and there.
If one thing saves this OVA from being terrible, it is the art and animation. That expectation was met with great satisfaction. The girls all look exceptionally well from the oppai to their other physical features. I can’t say much for the male characters. They all look pretty generic, which is weird considering Satoshi also draws guys just as beautiful as the females. While I won’t put the animation as outstanding for an OVA in the early 90s, it’s still pretty nice to look at with the chase sequences.
There will be people expecting an OVA with some hentai elements. I can assure you that this can be barely described even as hentai-lite. Keep that in mind if that is what you might be looking for when you see the posters online of this OVA. The only real scene with titillation is when the two central girls are bathing in a giant bathhouse that looks like an indoor swimming pool that somehow fits inside a tiny submarine. But even then, it’s no more titillating than your average episode of Kiss x Sis or Highschool DxD. The 2nd half is just our main characters trying to stop the evil villain and forming a lesbian relationship that comes out of nowhere near the end. I guess you got to fit in that yuri element somehow.
Would I classify Plastic Little as a terrible OVA? No, but if someone had told me that they thought it was awful, I wouldn’t bother arguing with that take. It was short enough that it didn’t elicit any big negative feelings. It felt like a proof of concept that the writers didn’t bother to expand on further, which is disappointing. Satoshi-san deserves to have at least one anime show or OVA that showcases his incredible talent and is not just an anchor for a boring story or lackluster characters.
Grade: C-
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