The pervy fantasy of MAZE (OVA) - Anime Review

This will probably be a short review because I feel like this is the kind of anime series where you just need to see a clip and either you'll be hard in or hard out. Maze is an over-the-top screwball comedy fantasy OVA from 1996. It's a classic 90s anime. Crazy fantasy setting, off-the-wall comedy, melodrama out of nowhere, and random fan service. In fact, let me pause to address that. This OVA pours on the fan service like you're starving for it. For a goofy comedy, there are a lot of girls in various states of undress, including one of the main characters who wears an absurdly skimpy harem outfit throughout when she's not piloting a mecha naked. Oh yeah, there's mecha too. It's that kind of an OVA. So that's the thing. You have to be able to sit back and let the wackiness just wash over you. This is particularly important because Maze is based on a series of novels and the OVA decides to adapt the middle of the story. Each episode includes a brief super deformed rendition of the backstory at the very beginning, then jumps into the current adventure with all the main characters' relationships already established and completely laid out. It was clearly made for fans of the original novels, which as far as I know were never officially translated into English. So it can be pretty confusing when characters refer to powers and villains that just show up in the middle of a scene with really no introduction. It's just weird. It also doesn't help that one of the characters changes from a demure young woman in the day to a lecherous man at night and that his sexual aggressiveness, shall we call it, is repeatedly played for laughs. It sometimes just doesn't come across funny anymore. Now I listened to the English dub and it's actually a reasonable choice here. Some of the side characters have wooden or weird performances, but the main cast nails the comedy and this show moves just so dang fast. You do not want to be glancing down at the bottom of the screen every five seconds just to try to get a sense of the jokes. It is, you know, certainly something we can do dubbed or subbed, but dub works. Now if any of this sounds frustrating, I totally get it. Maze probably isn't for you, but if you're used to the wackiness of 1990s comedy OVAs, Maze falls squarely into that genre and I found myself laughing out loud several times over the course of its brief run. Now there's also a TV series and a film which are probably way more comprehensible than this. I haven't watched them yet, but dang if this OVA isn't a lot of silly, granted, ecchi fun compressed into an hour and there are far less entertaining ways to spend your time. Now Maze is a classic example of the kind of thing where you may be hard in, hard out, and that's fine, but the point is to take a quick glance at it and you might be willing to give it a try. Also you'll note I haven't described the plot here at all. Part of that is for spoilers, but also because it doesn't matter. I mean, you're thrown into this plot and things just kind of happen and you're meant to just kind of absorb it and move on. Don't worry about not knowing all the plot. It's just going to confuse you anyway. So that's Maze. I hope you found this useful. Again, it might make more sense if you go back and watch the TV series if you can find it. I don't know if the TV series was officially licensed or not. I know the OVA was. So the TV series might be a better introduction to the world. It's also certainly not going to be quite as ecchi as the OVA, but just be aware of that. But again, OVA is really funny and goofy and light-hearted and I had a lot of fun with it.