I’ve been a big fan of Satoshi Urushihara for as long as I can remember, He’s one of those artists in Anime & Manga that has left his mark on the industry in his drawings. The man has a very unique and very specific style which has been used a great deal in Anime from 80’s & 90’s, his involvement in works such as Bubblegum Crisis, Growlanser, Langrisser, Crying Freeman & Legend of Lemnear were what made his work really stand out because it was designed very differently. Even his involvement in western productions such as Transformers working in the mechanical design and animation direction was rather interesting to see without really knowing of his involvement.
However what Satoshi Urushihara’s always been known for mostly is his drawings of women, the man’s very detailed style of drawing has been used to create very unrealistically and flawlessly perfect drawings of women from the breasts right to the vagina and curves as 100% perfect as they appear on the paper, his style is somewhat majestic when you look at his work and you are being drawn into the work and everything about it brings out somewhat of an enjoyment for the viewer. Although Urushihara is a grand artist he is a very poor storyteller and really fails in an attempt to make a connection with the audience as well have characters and Have them be developed and fleshed out, which is why whenever he is involved in OVA’s that are not connected to something else the over-reliance is always on the art and never the story.
Plastic Little: The Adventures of Captain Tita tells the story (what little there is) of Titaniva Mu Koshigaya or Tita who is the captain of a ship called the Cha-Cha Maru, Set on the planet of Yietta the story behind Tita is she is involved mostly capturing intergalactic wildlife and selling them to collectors or Zoos along with her gallant crew. As the story draws on she ends up helping a young girl called Ellyse Aldomordish who is on the run from a secret military project that her father was working on (which ended up getting him killed). We find out the man behind this project Lord Guizel (the one who killed Ellyse’s Father) has been developing plans for the Gravity Belts which are used to transport into the sky (hence the use of the Cha-Cha Maru) except the plan behind it is much more sinister which could affect all of Yietta.
Now this OVA has somewhat fallen into the category of obscurity as well as downright silliness, that said there are enjoyable moments about this. But the biggest problem with Plastic Little is that the OVA itself is completely and utterly forgettable, the anime itself runs for about 45 minutes and that time there is almost 0 effort to establish a story or flesh out some character development which would have benefited so well for this just to make it interesting. Just too much going on and not much time to focus on the important parts of the story such as the main character of TIta, her already developing friendship with Ellyse as well as exploring the crew of the Cha-Cha Maru.
On a slight positive note though there is one thing to like about this and that’s the main character of Tita, she comes across as a thrill seeking, but kind tomboy who really looks out for her crew as well as to make sure everyone does their job exactly as they need to. Despite the lack of development from her character she came across as likeable and someone that would have ended up becoming a nice character to follow and connect with, especially with her friendship towards Ellyse. The character of Ellyse suffering the same problem with the rest of the cast has some measure of likeability to her and it shows that there was more to her character than what was originally planned there, there is clearly Young sister/Big sister relationship between her & Tita or there could even be a “Yuri” motive for what might have been in the works that was pushed to one side never to gain notice again.
With that said everyone else from the cast character wise while some of them might have been looked interesting, didn't do much apart from stand in the background and play out the part while letting the main characters play around until the story drew to a close.
From the production side of this OVA, there is much to show in the way of its budget. Which considering how practically nothing of any major interest is going on so much time and effort as well as money was put into this to turn out as well as it did. Developed by Studio KSS (Wedding Peach, Happy Lesson, Golden Boy, Comic Party etc) this product has much going on in the way of its world structure, the machine and weapon designs and even the character designs by Urushihara show greatly how much effort was put into making this look pretty, but the story so brittle and paper thin.
The animation while at times is rather still is done that way to maintain the bulk of detail that is still in Urushihara’s style of character design, however when there is motion it’s presented rather well and action occurs it’s viewed very heavily in as much detail as the animators can provide. Although Urushihara was involved in the directing for this it was also co-directed by Kinji Yoshimoto (Queen’s Blade, Another Lady Innocent, Legend of Lemnear) so both these two have a pedigree of working in products heavy in fan service so this is no stranger to that concept.
The animation while at times is rather still is done that way to maintain the bulk of detail that is still in Urushihara’s style of character design, however when there is motion it’s presented rather well and action occurs it’s viewed very heavily in as much detail as the animators can provide. Although Urushihara was involved in the directing for this it was also co-directed by Kinji Yoshimoto (Queen’s Blade, Another Lady Innocent, Legend of Lemnear) so both these two have a pedigree of working in products heavy in fan service so this is no stranger to that concept.
From an Audio perspective there’s very little to talk about from the music, the score by Tamiya Terashima doesn’t leave you really all that excited or entranced. It goes in-between being very upbeat and whimsical to still and dramatic, which for a score is okay if there is anything really all that worth getting worked up over and caring what you are going to see next, so there isn't much of that in the score. For the English Dub it’s not bad, it’s passable for what it is and given there was little to work with it was an interesting experiment. Done by ADV Films from their early years the cast here is a mixed bag, you have Amanda Winn Lee bringing the best of what she is as a voice actress to the character of Tita and then you have Tiffany Grant playing Ellyse. Both these actors playing these characters have a lot of chemistry together, in the very limited downtime scenes involved in this there are much to enjoy from the time they share with each other and really leave so much to be desired had this lasted into something longer. What I feel is right about Amanda Winn Lee as Tita as she plays her as exactly as she is described, a hot-headed tomboy with an adventurous streak to her personality and full of so much fire in her that yearns to be explored. Same with Tiffany Grant as Ellyse despite the faux British accent she gives the character, she plays her as a kind but somewhat introverted but loving soul that you can’t help but want to do everything to see her happy. The other voices though from ADV veterans like Spike Spencer, Doug Smith, Aaron Krohn, Bryan Bounds, Tristan MacAvery & Marcy Rae really feel underplayed her, everyone is trying and they clearly are but in the limited time the OVA runs for it’s hard to get invested in who plays who and what impact that has on the character and the personality they will develop eventually.
When all is said and done Plastic Little is the result of a wasted and horribly missed opportunity, it’s beautifully directed and it’s gorgeously animated from time to time but there is so much going on and so quickly that it really doesn’t leave anything behind for anyone to care about or enjoy. The characters are thin and the plot is utterly dull and I feel all of that fell down upon the running time which had this been longer or the actual product was made longer for more episodes then chances are this could have had a reason to gain some longevity.
What I can say about Satoshi Urushihara is that although he is an influential illustrator, one that deserves the praise he gets for his work. He can’t seem to grasp the concept of telling a story, having characters set up and be developed to have them gain an attachment to the audience and unravel a mythology that could be explored and indulged into, the man just isn’t a story teller.
What I can say about Satoshi Urushihara is that although he is an influential illustrator, one that deserves the praise he gets for his work. He can’t seem to grasp the concept of telling a story, having characters set up and be developed to have them gain an attachment to the audience and unravel a mythology that could be explored and indulged into, the man just isn’t a story teller.
This worthy of watching only once, it’s not a bad little OVA but I feel so much potential here was wasted.
Sami Sadek is a lifelong Transformers and Anime fan, and can often be found propping up bars or appearing in the background of Auto Assembly vids. He has also talks on Youtube, Tumbls on Tumblr, Tweets on Twitter, doodles on Deviantart and is a regular co-host on this very site's Cyberritz. He has never had a swordfight atop a church whilst a crow watches. Honest.