Maze (OAVs)

Original Title: メイズ - 爆熱時空
Romanized: Maze Bakunetsujiku
Literal: Maze Explosively Hot Space-Time

Plot Synopsis

Maze is pretty much an average anime girl: she's stuck in a fantasy world, transforms into a lecherous male version of herself after sunset, has a whole crew of warriors following her around (most of whom are more than platonically interested), and is protecting Mill, a princess on the run from some bad guys. In this two-part OAV series, the crew happens upon a kingdom, Babylon, in a sorry state of disrepair. The problem is, the king is so intent on finishing a tower that will stand as a monument to his greatness (like that ever works) that he's forsaken the people... and kidnapped Maze to sell for more construction funds. The crew, along with the help of a kind fairy and the king's daughter, will have to escape from a dungeon, rescue Maze, and maybe even save the kingdom. And, of course, the real bad guys are sending ever more minions after them...

Review

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 6/8/2003

Ok, first off, these two OAVs fit in somewhere around the middle of the Maze storyline. This may or may not be an issue; If you're new to the series, they give you a 30 second rundown on the situation at the beginning (as an amusing finger-puppet show), which is probably enough to get you up to speed, and USM even kicked in the first episode of the TV series as a promo which helps a bit more. The characters and situations will seem even weirder than they otherwise would, and the relationships won't carry as much weight, but as far as lowbrow funny fantasy goes, you should still be able to enjoy yourself.

If, on the other hand, you are a fan of the TV series, you won't have a problem with the story... but it's noticeably raunchier and much looser with the nudity (when embedded in the mecha-thing, for example, Mill is exposed from the waist up, instead of only her shoulders being visible). It also looks better--the art is quite similar, but a little nicer, and the animation is more expensive-looking.

Now to get down to business. Taken on its own, the Maze OAVs are roughly what would happen if you recast Ranma 1/2 as a mild hentai fantasy series. Slayers and Tenchi Muyo (heck, Orikasa Ai is essentially playing a lesbian Ryoko) are also obvious series to compare. The Maze OAVs are amusing enough overall as a fantasy romp, but they're not of the same caliber as any of those well known series, and have quite a bit more in the mature content department.

Though it's not exactly uncharted territory for a TV series-based OAV to cut loose where the censors wouldn't let 'em, this show certainly doesn't pull many punches; there's a lot of groping (and more) by Maze's extremely zealous male form, and raunchy "innuendo" is barely the right word, since almost nothing is implied. Despite a lot of "censoring" for humorous effect, even the dialogue was surprisingly explicit--not crude, exactly, but certainly not embarrassed about putting things bluntly. Between that, the physical hanky-panky, and a lot of wholly unnecessary nudity (sure, the fairy can hide in Maze's shirt, but having a close up of her with a giant breast in the foreground?), there's a high sleaze-factor. Funny enough, and nothing shocking, but if you're sensitive in that area, you've been warned.

As for the quality of the humor, these things depend a lot on personal taste, but I personally found it pretty funny by silly and/or raunchy fantasy standards, but nothing really remarkable (certainly nothing near Slayers at its best).

Plot wise, Maze isn't much to write home about, and not very even. Aside from not knowing who the main characters are, even non-fans won't have much to keep track of--the kingdom in distress is standard fantasy fare. That's OK, since the meat is in the comedy and action, but it doesn't do the smoothest job of combining a more or less straight plot with characters that rarely take their own series very seriously.

For example, the king and his daughter were straightforward characters, but the king's worthless monsters (a quiz show dragon guarding a labyrinth) weren't anything but funny (and plenty of that). The main characters were a little more balanced, but even they didn't seem to be quite as involved in the plot--they more just went with the flow, be it straight or funny. Then there was some emotional stuff centering on Maze, which won't win any melodrama awards, but was kind of sweet in its own way. Slayers is the obvious comparison, but these OAVs didn't seem to strike as solid a balance between humor and story.

One thing I did like about Maze was the main characters, but then that should hardly be surprising for a character-driven series of this sort. Obviously, they'll be more interesting if you've seen the TV series (and it made me want to check that out), but for the benefit of those who haven't: Maze was quite appealing as a sort of kind normal girl in the middle of some pretty wild situations, and it was nice to see everybody chasing after a girl for once--Maze is the (half) female version of all those way-too-lucky anime guys. (Of course, the majority of the people after Maze are female... and they're not after her male form, either. But that's another story.) Male Maze was... well, kind of funny anyway, although his lechery seemed more unpleasant than Ataru-style hijinks.

Mill, Maze's main sidekick, was a lot less annoying than I expected her to be--really, really cute, and no matter what the situation she always seemed to be enjoying herself, or at least really caught up in how other people were feeling. Neither was remarkable, but the two characters that were introduced in these OAVs--the princess and the fairy--were likable as well, with a sweet but determined air in both cases. Even the mostly-insane king was just a tad more interesting than a simple villain caricature.

Visually, the Maze OAVs were quite appealing. The art had the look of an older OAV, with a lot of detail in the character art and a slightly rougher style. As a result, some of the animation wasn't quite as smooth as a higher budget new series, but actually looked very good--it was much smoother than most older series, with natural character animation and fairly slick action sequences. The character designs were attractive and varied, and the costume designs were distinctive; some were rather plain (Maze's jeans and shirt), but most were quite imaginative, not to mention severely lacking in substance (a very unusual dance outfit that looked a lot like three abstract gold statues stuck to key locations, for example). The backgrounds and mechanical design were a little less remarkable, but the magical bio-mech things were actually pretty cool, both visually and in concept. In all, although there were a few bland scenes, Maze was quite appealing visually. The music is somewhat less remarkable; a few decent background pieces and rather uninteresting old-school (some guy singing classic rock) opening and end themes.

The acting in Japanese was very good. Almost all the characters had distinctive voices and were well acted, with the particular standouts being Maze, with a kind and even tone (a good center in contrast to most of the other more excitable characters) and Mill, who's extremely high-pitched and perky voice somehow managed to actually be quite likable--full of genuine-sounding spunk, and backed up by some cuter-than-all-get-out vocal quirks (mainly her use of the non-word "uchu," which was even carried over into the dub). She didn't do much here, but Orikasa Ai is also around doing her Ryoko shtick, which may not be original but is just fine by me--she's got one of the most distinctive voices in the business, and I love hearing her use it.

In all, the Maze OAVs were an enjoyable diversion, but at least coming from somebody who hasn't been indoctrinated by the TV series I wouldn't highly recommend them. As a quite raunchy (and rather sleazy) comedy and a fantasy parody, it held its own, but the semi-serious story was generic and uninteresting enough that it probably would have done better to prune it to a minimum. On the other hand, it looked very nice, there were a lot of very likable characters, and a tiny bit of emotional pull--it at least made me want to give the TV series a try. No doubt too crude, too weird, or too unoriginal for many, but it's worth at least a look from fans of Slayers-style light fantasy.

Related Recommendations

Most of the light action series with a variety of characters have a lot in common with this--Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, and Fushigi Yuugi. The most similar is easily Slayers (though that's less sleazy), and it also has a lot in common with Fushigi Yuugi (which is generally much more serious) and Ruin Explorers (which is more serious and much cleaner).

US DVD Review

The DVD is a fairly standard old-style USM release; clean video, clean audio, and a minimum of special features: a "meet the cast" section where you can jump to a scene that showcases each main character's thing. On the positive side, they're starting to acknowledge the Japanese acting--you can switch audio tracks for those clips, and the Japanese actors are listed in the menu as well (a partial Japanese cast is given on the package, as well). You can apparently get to more special features (scripts, images) if you have a DVD-ROM drive. The disc also includes the first episode of the Maze TV series--it shows up looking just like a third OAV in the menu, on the 2nd page of the chapter index.

Content Guide

USM labeled it 13-up, but it should be 16-up on account of blunt sexuality, a lot of nudity, and generally crude behavior.

Violence: 3 - Actually some fairly serious and bloody fights at the beginning.

Nudity: 4 - Not particularly detailed, but there were several extended nude scenes, including one with a young male.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - A lot of groping and fondling, with more implied.

Language: 3 - A lot of humorous [machine-gun sound] edits, but also a lot of surprisingly blunt sexual language.

Notes and Trivia

Based on the manga by Satoru Akahori (not available in English as of this writing), these OAVs were actually produced before the TV series (and the later movie) although they fit somewhere into the middle of the story. It's more like a re-telling of one part than a sequel or side-story.

Also a quick note about the translation; the country they're in is called Babylon, and the tower, true to Biblical parallel, was called "Baberu no Tou"--the Tower of Babel. But for some reason, USM decided to call it "the Tower of Babylon" in the subtitles... don't ask me why.

The two episodes are called "Bold & Wonderful Challenger" and "Bold & Radical Adventurer."

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on bilingual DVD (buy from RightStuf). Was previously also available on a single subtitled or dubbed VHS volume.

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