Maze (OAVs) Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2003-06-08 (updated 2011-08-23)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

The Maze OAVs aren't really designed for people who haven't seen the TV series, but even with the wacky setup they're still watchable as a fantasy romp if you haven't. Like many OAVs, their content is quite a bit more raunchy than the TV series, making for a lot of nudity and rather blunt sexual themes.

Past that, the OAVs have some good silly-fantasy comedy, the variety of fun characters any good ensemble series demands, and something vaguely resembling a plot. The main character's simple likability helps make the whole thing work, and the nice animation, decent art, and lively voice cast rounds out the picture. Definitely worth a shot if rather sleazy fantasy humor is your thing, or if you liked the TV series. Probably too low-brow otherwise.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Marc
• Review Date: 2003-06-08 (updated 2011-08-23)
• 2.5 stars out of 5 (?)

This raunchy and amusing little two-episode OAV series fits somewhere around the middle of the Maze TV storyline.

In the event 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're already a fan, you should feel right at home, although 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). It also looks better--the art is a little nicer and the animation is more expensive-looking.

Taken on its own, the Maze OAVs are roughly what would happen if you recast Ranma 1/2 as a mild hentai fantasy series. Being a fantasy romp with some drama, the comparison to Slayers is obvious (or Tenchi Muyo--Ai Orikasa is essentially playing a lesbian Ryoko); the Maze OAVs are not of the same caliber, and have quite a bit more in the mature content department.

Though it's not exactly uncharted territory for an OAV to cut loose where TV censors wouldn't let 'em, this show 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 is 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 was the close up of her with a giant breast in the foreground necessary?), the sleaze-factor is way up there. It's 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; I found it pretty funny by silly and/or raunchy fantasy standards, but nothing really remarkable.

Plot-wise, it's thin and uneven. Aside from not knowing who the main characters are, even non-fans won't have much to keep track of--almost everything is standard fantasy fare. That's okay, 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 are straightforward characters, but the king's worthless monsters (a quiz-show dragon guarding a labyrinth) aren't anything but funny (and plenty of that). The main characters are a little more balanced, but even they don't seem to be very involved in the plot--they mostly go with the flow, be it straight or comedy. Then there's some emotional stuff centering on Maze, which won't win any melodrama awards, but is kind of sweet in its own way. Coming back to the Slayers comparison, these OAVs don't strike as solid a balance between humor and story.

One thing I did like about the Maze OAVs is 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 spurred me to check that out), but for the benefit of those who haven't: Maze is quite appealing as a sort of nice 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 is... well, kind of funny, although his lechery seems more unpleasant than Ataru-style hijinks.

Mill, Maze's main sidekick, is a lot less annoying than I expected her to be--really, really cute, and no matter what the situation she always seems to be enjoying herself, or at least really caught up in how other people are feeling.

The two characters that are introduced in these OAVs--the princess and the fairy--are passably likable as well, with a sweet but determined air in both cases. Even the mostly-insane king is just a tad more interesting than a simple villain caricature.

Visually, the OAVs are quite appealing. The art has 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 isn't quite as smooth as an expensive newer series, but it still looks very good--much smoother than many series of the same vintage, with natural character animation and fairly slick action sequences. The character designs are attractive and varied, and the costume designs are distinctive; apart from Maze's jeans and shirt, most are quite imaginative, not to mention severely lacking in substance (a very unusual dance outfit that looks a lot like three abstract gold statues glued to key locations, for example). The backgrounds and mechanical design are a little less remarkable, but the magical bio-mech things are actually pretty cool, both visually and in concept.

The music is somewhat less remarkable; a few decent background pieces and rather uninteresting old-school opening and end themes consisting of some guy singing classic J-rock.

Almost all the characters in Japanese have distinctive voices and are well acted. The particular standouts are Maze and Mill. The incredibly talented Kotono Mitsuishi gives (female) Maze a kind and even tone, providing a good center in contrast to most of the other more excitable characters. Sakura Tange isn't nearly as big a name, but she somehow manages to make Mill's extremely high-pitched and perky voice 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 is even carried over into the dub). She doesn't do much here, but Ai Orikasa 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 it put to use.

In all, the Maze OAVs are an enjoyable diversion, but if you haven'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 holds its own, but the semi-serious story is generic and uninteresting enough that it probably would have been better pruned to a minimum. On the other hand, it looks great, there are a lot of very likable characters, and even a tiny bit of emotional pull--enough to make 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.

Have something to say about this anime? Join our newly-resurrected forums and speak your mind.

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).