Sailor Victory

Sailor Victory is a goofy little hour-long romp that combines iconic tropes with a colorful and energetic art style to make a bubbly OVA that today serves as a microcosm of anime's most dominant themes in 1995- giant mechs and sailor uniforms. Beginning with the story, there really isn't much of one beyond its simple setup- in a city that's plagued by people in giant robots committing crime, the incompetent police force fails to do enough of anything to combat the problem, leaving a group of girls in their own giant robots to carry out vigilante justice. It's more than enough to justify the flashy ... action onscreen, and even manages to sneak in a couple of clever scenes here and there.

The strongest point of this anime by a mile is the art, which boasts a bright and fun color palate, and a kinetic and flashy sense of movement, wrapped up in that hand-drawn style that defined the 90s. This is the real reason to give this anime a watch- at the end of the day, it's good old dumb fun. The character designs are distinct and memorable, the fights are fast-paced, and the art style as a whole is stylized and colorful.

The sound is good, meeting the basic standards of quality for the time, though the intro and outro songs are pretty catchy.

The characters are kind of one-note tropes, but that's all they really have to be in a two episode OVA. Of them, Kyomi and Mika are my favorites, each for their character designs, the designs of their respective mechs (The red one and the blue one, respectively), and how much them and their personalities add to the general comedy of the show. Overall, Sailor Victory is a simple little romp that you are meant to sit back and enjoy, rather uncritically, which makes this review kind of paradoxical in the first place. Who cares if it feels a little rushed since it's only two episodes, or that the story doesn't really go anywhere, or that the conflicts are all kind of shallow since there's no time to develop them- it's a magical girl giant robot fight anime. Grab a snack and enjoy!

The early to mid 90s when this show released was when Sailor Moon's popularity was at its peak. It was also the time when Magic Knight Rayearth launched the all-female mangaka group CLAMP into the limelight. Sailor Victory is an anime OVA series that took elements from both major contemporaries to try to cash in on the popularity of both, but frankly achieving nothing more than a waste of about an hour of life to watch.

The show is effectively as the synopsis: five girls fight bad guys sentai-style but with mecha ala MKR-style and the girls like to wear sailor-style school uniforms. These ... girls and the main villain follow the paradigm set by the show it's trying borrow popularity from (Sailor Moon) and... that's it. This thing has a premise but no real story to follow up and subsequently no characterization other than copypasta personalities. Literally not much else to say other than adding that it does this with mediocre (for its time) graphics and sound.

Art: 5 - Sound:5 - Story: 1 - Characterization: 1