3x3 Eyes: Seima Densetsu

I made sure that I didn't look at what I rated the first before I wrote this. (Amine elitists assemble) I watch my anime dub, simply because the only time I have to watch it is when I'm working and I do not speak Japanese so soz. Anyway, one thing that cannot be considered as part of the review of 90s OVA due to this approach is the god awful voice acting. Luckily, I have aquired a very particular set of skills, skills that I have acquired over ....it's just one skill. It's that I can just look past it and still objectively review....anyway, the ... review.

Animation is what you would expect watching an OVA from 95 in 2025. I'm also 34, so I can't even pretend I know what it was like seeing it when it was new. What I can do is compare this against works around that time and I believe this is around a 5/10. It's all a little bland but not horrible. It has its better than average moment and it's less than average moments. It does however, animate the story nicely, has ok character designs and does action sequences pretty well all things considered. There isn't too much to write home about here, but what is here, is middle of the road, perfectly acceptable animation.

The story is slightly better. The story isn't as varied as the first but is still engaging for each episodes duration of around 45m. The pacing is solid and needed to do no more or no less on the total 2h45m run time. There is of course the stereo typical knobhead character, who might I add, as I am I personally born in the UK, has a really irritating London accent I really didn't need to here. As I said in the opening paragraph however, I will not mark it down due to the voice acting. The conclusion of this anime is satisfying in my opinion and draws everything to a close rather nicely. I'm giving the story 7/10

What I thought was superb here is the music and the sound design. It adds so much to the overall viewing experience. There are moments you can just here 1 note of a pad playing in the background. Creating this canvas of tension the story is being told on. It's pretty much faultless to be honest. I don't give out 10s very easily and it's not taken to the point whereby I feel I must give one so I'm going for a 9/10. I feel a remember the sound being good in season 1. Season 2 really caught my attention and delivered a fantastic music experience.

To summarise, this is getting a 7/10. It's a great end to the story of season 1, it had great music, acceptable animation and an engaging story that is well paced and easy to consume.

It would be too redundant to review both OVAs separately, so I'm going to condense a review for both right here. The first OVA was from 1991 and Seima Densetsu from 1995, and the series ran from 1987 to 2002, so this is far from complete and covers relatively early arcs of the manga. As a whole, this is a series with decent chemistry between the two leads, a generous animation budget, and an interesting twisting of Hinduism and occultism for the backstory and atmosphere.

I can't help but wonder if I should blame this series for being the main purveyor of what I've come ... to call Brock syndrome—named as such because Brock from Pokemon is probably the most famous character in Japanese anime to have this character trait. Brock syndrome is when the character walks around everywhere with his or her eyes closed, but seemingly they must be seeing through tiny almost-closed slits because they never bump into anything and ostensibly can see. Some characters NEVER open their eyes, but with others, they will open them during dramatic moments, as with Yakumo, the main character of 3x3 Eyes, and of course it's during the I luvs u UwU moments. It's a real eye-widening experience for the viewer, too, I guarantee you. My eyes widened when I saw Yakumo's eyes, and it's like a parent experiencing the joy of his or her baby speaking for the first time. Real precious moment.

Both are a joy to behold for the art and animation, and, as noted above, these have quite the animation budget compared to a lot of other OVAs at the time. Most of the animation is reserved for fight scenes, but there's also a big helping of character acting. I'd say the 1991 OVA has a somewhat more limited animation style that never feels cheap, but exaggerates the movement and saves frames in an appealing manner, while the 1995 OVA is more fluid and has much richer movement with fewer creative budget saving cuts.

While I think a lot of people prefer the first OVA, I'd rate it a little bit lower at 5/10, for it feels too rushed much of the time. It must consist of multiple quickly condensed arcs taken from the manga with most of the context and backstory stripped away. It's pretty much like one of those Hollywood blockbusters such as Spielberg's Indiana Jones in terms of construction and scope, only a lot messier. Seima Densetsu instead appears to take just one of those arcs and fleshes it out.

There's actually time for an atmosphere to be constructed, and Yakumo has learned and experienced a lot in the interim between the two series, which makes for a lot of great fight scenes. A battle animated near the end is especially notable. The chemistry between the characters is better here, partly as a result of a smaller cast, and they manage to pack a surprising amount of emotion into the ending—almost, the problem is, they just had to pull their punches and sugarcoat it...

Quite a while back I did a review of the first 3x3 Eyes OVA from Toei Animation. It was a solid little series albeit with a few problems. So, how does the second OVA from Studio Junio hold up? Is it as good as the first, better or weaker? Let's take a look, My Dears, and find out. This is 3x3 Eyes Seima Densetsu.

Story:

Four years after the first OVA, Yakumo is wandering alone in search of the missing Pai. He finds her, but she doesn't seem to remember him and freaks out when he starts chasing after her, treating hi like he's some ... strange pervert. After speaking with the elderly couple that she's been living with, Yakumo finds out that Pai lost her memories. After fighting a monster that tried to reseal them, he sets out for Tibet to find an old monk who knows how to release the seal on her memories. She goes with him, curious about what secrets her past holds.

Let's start with the big problems with the OVA. The ending is a big one. They had a chance to have a really strong, bittersweet ending, but they screw it up at the very end and opt for something that would be better suited for a cheesy children's movie than a more dramatic series for adults. There's also still an issue with the romance elements being pretty weak and, given the amnesia and handling thereof, this OVA doesn't even ultimately do anything to advance the romance.

There are plenty of good things about the OVA too. The overall story is actually really interesting with a legitimately good twist. The Hindu influence is still strong in the series and it's still used in an intriguing way.

Characters:

Only a few of the major characters from the first OVA return, Yakumo, Pai, and Benares. We get an all new supporting cast for this one. I will give the series credit, most of the supporting characters are fairly interesting and fleshed out. The exceptions being the old couple who took Pai in and her friends from school who are just generic. Yakumo's character develops pretty well. He's become a lot more capable of things besides just being a human shield. He still has his moments where he takes enough damage that he would die if he was a normal human, but he at least manages to give a good account of himself. On the downside, Pai is actively annoying in this one. When I talked about the first OVA I said that the only thing stopping her from being an annoying character was the Sanjiyan personality. In this series the Sanjiyan has about five minutes of screen time before the very end when she takes over to wrap things up.

Art:

Studio Junio puts a real effort into replicating the style that Toei Animation used for the first OVA. And it does hold up pretty well. I will give them the proper credit on that account. It is, however, not as strong as the first series.

Sound:

The voice work is still really good. Hayashibara Megumi, Tsujitani Kouji, and Ootsuka Akio all give strong performances as they did in the first OVA. Ohtsuka Houchu, Canna Nobutoshi & Saikachi Ryuuji all give good performances as well. The one weakness is that the bland side characters have kind of weak performances to go along with them. The music is still pretty spectacular with Wada Kaoru returning to work on it.

Ho-yay:

There really isn't any.

Final Thoughts:

3x3 Eyes Seima Densetsu is not as good as the first OVA. It has some strong moments and it does advance Yakumo's character but it also has some real writing problems, some weak secondary characters and performances. It's worth watching if you enjoyed the first OVA and it's still pretty decent in spite of those flaws. My final rating is a 6/10. Next week I'll look at Cardcaptor Sakura: The Movie.