Maryuu Senki

Dont come here expecting much in terms of story, its mediocre.

It doesnt help that whoever subbed this was too lazy and decided to ignore the giant wall of text in the beggining of the anime, which I can only assume is a shit ton of lore/context.

On the other hand, this delivers eveything I expected to:

-Cool demons and awesome fights
-Great animation and 80s character desgins
-Overflowing levels of 80s cheese, which I absolutely love.

... Then ending was also a bit unexpected and kind of sad, but good enough.

Bottom line is: If all you want is an 80s ultraviolent ova with good animation, this one has you covered.

I've read some of the reviews on this little 80s OVA gore fest and having watched it for myself, I honestly don't think it deserves the hate it's received. Not to say that it's one of the greatest animes to come out of the OVA boom of the 80s.

Beginning in 1987 and being the sole directorial work of Hiroaki Oogami, Maryuu Senki a.k.a. Evil Dragon War Chronicles is pretty much your typical ultra violence title of the OVA boom ment to push the boundaries of what television broadcast standards would deem unacceptable. It's an anime that would have been easy pickings for western anime ... distributors of the early 90s such as the UK's Manga Entertainment, who were mostly looking for anything involving sex and violence that they could market to Britain's Beer & Curry crowd.
In other words, teenage boys and young adult men.

Oddly enough, the OVA would not receive any form of official release outside of Japan and hasn't even so much as recived any form of DVD or Blu-Ray with it's only form of disc based media release being laser disc. Although, this was likely due to it not selling well in Japan which may or may not have been attributed to it being part of the Pink Noise series of OVAs which consisted of titles such as supernatural horror/bawdy sex comedy Call Me Tonight and the tokusatsu Metal Hero inspired one shot OVA Campus Special Investigator Hikaruon, none of which sold well either.
It also doesn't help that it suffered from production issues such as a change in hands from AIC to Bandai Visual which left the series stuck in limbo until 1989 where it was finally competed, resulting in the original story treatment for part 2 being scrapped (part 1 ends with a preview of part 2 that shows scenes that don't appear in part 2 at all).

Centuries ago in ancient Japan, a cult a shamans called the Kido ruled the country from the shadows. Although hunted down and exterminated by those who feared their power, a small group of their number managed to survive and hoped to regain their power by performing a dark ritual to summon the Four Sacred Beasts into human bodies.
Now it's 1989 and the Kido have once again risen to attempt the ritual again in Shinjuku, Tokyo and are searching for the reincarnation of Suzaku, the Vermilion Bird of the South to complete the ritual under the command of their leader, shady businessman Miki Chiyoe who is the reincarnation of Seiryu, the Azure Dragon of the East. Chiyoe has discovered that sculptor and martial artist Kyoichi Hiyu, the anime's protagonist is the human reincarnation of Byakko, the White Tiger of the West and believes he may be connected to the other two Sacred Beasts.
Gendo, a monk who is also Hiyu's grandfather and sensei is the reincarnation of Genbu, the Black Tortoise of the North and Hiyu's girlfriend Shiho Murase is the reincarnation of Suzaku, who Chiyoe is looking for. And so begins a race to protect Shiho from Chiyoe in order to prevent him from carrying out the dark ritual that will restore the Kido cult to power leading to carnage and bloody battles against some terrifying demonic creatures. And when I say bloody battles, I mean bloody!

Okay, so the story may not exactly be anything special but it's still pretty solid for the most part being a typical good vs evil story where our heroes are mere mortal humans who happen to possess extraordinary abilities while the villains are demonic entities with otherworldly powers, packing suspense while offering plenty of tension fuelled action. Sadly, characters don't really get much in the way of development, if any at all.
The animation is also pretty good, if suffering from some issues in some places. However, where the anime really shines it's it's art style, especially in part 1 which looks outstanding and has some amazing attention to detail. Part 2 is where the change in the production company can definitely be felt as not only do we get a change in art style but in character design as well, some of the design changes being more noticeable than others. Although the animation does get some improvement over the first part.
Oh, and I hope you have a least some knowledge of the Four Heavenly Beasts of Chinese mythology because you're gonna need it while watching this anime

Maryuu Senki is not an anime without it's flaws, of which there are a lot. On the other hand, it's not a bad little OVA and it certainly doesn't deserve to be relegated to total obscurity. The story is pretty decent and packs tension while the animation and art are a feast for the eyes.
Apparently, Yoshiaki Kawajiri was such a fan of the first OVA that would use it as inspiration for his own OVA feature, Demon City Shinjuku in 1988.
If you're a fan of 80s horror movies that are heavy on blood and gore looking for a solid late night horror title, then get yourself a curry, crack open a beer and give this a shot.

WARNING: THIS OVA NOT SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION!

Do you like copious amounts of random gore and sex? Literal essays of text to read explaining pointless lore and worldbuilding? Did I mention all the mindless gore and sex?

If this doesn't appeal to you, or if you don't like being bored beyond belief while watching media, Maryuu Senki is not for you.

The 1980s and 1990s are filled with OVAs no human being should ever watch -- content so mindless and boring it's hard to imagine there was ever a target audience for it. This is another one of those, and it's not particularly remarkable among them. The ... characters are all flat and boring -- new ones appear and disappear on screen, and most of them really don't seem to matter. The plot is chaotic and confusing and basically feels like a vessel to get random fights to occur. It's not bad enough to truly hate, and there's some minor entertainment to be gained from all the action, but it's hard to really say much nice about beyond 'it could be worse'. Honestly, it's hard to even write much about this OVA; I spent nearly two hours watching it and all of it vanished from my brain immediately after. A bunch of random freaky shit happened slowly over a long, boring period and made no sense. There's no baseline competency or rules in play to make the ridiculous things stand out. The third episode spends 15 minutes recapping the previous hour of content and it still feels just as much like nonsensical violence as it did the first time (complete with a side of rape-y overtones). People explode into red puddles, turn into tentacle blobs, and grow third eyes. Our main character (?) is some potter who has a demon inside of him, seemingly dies, and turns into Solomon Grundy before then turning into Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ninjas appear to fight our heroes at random moments, girls become naked for no reason, and at some point our heroes get saved by the appearance of a more attractive version of the Paradox brothers from Yu-Gi-Oh!. All the while, rejected Street Fighter music plays, random definitions of terms flash onscreen, and if I'm making this sound like it's actually fun, characters talk. A lot. About absolutely nothing. Things like how the 'Ingyou Jakan' is about to happen, or the 'Four Holy Beasts', or how they didn't notice that they actually died 18 years ago. Alternatively, about their goddamn occupation as a potter. It would be fascinating if it wasn't completely and utterly boring and inane, since there's no solid ground to even start from. Instead, it just feels like people mindlessly saying and doing things for almost two hours.

If you're looking for a good time, or even just something funny to watch with friends, don't bother with this. (...Unless you really want to see the secret inspiration for Muzan from Demon Slayer. But seriously, don't bother.)