Anime Review: Devil Hunter Yohko OAV 1

When I was walking through the anime section at Best Buy the other day, I saw a DVD collection for a series I'd first heard of about nearly 10 years ago: Devil Hunter Yohko. Now back when I first started watching anime, about the only access I had to new series was my local Blockbuster or Hastings anime rental section. I watched a smattering of a lot of different series (the stores never had all of any one thing) and for whatever reason, Devil Hunter Yohko was one I'd always meant to watch but never quite got around to. So when I saw the entire 6 episode OAV collection for just $15, I decided "Eh, why not?" Although every once in awhile you can find good deals in the bargain bin, it's been my general experience that most titles are there for a very good reason and unfortunately, Devil Hunter Yohko seems to be no exception.

Yohko Mano is a young girl on the verge of her 16th birthday and she soon discovers that she is the 108th generation of Devil Hunters in her family. The demons know this too and so before she fully awakens to her powers, they are going to try and put an end to her and the Devil Hunter line. Paraphrased, that's basically how the back of the DVD describes the series and technically its correct. What the back of the DVD doesn't tell you is that at several points the show plays out more like some kind of badly written softcore pornography than anything else. Fan service in a show is one thing, and I've certainly gotten on a series case for focusing on it too much, but the stuff here is just ridiculous: case in point, there's a scene where one of Yohko's classmates is invited to the principal's office (a woman with a whip and a commented S&M interest) where she begins to just strip in front of him and seduce him. Shortly afterward this same classmate, suddenly super suave, takes Yohko to a love hotel and begins to strip and fondle her and almost rapes her (she's hypnotized), until her grandomther bursts through the skylight on a motorcycle. Oh, and apparently Yohko's mom is a whore who thinks that her daughter is behind the curve for being a virgin at 16 and tells her daughter to give it up to the first guy who really strikes her fancy. I'm pretty tolerant of fictional characters and their lifestyles but this was just a little much for me. The main character Yohko is pretty bland and is probably best described as a more risque Sailor Moon, down to a transformation sequence that shows bare nipples. The pacing is pretty bad too with events kind of disjointedly happening one after the other with no real bridges connecting them

In addition to the poor plotting and writing, the animation and music are both substandard as well. The soundtrack is composed entirely of synthesizer riffs that are characteristic of anime made before the mid 90's and is universally bland throughout the episode. Animation is stiff and jerky with bland late 80's style character designs and while it may have only been mediocre to passable when it came out, time has not been to kind to it.

I could keep on trashing it, but I think enough is enough. Now I won't pretend that all the series that I watch and enjoy are "good"; there are more than a couple that I enjoy despite being demonstrably "bad" in one or more areas, but they always have some charm or quirk that appeals to me in some odd way. Devil Hunter Yohko does not. Being an OVA, there are different composers and directors and writers listed for each episode so its entirely possible that some of the others on the disc aren't so bad. I'd be hard pressed though following the first OVA to muster up enough enthusiasm to try and find out though.