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Title: Leiji Matsumoto's Ozma (松本零士「オズマ」)
Date Aired: 16/03/2012 (6 episodes TV series)
Genres: Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi, Action, Adventure, Romance
Director: Takahiro Ikezoe
Written by: Leiji Matsumoto
Music by: Kousuke Yamashita
Studio: LandQ studios
Network: WOWOW
Main Cast: Sam Coyne (サム・コイン) Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara
Maya (マヤ) Voiced by: Rie Tanaka
Mimay (ミメイ) Voiced by: Ayumi Fujimura
Bainasu (バイナス) Voiced by: Atsuko Tanaka
Gido Gaira (ギド・ガイラー) Voiced by: Shō Hayami
TV series PV: http://ozuma.jp/special.html

Synopsis: In the far future, the elevated irradiation from the sun has destroyed the environment of the earth and the birthrate of humans has drastically decreased. The government controls society with an army of cloned soldiers called "Ideal Children (IC)". Sam Coin is a trader in a desert. One day, he saves a beautiful woman Maya, who has been chased by Theseus, a corps of IC. He shelters her in his trade ship, but the destroyers of Theseus surround Sam and Maya.

Necropinion: this new series will be a nice early start with the spring season specially for those who enjoy Matsumoto-sensei's artistic style like Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999 and Space Battleship Yamato to mention a few good old works better known for his space operas... anyway its interesting plot along the chara/mecha designs and animation are decent reminding many of his classic stories, so far it looks promising and after watching the first episode with medium expectation I'll begin giving it 7/10

Hmm, not what I expected. I was expecting something more along the lines of Terra He, but we got a Dune wannabe instead

I WANTED to like it, and it wasn't so bad, but there were two things that seriously bothered me:

1. Genre mistyping. This is basically fantasy, not sci-fi. Nothing of the setting is explained at all, and much of it doesn't make sense logically from common knowledge. Perhaps this will be rectified later, though I'm skeptical - first ep is the typical place to do it. At best, this can become "light" sci-fi.

2. Art shortcuts. Looked like a LOT of them. The painted backgrounds were gorgeous, but it looked like there was NO effort to make what's on the screen work together. It's like there are 3 artists with conflicting animation styles working on static objects, background animation and close-up character animation respectively. I've never seen mismatches this bad when there's no 3D CGI involved. Also, I've noticed a decided failure to emulate and integrate old-school anime designs.

With those out of the way, looks like a typical story setup seen in older series - excusable to an extent in this case. However, I've got absolutely no idea how they're planning to handle this in just 6 eps, considering that it'd usually take 30+ episodes to develop something like this. Expecting lots of shortcuts and plotholes, here.

So I'm gonna consider this mini-series watchable, but disposable for the time being.

By all conceivable logic

This is Gonzo after all, so what else is new? Great expectations? Nyet!

Art shortcuts? Damn surprising since I seem to recall Gonzo skimping on plot but being generous on eye-candy...I hope the great Matsumoto, Leiji won't be compromised as a result of Gonzo's shoddy work. 5/10 so far.

It wasnt bad, I especially liked the oldschool character designs since I love those a lot more than the ones of nowadays. But the rest of the animation was just bad just like Aus already said. No details, sloppy drawings and nothing really fits together.

Storywise it wont be great given that it only has 6 eps, but I hope it at least stays enjoyable nontheless.

Did I say that I liked the oldschool character designs? Yes, well cant say it enough. Oh, and all the beautiful women, especially Bainas of course too ^^

I actually kinda disliked the old-school designs as well, because they looked a bit out of proportion every now and then, and seemed over-exaggerated. I don't recall many old animes which were that stylized.

Ultimately, I don't think it's possible to replicate the old-school feel without going back to old-school techniques. This one's obviously too CGed up. I'd say a better better bet if the production team doesn't have the resources to hand-draw everything is to do a bit of a style compromise to make old designs work with today's techniques.

I think Toward the Terra did that very well. Examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzXL7wPnOUY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2A4uo5ix7w

The second ep was decent. Basically no panning scenes, so the animation flaws were a lot less obvious. Some of the face designs still look ugly as hell though.

Plot-wise seems OK, but it looks like they're basically deciding that exposition isn't worth it. A shame. You can't really have a proper ship-to-ship battle throwing around pseudo-sciency terms without presenting and explaining more than half of them first.

good to see you gave this series a second chance (it's only 6 eps. after all) but if you watched and remember previous oldies created by Matsumoto you'll notice that's what his original character designs are all about, many ugly looking characters are his trademark just like lets say a recent mangaka's Akagi or Kaiji (if you ever seen those) which most of them look even uglier purposely but that's what make them unique and "memorable" in a way ^^ ...I can't really blame you or anybody else for disliking his particular style compared to other artists but 60's and 70's characters from manga and anime generally looked that bad or worse (Go Nagai or even Osamu Tezuka as very known examples), with that in mind I expected something similar from Matsumoto nowadays and comparing what he did back then with Ozuma so far I'm more interested in this new one

They aren't ugly from a design perspective - but from an animation sense, a lot of them are deadly over-stylized to the point of looking bad. I don't so much mind everyone not looking like supermodels, but I do dislike it when some frames look completely off. Not so much of that in this ep as the last one, but it still bothers me quite a bit.

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:



The woman on the left looks completely off - face lines, proportions, everything. It's a static scene to boot.


And damn, the eyelashes look like they could carve through stone. I do get the whole "we want shoujo-like designs for females" thing, but there's a fine line between "stylized" and "grotesque" and IMO this show ain't treading it lightly.

I also do regret the incredibly thick black outlines - it doesn't always look good, and it's precisely the technique that makes close-ups stand out from backgrounds and BG animation, because those aren't stylized in the same way.

What can I say? This ain't Redline, that's for sure. Neither is it Cassehern or even Toward the Terra (and that one was far from perfect). It seems that getting old-school style animation right is a difficult task.

This post has been edited by Ausdoerrt on Mar 25 2012, 06:11 AM

Dropped...after having to look again, at the so-called Bleach-mask wearing Hollow reject (the Captain) and his badly drawn minions...(that ugly drawn woman being one of the examples) I decided enough with insulting my anime intelligence and trying to sit through this anime tripe. To see Matsumoto's animation style butchered is another insult and having been spoiled by the beauty of his classic style...this one was gladly sent into my anime trash bin. 4/10
Aus-san, this one will never, ever, come close to the beauty of Casshern or Redline...glad you agree.

The understatement of the anime year...and how, with this ugly one.

Hmm, i can't say i like the series until now. The story may be the best part of this series. However the animation ain't my style. It makes it very hard to keep on watching. I can understand that this may be what the writers wanted to keep this series special. Still it distracts too much so i am going to drop this series.

I understand what you mean as that was my stance when I felt like trying Black Rock Shooter TV series at first, thinking it wouldn't be any good for very few episodes but I was wrong after watching the next eps. and enjoyed them... that said I have the feeling to give this one a chance to finish it after watching the 3rd episode released today like I did with BRS TV to find out by myself if it turns out into "another" disappointing series or not, what's for sure Ozma's poor animation style (reminding me most oldies not only about Matsumoto's) isn't for everyone to like nowadays and is justified why just like Ausdo already explained

agreed and to make it clear Ozma is based from a script Leiji wrote 3 decades ago and recently broadcasted as a weekly TV series, which format (even being HD) usually has less quality in general compared to most movies and OVAs with higher budget... by example if you ever saw Interstella 5555 (that anime music movie with Daft Punk's soundtrack) is a homage to Matsumoto's classic works but made with above average quality and surprisingly back in 2003 Toei Animation did a better job than both Gonzo and LandQ studios are doing this year

In my eyes the animation quality in ep 2 was even worse than in ep two, mostly for the woman, and there mostly for Mr. Czar-wannabes second in command.

I really liked the battle. Sure they didnt explain much but in my eyes its clear enough what happened so it doesnt need an explanation.

well its animation wasn't as terrible as the food fight at the dinning room horribly done in episode 3 with repetitive flying bottles and dishes coming from the same directions, besides that it was good along with ep.4 revealing the connection between Maya and the machine-like Ozma also about the past of Sam's brother (being the reason why Bainas kept looking at the crew picture) used by the enemy as a new body for that Czar-masked Gido... by his real name is evident its relation with the Moby Dick story trying so persistently to hunt the whale, was interesting to see how the Bardanos is now the one that chases the Theseus luring them into another battle which I liked as well so I'm still enjoying this short series enough to watch the outcome in the last two episodes

Just finished the show. I dont think I even have to say that this shows main negative point is that its too short. No character backgrounds, no character development, no introduction of the world and overall it just ran throught the plot which made no real sense except you fantasize most of the stuff yourself and throwing random stuff at us.
Most ridiculous thing was that nobody realized Ozma was a machine despite it hardcore-looking like one (except for Dick who seems to have realized it, because if he didnt the bomb wouldnt be an EMP-strike but something else).
Overall the characters were ridiculous and totally unstable. One scene they do this and the next scene they do something completely different.

And just how can you name someone Dick -.-

About the animation I think everythings already said, except that the last ep was even worse in quality than the rest.

A 4/10 from me.

as I mentioned above this short series is based from a script Leiji Matsumoto wrote like 30 years ago being one of the reasons why we see many familiar characters like Dick (lol) resembling Captain Harlock, Bainas to Princess Esmeralda and Maya to Queen Millennia between a few others of the cast (lets say it was some kind of prototype) ...its bad result reminds me to what happened with the mediocre Ring ni Kakero TV series and OVAs recently adapted from one of the very first mangas by Masami Kurumada in early 80's(compared to Saint Seiya, Fuma no Kojiro or BT'X) as Ozma was poorly executed counting with only 6 episodes long as well as below average animation/designs and almost none character development even in the last episode -.- though my initial expectation was standard because I liked many previous titles of Matsumoto somewhat I enjoyed this one while it lasted so my final score is 5/10

This post has been edited by NecroRyu on May 03 2012, 12:49 AM

Ozma (or Ozuma) is the 60th anniversary WOWOW project with source material by Leiji Matsumoto. Matsumoto is famous for his Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express, and Captain Harlock works, all of which were fantastic classic sci-fi works. Unlike those works, however, Ozma is set in a desert world that revolves around the legendary sand whale, Ozma. Ozma is a short 6 episode series that aired during the Spring 2012 anime season and was simulcasted on CrunchyRoll.

Ozma's story is the worst I've ever seen from Leiji Matsumoto. The premise is relatively intriguing but there are far too many terminologies and plot events in the short 6 episodes it has to fully develop itself. At the end of the 6 episodes, the show is full of holes, lackluster explanations of various terminologies and the world the characters live in, and worse of all, stale characters. Unlike Matsumoto's past works, development was not the only key issue here but the fact that the characters were uninteresting and not all that engaging made it difficult just to sit through a single episode.

Art wise is okay. Desert area is a little lacking in detail and the whole "magical sand" animation is a bit too much for a show that's not fully space sci-fi. Animation is pretty cheap and low budget, even when you're talking about GONZO, which is still emerging from bankruptcy. The quality from Last Exile ~Ginyoku no Fam~ was even better than this trash. Also, Ozma is suppose to be a desert whale...someone want to explain why it's like a mechanical ship?

Music? OP/ED are generally forgettable. Background music is average. Sound effects is pretty good though. The show does manage to capture the whole submarine atmosphere feel with appropriate active sonars. Seiyuu wise, the lineup is great but I sensed a strong lack of emotion in the characters. Everything felt too rigid and stale.

Enjoyment? Plot holes, lack of explanation, character backgrounds, all of this are missing in this show. It's like someone completely skipped over the outline step when creating this and went straight to writing a story based on whatever came to mind. At the end of the day, this is typical GONZO, meaning they will throw in as much intriguing material as possible but never able to wrap up nicely. GONZO clearly has not learned after falling to the depths of hell not too long ago and I would recommend staying away from this title.

Overall, to be honest, this show had a somewhat competent staff to at least make an average quality work. However, the show couldn't even get to that level. A major disappointment and I'd suggest not watching this if you've already been spoiled to the goodness of Harlock, Yamato, and/or Galaxy Express. There are shows that have a similar premise as Ozma but do it better even though it's not a Matsumoto title. The Third, Last Exile, and Mouretsu Pirates are easily comparable and if you want to stretch it, Desert Punk and even Fractale will get the job done. For a 60th anniversary work, this is just bad. P.A. Works clearly set the stage with their 10th anniversary project, Hanasaku Iroha, last year. WOWOW just clearly fails.

Preliminary Score: 5/10
Final Score: 3/10