Sometimes, not often, I look at a staked seasonal slate of anime and sigh. Not because the shows aren’t worth a watch, but because the modern landscape doesn’t allot for the era I grew up in, when OVAs and anime anthologies reigned supreme. Every once in a while, an original animated show like Apocalypse Hotel comes around and scratches that itch as an ultimately aimless show focused less on signposting toward some grand adventure with a clearly defined endpoint and more on just being a vibe.
Unfortunately, original anime are harder to come across in seasons dominated by adaptations of manga everyone’s already prepared to sweatily compare to their source material with screenshots and manga panels. That, my friends, is diametrically opposed to the anime vibes I crave.
Luckily, whenever I’m low on seasonal anime that evoke madcap whimsy, giving its creators carte blanche to do whatever so long as it’s dazzling, I catch said vibe by spinning the block and rewatching Project A-Ko.
Project A-Ko, animated by studio APPP (of Golden Boy and that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure OVA fame) and later by Studio Fantasia (Robot Carnival), is a cornucopia of rad hallmarks in anime all rolled into one work. Though for my kin who were raised on Cartoon Network, Project A-Ko is best described as the closest thing anime has to its own big-budget Ed, Edd n Eddy (I see you Nichijou and City: The Animation fans, let me cook). To underscore that point, Project A-Ko‘s genres include: adventure, comedy, sci-fi, mecha, slice of life, superhero, and a slightly peeled yuri label. But mostly, the OVA is concentrated whimsy and gorgeously fluid animation, and I love it.
At its center are three high school girls: the fiery redhead sukeban, Eiko Magami; the spoiled rich girl, Biko Daitokuji; and the ditzy paramour the two are ceaselessly fighting for the attention of, Shiiko Kotobuki. The OVA refers to the trio as A-Ko, B-Ko, and C-Ko, respectively, to keep things simple. And each slice-of-life high school sequence set in the decadent, futuristic Graviton City sees A-Ko protect C-Ko from a litany of dangers. Key among them is B-Ko, who’s dead set on being besties with C-Ko to the point of inventing a mech to take A-Ko out of the picture. And they duke it out over C-Ko, breaking out nearly every possible avenue of anime bullshit (affectionate). Take a look for yourself.
Spectacle and animation aside, Project A-Ko is also lowkey kinda sapphic in how it escalates the tug-of-war over C-Ko from schoolyard fights to space, which is always fun to see, especially in an older anime series. As further testament to its action bits living in the middle ground between Gainax’s action in Gunbuster and gag manga hijinks à la Dr. Slump, is the truth behind A-Ko’s superpowers. Turns out, the reason the titular heroine is so goddamn overpowered is that she’s the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman. That’s nepotism the likes of which anime has never seen.
A-Ko’s parentage is such a wild reveal, delivered in such a nonchalant way, that I’m not sure if typing this has alerted the folks at Warner Bros. to try to catch a case with the OVA for licensing its superheroes. The ’80s truly were a wild west where creators didn’t have to worry about going the extra mile, as David Production does for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, to make up new names for its clear homages and references to avoid catching a case with lawyers. And even this is only one of the many little reasons why Project A-Ko is such a treat to revisit so often.
Similar to how anthologies tend to have a murderers’ row of über-talented creatives whose fingerprints are all over other classics, so too does Project A-Ko. Included among them are director Katsuhiko Nishijima, who worked on another sleeper-hit favorite of mine, Agent Aika; character designer Yuji Moriyama, who cut his teeth on cute girls doing action things with Project A-Ko and later contributed to Urusei Yatsura; and artists like Atsuko Nakajima, who’d serve as a character designer and animator for another Rumiko Takahashi classic, Ranma 1/2.
What’s more, there’s not just one Project A-Ko OVA. There are four of them, jawns. And while I hate to give them credit, you can watch most of Project A-Ko‘s movies streaming on Prime Video. Its third film, however, is streaming on the oh-so-cool Retro Crush TV. Though if you’re anything like me, and I know I am, you’ll be hard-pressed not to head over to Discotek Media and cop yourself a 4K Blu-ray of this gem to add to your collection. Regardless of how you go about watching this certified classic, you’re guaranteed a gay old time.
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