I was fairly surprised when I ran into these ones while preparing for the July-Summary. Another surprising fact is that nobody seems to be talking about them. Well, time to change this, I just had to post it. Every single one of these OVA has a unique art style, and every one of them will probably have a very dark mood.

Maihime OVA

No, it’s not what you think. It’s not Mai HiME, it’s Maihime, or Dancer Girl. It’ll probably focus on the love of a dancer girl, judging by the art and the fact that AnimeNfo labeled it as a love-romance. Here you can see some teaser screenshots, and I have to say that I like them.

Neko Machi

There’s absolutely no information about this one, except for some japanese writing I don’t understand. Still, this looks to be one creepy OVA about cats. If you take a look at the teaser screenshots here you can also see that the art will be rather dark, strange, and probably unique. I like that. AnimeNfo labeled it as a fantasy-horror.

Zakuro Yashiki La Grenadiere

A french novelist called Balzac wrote the story for this one in the book “La Grenadiere”. It’s about a woman and a child who live in a small cottage in 19th century france. Supposedly, the woman was labeled as a mystery, as she didn’t get out of the house too often. AnimeNfo labeled this as a novel, which doesn’t really give much information about the genre, though I think it’ll be some dark slice-of-life story. Here are some teaser screenshots, and they look gorgeous.

Yo Shomei Bijutsukan LINE

This’ll be a rather unique anime. It’s about art. It’s art style is extremely simple, like an old picture-book. AnimeNfo didn’t assign any genres to it, though the teaser-screenshots, which can be found here give us more clues about the nature of this OVA. It’ll be simple, it’ll be art. Will it be good?

Gendai Kibunroku Kaii Monogatari

This’ll be a definate horror OVA. It consists of six parts.
1. At a dry river bed a refrigerator associated with a terrible anecdote, “Refrigerator.”
2.A one room western-style house, above a carved table an objects stands out like a sore thumb. It was an accidental discovery to a College of Arts student’s terror. “Daruma.”
3. On a long bridge while boys are traveling, they encounter a ghost personally, “Bridge of Evening.”
4.I n a free shopping market a sarcastic man is guided to the otherside, “U.S. Military Sale.”
5. The railway crossing; continual mortal accidents are a puzzle being persued, “Railroad Crossing.”
6. Summer vacation at a tranquil countryside, boys personally experiance a miraculous event, “I want a friend.”
These descriptions don’t really sound that scary, but who knows. Here are the teaser-screenshots, and I´m wondering how these descriptions and these screenshots are linked.

Fantascope Tylostoma

This is a strange one. We have this man, who appears every 700 years. Because of this, he’s able to see once flourishing villages decay into oblivion. Then he meets a woman, a prostitute, from this period, the passion begins. Most likely, this will be a love story. Though the most remarkable feature of this OVA is the art. Everything is in sketchbook-style. Here are some teaser screenshots.

Joseito

This anime will be making use of 3D-animation techniques, though not the standard way. Here are some teaser screenshots which show this. The show is going to be a school-life anime. Fairly unique among the other OVA’s listed here. It’s about a painter, painting a schoolgirl, and giving this schoolgirl her own story.

Wow, that was touching. It seems that Himawari is going to have a rival. It’s going to be interesting, since she doesn’t think of Watanuki as someone who’s in love with her. Also, for some reason, it appears to be good for Watanuki to interact with the Vestal Sprite. In any case, according to Yuuko.

We start with Watanuki, who’s having some trouble with the Pipe Fox. For some reason, the creature turned big again, though it didn’t lose its tendency to hug Watanuki at every possible moment. Meanwhile, the Vestal Sprite pays Watanuki a visit, though she’s a bit too scared to show herself. Therefore, she throws stones in order to get his attention to a package of deep-fried tofu, which happens to be the Pipe Fox’ favourite food. Yuuko gets a strange look when she sees this. One of the spots on the forehead of the fox disappears when he eats the deep-fried tofu.

The next day, when Watanuki, Domeki and Himawari are walking to some place, Himawari runs into a jewelry shop, and it seems that she likes things like these. Watanuki then decides to buy something for her as well, though he’s probably too scared to directly give it to her. Later, when Watanuki feeds the pipe fox another bunch of deep-fried tofu, Yuuko warns him about it. Even though it may be the pipe-fox’ favourite food, it isn’t really healthy for them. If it eats too much of it, it won’t be able to transform.

In order to make the pipe fox transform back at this stage, Watanuki needs to enter a place full of pure spirits. Yuuko then offers a special vase, which has to be filled with water and crystals, while the light of the full moon shines on it (there are a lot of full moons on xxxHolic, aren’t there?). It then brings him and the pipe fox into some kind of dimension which is full of animated daffodils who can change their size. They’re apparently pure spirits, as the fox changes back.

Afterwards, Watanuki meets up with the Vestal Sprite, and ha eactually gives her the present he intended for Himawari. I also like Watanuki for the fact that he doesn’t blame others for the mistakes they made (except Domeki, of course), as he never mentioned the fact that deep-fried tofu is bad for Pipe Foxes.

Overall, the episode was surprisingly touching. The Vestal Sprite is surprisingly cute.

Memorable Moment: The Rain Sprite getting her umbrella stuck in a tree.

The previous episode ended the previous arc quite wonderfully. It almost couldn’t have been better. You would expect some intermezzo, though the events immediately start again, as some very interesting facts get revealed.

The Messis-arc clearly dealt with the conflicts going on inside the Chor Tempest. By now, almost all of these seem to be solved. Only Paraietta still has her issues, Aruti also shows signs of being unhappy and shouldn’t there at least be something wrong with Yun?

In any case, this isn’t really enough material for another arc like that, so it seems that this arc will be focusing at the enemies. All of the events which happened during this episode seemed to point towards this direction as well. The Archipelago and the Highlands have formed an alliance, and more will probably follow. The Arcus Prima meanwhile is heading for the Ruins, in which the Simoun originally came from.

I’m wondering whether the enemies will be able to deliver a blast of the same caliber as Limone and Dominüra managed to do. The previous arc was just totally awesome, though it’ll be very hard for the last episodes in order to top that one. Ah well, they make a very good start with all the events which happen during this episode:

- It becomes clear that the Chor Kaputo and the Chor Riboru all have fallen at the time when the Arcus Prima was in repairs. This makes the Chor Tempest the only Chor on the Arcus Prima.
- Once at the ruins, enemy crafts come flying by, equipped with the same Helical Motores as the Simoun.
- To make it only better, these crafts are able to perform Ri Maajons.
- Paraietta, Aruti, Mamiina, Yun, Kaimu, Rödoreamon, Morinasu and Furoe chase after them.
- Aaeru’s wind machine makes sound, even though it’s closed. She decides to check out the ruins.
- There are three enemy “Simoun”. Paraietta and Kaimu chase after the first one, though Paraietta has lost her confidence, so it escapes. The other three Simoun are chasing the other two enemies. Rödoreamon is able to hit down the second, though when Morinasu chases after the third, she can’t keep up for some reason, and they retreat.
- Aaeru and Neviriru, meanwhile, discover that the Ruins lead to the Spring, with Onashia in the middle of it.
- Onashia claims that she’s everywhere and nowhere. She never mentions the enemy Simouns at all.
- Meanwhile, Yun checks out the fallen Simoun, with Mamiina following her. They’re shocked when they find out that the pilot was Angurasu, the one from episode eight. Yun suddenly gets serious, claiming that everyone’s waiting for her.
- Aaeru reveals that her grandfather knew about the fact that the spring connected to more than one place.

This episode alone raised so many questions.
- How did the enemy get their hands on a Simoun?
- What is Onashia’s role in this?
- In fact, what exactly is Onashia?
- Why did Aaeru’s wind machine make sound while closed? Why did the sound stop when they reached the ground?
- What exactly is Aaeru’s grandfather? He was a Simoun Sibylla himself. He must’ve found out something during these days.
- How did Angurasu survive her self-destruction-treatment? Twins?
- What’s Yun up to? Has she finally decided to go to the spring? Or is she planning to follow her friends, who died in combat?

Overall, this could promise to become very interesting. The enemy also really surprises me. They’re trying all sorts of different tricks and strategies, and everytime, it becomes more effective. Not because of their strategies, they remain the same. It’s because they keep improving their technologies, while the Simoun stay the same. That makes you predictable. It’s only a matter of time before they really begin to overpower the Simoun with ease. I’m wondering where the creators plan to carry this next.

Memorable Moment: Rödoreamon missing her stuffed toy, which Limone kidnapped. ^^