This week my husband is attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, in Los Angeles CA. In celebration of this huge yearly event, and as an excuse to dig up some old DVDs and video files I had sitting around, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the video-game-to-anime adaptations that have come about.
Day 1 - The Chrono Trigger OVA
Chrono Trigger has endeared itself to many RPG fans because of its diverse cast of characters and complex storyline based around time-travel. Many people might think that this iconic game's only real connection to anime and manga is the fact that Akira Toriyama provided its character designs, but most aren't aware that the game spawned a little-seen, 16-minute OVA episode in the mid-nineties. The episode was created to be shown at the V-Jump festival (essentially a celebration based around the V-Jump manga anthology magazine) on July 31, 1996. It was produced by Production I.G. and features music from the game.
Surprisingly, the short doesn't focus on the game's main characters, but on a couple of enemy creatures, Nuu and Mamo. On the night before the Kingdom of Guardia's millennial fair, a portal is opened and evil creatures come forth to enjoy the festivities on their own. Nuu and Mamo ("Kilwala" in the US) try to recruit for their club, but end up empty-handed. Later in the evening, they discover the robot Gonzales (known as "Gato" in the US) hidden in the woods. After making fun of the robot's silly song, Gonzales goes berserk, terrorizing the duo and eventually crashing the party down below. Gonzales inadvertently enters a foot race and pummels Johnny, a hybrid monster-motorcycle and the favorite to win. The next morning the humans wake up to find the fairgrounds destroyed and Gonzales puttering to a halt.
Crono and Lucca, two of the game's main characters, show up briefly at the end of the OVA with their backs to the audience, but otherwise none of the core cast makes an appearance. This might seem somewhat unusual considering that the popularity of a Japanese RPG is based substantially around the audience's connection to its main characters. Perhaps this may have been more of an issue if this OVA were created as a serious addition to the game's canon and made available in a widespread commercial manner, but it's clear from the tone that it's meant more as a playful side-story that doesn't even fit logically into canon (if the millennial fair was actually destroyed in this manner, the game's events wouldn't have come to pass).
Instead, this OVA is really just an opportunity to indulge in some playful and plentiful fanservice. As I mentioned, the soundtrack is composed of pieces drawn directly from the game's soundtrack; there's no re-orchestration here, the music is exactly as it's heard in the game. Johnny, a favorite side-character from the game, plays an amusing, if not altogether logical, part in the story. The various monsters enjoy some of the same carnival events that the player can participate in, and act out scenes from the video game during the end credits. It's frivolous, certainly, but still entertaining.
Even though a lot of the humor is really dopey, there are some standout moments, most notably Johnny's soliloquy as he's flying through the air en route to smashing into a brick wall. Otherwise, this is nothing but pure indulgence for fans of the video game and a quarter-hour of goofy fun, more a curious relic than a must-see feature.
This was never made available in the United States as far as I know, but was released in fansub form sometime in 2003. While I won't directly link to it, there's still an active torrent of it floating around - I had to re-download it due to having lost some stuff in a hard drive failure a few years ago, but it didn't take long to reacquire.
Leave a comment