Anime: Parasite Dolls

What happens when a company tries to cash in on a previously succeful anime? You get OVAs like Parasite Dolls.

The whole story is told a lot better than I could ever do on the animenfo website, so I suggest you pay a visit to this site to get a complete view of the story.

Animation: Incredibly outdated

The animation however is always smooth, even during the fastest action scenes. This good point however, doesn't make up for the low art quality. For some reason, the producers decided that Parasite dolls should look as much as possible like the very first incarnation of Bubblegum Crisis. The chacter design is perfectly plain, and the mad Boomers lack detail. So the art style looks very like your standard early 90's anime, which make the art look extremely outadated when compared with animes from the same period (2003).

Music and acting: Pretty much forgettable

In the music department, none of the opening or ending theme manages to stick to your mind. Both are very forgettable (are have been forgotten ;) ). The background music doesn't stand out either, it fails to reinforce action or dramatic scenes (which is what a good background music should do). However, it never gets in the way either, so the best qualifier for it would be "unnoticeable". The seiyus do a standard job. Without any dramatic and emotional moments in the anime, they would have had a hard time trying to show emotions anyway.

Story: An anime deriving from Bubble Crisis can't be wrong, can it?

Well, I guess it can. While each episode has a very good basis for developing a meaninful plot, all of them are poorly directed, and they turn into a mostly incoherent stack of scenes put together. You can clearly see that the producers tried to induce tension, but miserably failed. All in all, the story is bad, confusing and quickly forgotten.

Characters: No man's land...

All of the caracters are flat and cliché. None of them has this little something in it's behavior or way speaking that uniquely identifies him among the crowd of anime characters. Buzz is supposed to be an investigator, and he's just that, plain and simple, just like any side character from any other anime. And pretty much the same can be said about all of the other characters. Interestingly enough, all of the somewhat interesting characters are side characters, though the only one worth mentioning is Eve, a female prostitute Boomer who has feelings. She is probably the only character whose past gets some explanation. Her motivations are also interesting, and getting to know more about her personality reveals interesting facts. She is basically the only thing that saves the whole show from beeing a total failure.

Parasite Dolls was just as boring as it was confused and unclear: a heck of a lot. I kept staring at my watch wondering when the hell the story would get better... Since the first viewing threw a heavy feeling of boredom on me, I don't see why I would even consider rewatching it.

My final advice: Stay clear from Parasite Dolls