Download: Namu Amida Butsu wa Ai no Uta (1992)

So, Download is an action/sci-fi OAV from 1992 that, on first glance, might look like a lazy and unimaginative Akira wannabe, but it's in the small details that Download keeps its charm and its uniqueness. It's about Shidou, a Buddhist monk-cum-hacker, who's dating an exotic dancer named Namiho. Unbeknownst to each other, they're both also using different methods to investigate the malevolent activities of the sinister Echigoya conglomerate. Eventually, they also team up with a biker gang who lost a friend to Echigoya's schemes to take the mega-corp down.

Now, though this is a fairly accurate description of the plot (which I've obviously left a lot out of to avoid spoiling anything in case any of you decide to go and watch Download), it might cause you to judge this OAV unfairly, assuming it's just one more entry among the many other darkly-toned and grimly violent cyberpunk OAVs and movies that were made in the wake of Akira's massive worldwide critical and commercial success. The way Download stands out from the crowd though, is in its execution.

Rather than putting on a parade of human misery, showing a world of starving street orphans and evil cyber-goons lurking around every corner, Download instead gives us a lighter take on the dirty and violent cyberpunk dystopia. The character designs (and the look of the world in general) have a soft, almost squidgy quality to them, and the way everything is animated, especially the way that characters move and interact with each other, has a frenetic, cartoonish look and feel. The result is that the setting, Moonlight City feels like a fun and exciting city of adventure (albeit a dirty, violent one populated by biker gangs and evil corporations), rather than the hellish pits of despair seen in the likes of Cyguard or Battle Angel Alita and so on (not that those works are necessarily bad or anything, just that it's nice to have something different).

The result is an entertaining and fairly unique way to spend 47 minutes, and one which comes highly recommended. It's a shame that this OAV seems to have been almost totally forgotten by history: it never received an official english release, despite being the sort of thing that Manga Video were filling the UK market with in the early 90s, and judging by the fact that the fansubs (done in 2015) only have a VHS rip as their video source, that suggests that it's been forgotten and never rereleased in Japan, too. A terrible shame that something so entertaining and with such a strong identity has been allowed to fall by the wayside like that.