ineteen-year-old Joe and his band of interplanetary mercenaries--"Crushers"--are back, and while the stories are new, the simple character archetypes aren't. There's Joe (the obligatory strong silent hero), Alfin (the obligatory squeaky female), Ricky (the obligatory energetic kid) and Talos (the obligatory tough hulk), each of them an anime stereotype as unreconstituted as a black-hat-and-mustache baddie in an American Western. There's even a plucky (and almost infinitely annoying) robot to round out the cast.
The five of them are together again in Crusher Joe: The OVAs, a pair of hour-long adventures. In the first, an ice planetoid used as a prison for insurrectionists is damaged by a laser malfunction and starts to plunge into a nearby planet. Joe's team is called in to stop the prison's orbital decay and rescue the men trapped inside. But why would a merciless dictator pay the Crushers' considerable fee to rescue his own political opponents?
The second installment heats things up considerably, as Joe and company head off to a dangerous border planet to rescue a stiff military martinet and the ultimate weapon chained to her wrist. Major Tanya was the victim of a shipboard insurrection carried out by a faction of her own planet's armed forces, a group of rebels that want to see her doomsday device used instead of destroyed. Unfortunately, her ship crashed on an abandoned test planet overrun by vicious experimental bio-robots designed to kill humans ...
Fast and furious ... but not very friendly
These OVAs (original video animations) are short but jam-packed, utterly crammed with rippling space battles and Aliens-like guerrilla warfare. The second installment in particular seems like one breathless, nonstop battle between the Crushers, the rebellious military, and the uncannily nasty assassin-bots. These stories don't have nearly the awe-inspiring, space-operatic scope of the original Crusher Joe, but they're more consistently fun to watch.
The animation is less unique than the original, but more graceful, particularly in the constant aerial dogfights. Whereas Crusher Joe: The Movie looked like a distinctive-but-flat product of the 70s (it was actually a 1983 release), these episodes have the glossy, textured-but-average look common to most newer anime. The results are pleasant enough, but it's easy to miss the series' old flavor.
The only awkward wrinkle in this seamless collection is how little the stories have to do with the Crusher-team characters themselves. They barely interact except to trade information and lay out plans. It's as though they're conscious of being unremitting stereotypes, and don't want to disappoint or confuse anyone by deviating from their prefab images. What they do is very exciting, but who they are has little to do with it. Tanya and her adversaries are a welcome exception, but they can't quite turn the tide. Ultimately, The OVAs are a great ride with very little human companionship along the way.
