Ark IX OVA - We Don't Need No Title

Every now and again, I take time out of my day to really go out of my way to find some well and truly utter shite to watch around these parts.

But sometimes I don't need a new series - I just need something relatively short-ish. Something that is about the length of an OVA. Less than 40 minutes is preferable because movies take a very, very long time to deconstruct, and let's be fair - if something animated is lasting more than 40 minutes, chances are it is probably above the quality of shit I generally tend to ingest around here.

So what is Ark IX? Hell if I know, but I'm gonna watch it anyways. Because as an OVA, it is rated slightly above Hametsu no Mars over on AniDB, which should be a great indicator of just what level of quality we ought to expect.

And with a runtime of approximately 11 minutes, well, surely I can't lose, right?

We begin with the credits, which remind us that this is based on a Japanese Light Novel, like so many adaptations out there. Except this one didn't seem to warrant more than about ten minutes.

Well, now we know who to lynch if the story sucks.

It starts with a dude lighting a cigarette while falling through the air? Wait, no. He's running from a werewolf? Oh and that immediately gives way to... pffffaahahahahahahaha.

Oh god. This one is a real winner with the animation let me tell you.

This is some super pro animation. I'm crying here.

It's a thing of beauty, is it not?

By the way, this came out early in 2013. Someone paid MONEY to produce this within the last few years.

There's some dude holding his head in the darkness, and then some kids who look way too much like they probably have names but were cut from having any actual part in this OVA because of budget constraints.

One kid is clearly an elf, while the other is a fairy. And one
is Odin.

Also, the way this kid is DUAL-WIELDING TROWELS
is f***ing priceless!!!

Oh and then someone starts singing, in actual English, some lyrics which I could probably care less about but I'm sure somebody thought was poignant at the time of production. Also, there is some girl with black hair standing in a church who is probably important or whatever.

You remind me of Saya for some reason. I'll call you Saya.

Oh yeah, and did we mention? In addition to your Jesus imagery (no literally there is a Jesus on the cross), and also the werewolves and zombies, we have CYBORGS!

Man you guys are blowing my f***ing mind with this right now.

This is a lot of shit to throw at someone in the first minute.

So the cyborg falls over backwards because style or something? And we see that dude from the intro and oh look it's night and day at the same time.

... what?

OH HOLD ONTO YOUR SOCKS BECAUSE WE ARE GONNA SHOW YOU SO MUCH SHIT NOW THAT THE MUSIC SUDDENLY KICKED UP. IT'S ALSO SET IN SOME SUPER FUTURISTIC HIGH TECH SCI-FI CITY. PRESUMABLY IN THE FUTURE! ALSO PEOPLE TALK BUT THEY AREN'T IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO WARRANT ACTUALLY GETTING DIALOGUE BECAUSE THEY ARE SETTING THE SCENE OR SOMETHING I GUESS.

I'm supposed to care about this why?

At this point, I don't even know any names, but we're gonna keep rolling with it. This thing has to start at some point, right?

More characters.

Whoa there, given you're almost a fifth through your time budget
do you really think you need to keep throwing characters at us?

Oh, and then the music kicks up again, and... I start to wonder. Is this just a ten-minute-long music video? That's kind of how it is starting to look.

There's some blood splatters and a zombie gets shot I guess, a cigarette goes tumbling, and we get audio of that dude shooting a werewolf to death. Which then explodes. Into another werefolf? But then he's on the ceiling or something?

But then we cut away to some other scene. Oh, okay. At least this has dialogue.

Pretty ambitious goal considering you've got *checks watch*
less than nine minutes to do that.

So dude wants to make a new world. Not bring back the old one, just push the reset button and start fresh. Cool. Then some blonde with a huge rack starts nagging the camera.

Presumably until the end of this short OVA.

She tells other dude who is that main dude from the start they need to get to work and he needs to shower and that he needs to drink coffee? But then they're in a bar talking about how they have to catch some dude.

Oh hey it's hospital dude.

His mom is dying or whatever and she wants to see her son before she goes so I guess you have to go catch this criminal for his mother's sake? Then she leans in to see what's on the ol' wrist TV.

So... the future is Apple Watches. You can tell it was 2013.

Dude tells the bartender he's gonna 'use his line' and guy is like 'what the f**k ever I'm just reading my paper because who the f**k goes to a bar at 9 in the morning' and then we're outside in the city, making commentary on our modern trappings in life.

I bet somebody thought they were being super clever.

So they're driving, he's smoking in the car, and then he starts... driving like a maniac and talking without moving his mouth? Oh and then some dude in a jeep shoots a rocket at them no big deal and he just like finger guns them? What winds up happening is I guess he uses some magical bullshit to make the road turn into a wall behind them so they can drive off.

Wait wait wait wait. Ninjutsu?!

Let's see, we've got elves, fairies, zombies, werewolves, guns, cyborgs, the future, Apple watches... and now ninjas. All we're missing are vampires and ghosts and we have ourselves a Yahtzee or something.

One cut later, and we see that their assailants were robots which just decided to blow themselves up. How efficient.

If by 'filed off' you mean 'dirtily airbrushed in Photoshop',
then sure, they've been filed off.

Wait, are you not partners? Does she not live with you?
WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS NARRATIVE?!

He walks off and then I guess they find that guy who is like "MY MOM IS DEAD". Also, for being a criminal he is just cowering in a corner I guess? Dude introduces himself to crime bro as a detective which I am sure someone who is wanted for assault and theft will totally be cool with, and tells him that it looks like this job isn't going the way they thought.

Oh and...

They are just going to keep introducing new shit every thirty
seconds, aren't they? We're almost halfway through!!

He says something about the girl in the rocking chair and only wanting to see her smile one more time or whatever, then her eyes go funny. Oh look I guess this is the zombie. Boobs McKenzie is all "yo sorry about this" then the zombie bites crimebro in the neck and maindude leaps into action because HE IS A NINJA.

They really wanted to hammer home the ninja thing.

Also zombies gain extra HP and life regen once they turn. Who'd have thought?

He sets the place on fire, it starts climbing the ceiling, lady shoots bullets, and then a helicopter blows up the apartment but he ninjas the incoming gatling rounds and then strikes it down with lightning.

Yeah. It's pretty hard to follow unless you are basically pausing every five f***ing seconds to keep up.

The IX? Oh so IX is a place? Halfway in and you are JUST
establishing this?

Mysterious blond dude goes on to say they came from another Ark. Oh, so... the "Arks" are like an arcology. Either that or they are literal 'arks' as in a big f***ing boat in which case we are in space. I somehow doubt they'll have time to tell us which is the case though.

That makes two of us, Satan.

Oh and he warns the 'ninja master' not to go up against the Lezzio Family. Whoever or whatever that is.

OF COURSE. Damn, I knew I should have called the whole
Italian mob scene in addition to the werewolves, elves,
and f***ing fairies. DAMN.

Then a bird flies by at the speed of sound and we're... fighting some mafiosi.

"Hey boss, there's some guy who is holding Ezio's fist."

They let him in and he starts asking the mob boss about the ampoule he found, where it comes from, and all that stuff.

Wait, so is this the blonde who wants to end the world? Or
rather remake the world? And if that's the case, who was the
other blonde guy who looked exactly like him earlier?

Since I'm gonna guess that other dude was a lawyer I'll just
refer to this kid as Mr. Lucifer.

Ninja pulls a gun on the kid - because ninjas NEED guns I guess - and demands to know what he is. Which the kid doesn't even know. Is this a Shadowrun thing? Oh wait hang on we need to add YET ANOTHER ELEMENT TO THIS OVA.

AND NOW THE F***ING CHURCH?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Then we're on a train or subway or whatever and it explodes while boobs holds onto a pole like she's gonna dance on it, and bro is all holding Kunai against what I think was supposed to be a robot.

Why does he use KUNAI against a f***ing robot, but pulls a GUN on regular humans? The hell kind of sense does THAT make for a ninja?!

So he winds up setting the robot, and also half the damn train car, on fire, and we get some more exposition in the background about... something important that happened long ago?

Lost Day, uh-huh, okay...

So, the story boils down to "something happened, billions died, and the rest of us went behind some kind of wall."

The robot finally gets exploded, Mr Lucifer is all narrating and shit asking bro if he thinks this is the way the world should really be, and guy is all 'eh, I dunno.'

Well when you put it that way...

Oh and then a tank literally falls out of the f***ing sky.

What. The. F**k.

Then the tank tries to shoot ninja dude (which is a really STUPID thing to do with tanks) and... we head into the credits?

Wait, you're telling me it's over already? There's still three minutes left!

Oh wait nevermind, they're doing that thing where they give us SOME of the credits and continue the action. Also, ninja dude ninja magicks the shell and makes it change trajectory in the air like five times before flying back at the tank.

What's going on here? Hell if I know!

They get into a fight, more credits, more fighting and the Zeon soldier IS A WOMAN OH NO.

Zieg Zeon?

Don't worry, if you were confused it'll just get more confusing because nothing ever gets explained.

Oh, okay, so they're cool now?

Then another scene.

Is this what it is like to be on drugs? Holy shit.

Oh and then ANOTHER scene.

Whoa whoa hold on there is only so much information the human
brain can take in within the span of like five seconds!

They just keep throwing another scene and another scene and another scene at us without any sort of context whatsoever and hoping we can maybe piece together what the f**k is going on. How does ANY of this relate to ENDING THE F***ING WORLD?

Oh and I guess the church is cool maybe?

I thought you were badguys? WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!

Then they're in a car.

... was this supposed to be a trailer? Is that was this was?

It's literally sound bytes, and then a midair battle with that Zeon soldier and... more credits? Oh and then Matrix time.

And now we get the ROLLING credits which ensures things are over for at least a minute now. If your brain isn't leaking out of your ears, you were either asleep or just not paying attention because they bombarded you with a LOT of f***ing information in a very short span of time.

I have no f***ing idea what Ark IX is supposed to be about. There is SO MUCH SHIT crammed in here that I just can't-

THERE"S THE VAMPIRE!

If she is also a Nazi I swear to f***ing god.

They keep fighting while they keep shifting over to the series logo, kicking one another so hard blood goes flying, and then between cuts one of them wins.

It's really anyone's guess who.

She says he's the first kind of guy to die and then some dude turns into a werewolf. Oh okay I guess that came full circle not.

And that was Ark IX. The only thing missing were ghosts. It has zombies, vampires, werewolves, ninjas, cyborgs, robots, ninja detectives, mob bosses, corrupt clergy, good clergy, Italian mobsters, guns, girls, mystery, magic, and so much other shit that I just can't even keep track of it all anymore. Oh and an end of the world plot maybe I don't even know.

I have no idea what the f**k the purpose of this OVA was. In fact, the Internet itself seems very confused as to what the real purpose of this was. I will admit, it does a pretty good job of getting you interested in trying to know what the hell is going on. But for an OVA, this is a really horrible one. It felt a lot like they were trying to tease something much much larger - like it was promotional material for a movie. In fact, if this were made into a movie, an actual full-length feature film, I'd be strangely okay with that. It reminds me a little bit of Vampire Hunter D in how much genre smashing occurs, and I kind of like stuff like that.

Unfortunately though, there is no such thing. There was never planned to be such a thing. It's too long to be a commercial, because it's 11 goddamn minutes, plus it has an opening and ending theme. That means it was meant to be a standalone piece, and in this it f***ing fails miserably.

While better animated than Hametsu no Mars - which isn't too difficult to be frank - it's somehow WORSE in story structure. At the end, what do we know? That our main character is a ninja detective who may or may not be trying to end the world? Also there are zombies and werewolves and vampires and shit out there for some reason.

I'm not going to dwell on this any longer. I can't dwell on this any longer because there is simply not enough material for me to pick over. I am left just as confused, if not MORE confused, than when I started watching.

Whatever I just watched, I can't really tell you what it's about. Because at the end, I still have no f***ing idea.

I give this one a D+. They clearly tried, and I'll give them credit for that. The animation was pretty cool at times, and at others just horribly confusing and laughably bad. The character designs are alright, but the story is such a f***ing mess that I can't in good conscience give them anything higher than that.

And to be fair a D+ is pretty damn generous, and it is only by virtue of the GOOD animation and the fact that this was mercifully short that it even gets that. Maybe if they had a larger budget and more time they could turn this into a legitimately awesome thing, and I would be fine with that. But from the looks of things, this is definitely sinking into that obscure territory that not even Wikipedia knows about.

And if you can find a Wikipedia entry on this? Please let me know. Because I couldn't.

Have a nice weekend folks, next week sees two new shows starting up, and I'm going to need all the time to recover as I can get.