Let’s start off with the story, taken straight off the back of the DVD cover:
“Heian University may not have much class work, but it does have the only Astrology program which offers hands-on experience! When a horde of angry spirits terrorize the school, a nubile young astrology student, Kocho Enoki, must use both her magical powers and her sexy curves to subdue the invaders. Along with her beautiful sister Koran, and the human demon-bait Kosaku, she fights to protect Heian University. But what will the hapless demon hunters do when a female spirit attacks, one who is immune to Kocho's feminine charms?”
As you can tell, it’s an easy story to get adjusted to and pay attention. It’s not complex, and is actually a lot of fun. However....
The story is similar to Devil Hunter Yohko. It’s not completely similar, but there’s plenty of things that seem familiar. You have the haunted school grounds, the sexy lead female, her equally sexy sister/partner, the dorky male friend that tags along for the ride, the insane teacher/sensei that’s not always useful, etc. Hell, even the lead character’s last names sound similar (Yohko/Kocho), and the titles of both shows are similar as well (Devil Hunter Yohko/Demon Fighter Kocho)! If you couldn’t tell, I’m doing the negatives first.
The next negative is the show’s length. Sadly, there’s only one episode of Demon Fighter Kocho. It’s a massive shame actually, cause I think that the universe Demon Fighter Kocho creates is kinda fun. Now while it has the standard running time of 30 minutes, for some reason I felt that the OVA went by rather quickly, thus ruining any staying chance it may have. Related to the short length, you really don’t know much about the world. You know next to nothing about the school the characters go to, and you know almost nothing about the characters. Again, this ruins any staying power the OVA has.
Negative number 3 is the DVD cover. The back of it shows off some scenes from the OVA, and displays the story I showed above, along with a couple other things. It’s organized nicely, but the front is another story. On the front, you have the name of the OVA, along with what looks like a wheel with Chinese lettering. If those two thing alone were on the front, it would look okay (Not the greatest thing on the planet, but alright). However, they placed Kocho and her sister on the front, and they don’t look the greatest. Her sister especially look horrid, almost to the point of looking like a older drawing of the character.
Lastly, Demon Fighter Kocho can be a bit tricky to find, given that it was released way back in 2000. As I said above, I bought the show (New) at Genericon 2013, where it costed me a simple 10 dollars. There’s a handful of DVDs over on Amazon, with used copies having a slight advantage over new copies. The pricing on the new copies isn’t terrible, as they range from 8 dollars to 25 dollars. Prices for the used copies are far less of a burden on the wallet, with prices ranging from about 3 dollars to about 5 dollars. My suggestion would be to go for one of the used copies, as the new copies aren’t as numerous, and the pricing might take a close stab at your wallet’s heart.
Now, with all that I mentioned above, you’d think that this would be a horrible OVA. Ironically, Demon Fighter Kocho is quite enjoyable! Sure, it’s got a host of problems, but there are a couple things that do manage to bring this little film above the septic depths of darkness, but only just.
For starters, the cast is loads of fun! Keeping it at just four characters, they each have their own distinct personalities that separate them from one another. Kocho, the lead female, is sweet, bubbly, and always seems to carry a can of whoop-ass with her. Koran, her sister, has a more sly & sexy attitude, not to mention that she seems to have slightly more common sense. Kosaku is the typical anime male from the 90s: goofy, perverted, but useful when needed. The professor (Who’s name escapes me for some reason) is intelligent & wise, but capable of unleashing a wild & goofy side at the right/wrong time.
Secondly, Demon Fighter Kocho has some surprisingly decent voice acting. Much like the characters, there’s a small group of voice actors that provide most of the voices within the show. Chief among them is Jessica Calvello, as her performance stands out the most when compared to the rest of the voices provided. She provides a innocent yet tough voice performance for Kocho, and seems to have enough fun doing it in the process (This is very evident in the extras, but more on that in a moment).
The third positive is the animation quality. Despite being made in the 90s (1997, to be specific), everything looks great. The use of color is nice, and it knows how to have a consistent feel between bright & dark. This is the one thing that Demon Fighter Kocho has over Devil Hunter Yohko: it has a very consistent look and feel to it, whereas the animation quality in Devil Hunter Yohko bounced all over the place (Whether it was good or bad is all dependent on how you look at it).
Fanservice is the fourth positive of this OVA. Much like Girls Bravo, there’s some wacky situations for boob shots, panty shot, groping, and other stuff. I don’t if it’s just me, but it seems that the fanservice in Demon Fighter Kocho seems to have a purpose behind it, if you can believe that. Whereas the purpose of the fanservice was just to make the viewer go goo-goo & ga-ga, in this OVA it seems to move things along in addition to being decent eye candy.
The last positive of Demon Fighter Kocho is the extras. On the DVD is some bloopers of the cast during their recordings. Much like the performances in the OVA, Jessica Calvello really brings in a lot of fun, not to mention some burping & swearing, and just having a great time doing her job. On top of the bloopers, there’s also a video of the viewing party of Demon Fighter Kocho, with quick questions asked to the actors & audience members, not to mention the reactions within the audience. Although there’s no other extras, the bloopers & viewing party make up about an hour, and can be viewed on their own without prior knowledge of the OVA.
Demon Fighter Kocho gets a 6.5 out of 10. It’s far too similar to Devil Hunter Yohko, it goes by way to quick & you know next to nothing about the OVA’s world, the DVD cover isn’t necessarily the greatest, and it can be a little hard to find, but the story is easy to get, the cast is fun, the voice acting sounds nice, it has great animation, there’s some fun fanservice, and the extras are a hoot to watch.
See you all next week, when we’ll turn on a machine in the ocean. Until then, stay Otaku!
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If you’re interested in watching the OVA, click on the link below to watch.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xk4p71_demon-fighter-kocho-english-dubbed_shortfilms#.UURz3Fd6_RY
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