Legend of Lemnear Review

Hi everybody!

Well, the marathon of reviews is winding down. As I’m posting this up, there are 14 anime OVA I’ve got left to watch & post up. Since I’ve got some things planned in the coming months, I’ll be stepping up with the remaining reviews, and I’ll be putting up 3 a week. Before I do that, let’s take a look at a scandalous action-packed fantasy title, known simply as Legend of Lemnear.

Story/Setup
Taken from the anidb page:

“In this animated fantasy packed with adventure, Lemnear, the lone surviving warrior of a village destroyed by the evil Dark Lord, is out to avenge the deaths of her people. But while tracking down the ruler and his wizard Gardein, she discovers that there is more important business to attend to than vengeance. It is revealed that inside of her rests an indestructible power that can save this ancient world from the evil that has come to control it. Her job isn't going to be an easy one, however, because the Dark Lord finds out about the power and wants it for himself.”

I should say for those who don’t know, this was based off of the manga with the same name. I’ve never read it, but from what I heard, it seemed to be good. So a story like the one in the Manga would make for a great series.......not so much for a single OVA. It feels like a bunch of the original story was cut out, or at the very least was condensed to such a simplistic state that it’s somehow confusing. This also applies to the characters, but we’ll get to that when the time comes.

Setting
The fantasy world of Legend of Lemnear has seen better days. It’s dark, dreary, and very oppressive. The sky is as bleak as a starless sky, and the land is as drained as an ancient mummy. Yet, there’s glimmers of hope from time to time. There are certain individuals throughout the land that seem to carry a light within them, almost like there’s a piece of a hero within them. It’s an interesting concept, but it ultimately fails as we’ll soon see.

Characters
This is the biggest weakness of Legend of Lemnear. The characters are just straight up boring & weak. They can be compared to cardboard or paint drying on a wall with how thin they are. There’s no real strength to them, despite what I said in the section above. The only character that has any substance is Lemnear. She seems to be the only one that moves the story along, and also seems to be the only character that has something to her. If they put in at least a sliver of oomph to the characters, then I wouldn’t quite pitch as much of a fit as I’m doing right now (Despite a lack of exclamation points).

Animation
Legend of Lemnear was drawn & animated by the legendary Satoshi Urushihara, whom you might remember from my Plastic Little review (Click “***” to look at) and from my number 7 & 6 spots in my Top 10 Books list (Click “***” to look at). This movie looks just as good as Plastic Little: the visuals look great, the girls look mature & sexy, and the men are rugged, handsome, or hideous/ugly. When there’s a battle, things move fluidly & look great, and the special effects put in match the fantasy aesthetics of the movie.

Voice Acting
The voice acting in this is a relatively solid “Meh”, with occasional dips into the horrid side of things. For the most part, a majority of the characters just seem to sound like the minimum of effort was put into their voices. There’s a couple characters where they sound like the voice actors put in less than the minimum effort, but this mostly applies to side characters, and a minor bad guy or two. Tragically, the lead female Lemnear sounds like there was effort put into her voice, but there wasn’t enough effort used.

Episodes & Episode Length
Coming in at 42 minutes, Legend of Lemnear is a one-shot OVA, perfectly suited for watching late at night!

Availability & Pricing
Legend of Lemnear is another one of those “Difficult but not impossible” titles I’ve come across. Again, I was able to find the VHS & DVD releases over on Amazon. With the VHS copies, there isn’t that many, but the pricing across the new/used spectrum is relatively reasonable. New copies start at 2 dollars, while the used copies start at 55 cents. With the DVD releases, prices are higher, but still relatively affordable. New copies begin at 14 dollars, and used copies start at 73 cents. Considering how many copies are among both editions (Somewhat regardless of new or used), figuring out which one to buy is going to be a close call. In the end, it’ll really be up to you.

Extras/Other
Since I downloaded this, I don’t know what the extras are.

General Impression & Rating
I wanted Legend of Lemnear to be good. I really did! From the moment you watch the beginning scenes, you can tell that there’s a good movie somewhere. Instead, I was given an average/above-average OVA, with the only good points being some great animation, and a relatively strong lead. So disappointing!

Legend of Lemnear gets a 5 to 6.5 out of 10.

See you all next week, when we’ll look at something even more dirty than this! Until then, stay Otaku!