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- Feb 23, 2023
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Watched all of the OVAs (Iczer One, Iczer Three, and Iczelion) the other day. I enjoyed them to an extent. After having been disappointed by Shadow Skill, I was pleasantly surprised to find an action series with a protagonist (the girl with the spiky yellow/orange hair you see here) that resembles Elle Ragu and doesn't get upstaged by any male characters. The female characters get pretty much all the spotlight in the Iczer series (although the main villainess is voiced by a man in both the Japanese and English versions) and there's very little male presence, not that I would've minded there being a few relevant male characters.
The Iczer One and Iczer Three OVAs came out in a period from 1985 to 1991, so they feel ahead of their time in having such heavy female focus in an action series. If you like the action in DBZ, you might like the action in Iczer, which is interesting as the first Iczer One OVA came out in 1985, before the original Dragon Ball anime started in 1986; the manga was still in the Jackie Chun arc when the first Iczer One OVA came out in October 1985. When the last Iczer Three OVA came out in February 1991, Gokuu hadn't yet turned into a Super Saiyan. I'm impressed that such an action-heavy female-driven anime came out so long before DBZ.
Iczer One was the first OVA series and it's the most well-known; it came out from 1985 to 1987. Iczer Three was the sequel that came out from 1990 to 1991. Iczelion is a reboot that came out in 1995. I enjoyed Iczer One the most and I also liked Iczer Three, but I found the reboot Iczelion to be boring mainly because it was set in a different universe and didn't feature any of the previously established characters. Overall, I feel like Iczer had the potential to become a lot bigger than it really was; it even precedes Sailor Moon.
But the number one thing holding back is that it was originally based on a hentai series. That's the main issue I have with it. The sexual content was toned down dramatically for the OVAs, but you can still see traces of it that make the OVAs hard to take seriously. Even though the OVAs aren't really more sexually explicit than most mainstream Shounen, I can't say it actually has good female representation when it still sexualizes high schoolers. For the record, I have no issue with Yuri or Shoujo-ai (girl-to-girl love or lesbianism); I very much prefer female characters to be lesbians than boy-crazy. The problem with the lesbianism is that you can tell it was made by a horny male incel.
It would be nice to find an action anime/manga with a similar aesthetic to like this (female characters with spiky hair) that doesn't have any hentai influence. Essentially, DBZ, but starring women and having no hentai influence.
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