Top Anime of 1993 · mirumiru

Top Anime of 1993 · mirumiru

Ninja Scroll

Ninja Scroll

獣兵衛忍風帖

In feudal Japan, the wandering mercenary swordsman Jubei Kibagami is blackmailed by the government spy Dakuan into hunting the Eight Devils of Kimon, a band of ninja with supernatural powers plotting against the Tokugawa shogunate. Dakuan poisons Jubei and dangles the antidote to force his cooperation. Alongside Kagero, a kunoichi whose body carries lethal toxins, Jubei sets out against the Devils and their leader Gemma, a swordsman from his own past.

Movie|2|Spring 1993

Legendary Brave Swordsman Yaiba

Legendary Brave Swordsman Yaiba

剣勇伝説YAIBA

Kurogane Yaiba grows up in the forest learning the sword from his father Kenjuurou and reaches Tokyo inside a shipment of pineapples, with no idea how a city works. The Mine family takes him in and Sayaka Mine hauls him off to school, where he picks a fight with kendo prodigy Takeshi Onimaru that ends in a draw. Onimaru finds a cursed katana soon after and turns his ambition on the world, which sends Yaiba after legendary blades of his own.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Overture to a New War

銀河英雄伝説　新たなる戦いの序曲

Newly promoted High Admiral Reinhard von Lohengramm leads twenty thousand Imperial ships against a Free Planets Alliance fleet twice that size at Tiamat, a lopsided fight ordered by a scheming Imperial duke eager to see him fail. Yang Wen-li, called back to the Alliance capital before the battle, watches Reinhard's tactics turn the odds inside out. This film retells the war's opening clash in more depth than the original TV series did.

Ranma ½ OVA

Ranma ½ OVA

らんま½

Ranma Saotome, cursed at the Jusenkyo training grounds to turn into a girl whenever splashed with cold water, works through a string of self-contained escapades while chasing a permanent cure. Fiancée Akane Tendou, rival suitor Ryouga Hibiki, and the ever-scheming Shampoo cycle through the mayhem across these direct-to-video episodes, with the final two installments slowing down to dig into Akane's own feelings. This compilation gathers six original video episodes released between 1993 and 1994.

Dragon Ball Z: Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan

Dragon Ball Z: Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan

ドラゴンボールZ 燃えつきろ!! 熱戦・烈戦・超激戦

Vegeta is summoned to the planet New Vegeta by Paragus, who claims a Legendary Super Saiyan has appeared and offers Vegeta a throne over a new Saiyan kingdom. Goku and the others follow, unaware that Paragus's son Broly is the legendary warrior, raised with a grudge that ties back to Goku's infancy. The eighth Dragon Ball Z feature film, it pits Goku, Vegeta, and their allies against Broly's overwhelming power.

Sailor Moon R

Sailor Moon R

美少女戦士セーラームーンR

With the Dark Kingdom defeated, Usagi Tsukino and the other guardians have settled back into ordinary lives until two aliens, Ail and An, arrive to drain human energy and feed their dying tree, the Makaiju. Their Cardian monsters force Usagi to reclaim her powers as Sailor Moon, now aided by the masked Moonlight Knight. This second season opens with the self-contained Makaiju arc.

Ocean Waves

Ocean Waves

海がきこえる

Looking back on his high-school years in the coastal city of Kochi, Taku Morisaki recalls Rikako Muto, a sharp Tokyo transfer student who unsettled the friendship he shared with class president Yutaka Matsuno. When Rikako talks Taku into helping her travel back to Tokyo to see her father, he gets pulled into her plans and into the quiet rivalry building between the three of them. Studio Ghibli made it as a television film rather than a theatrical release.

Ushio and Tora: Comically Deformed Theater

Ushio and Tora: Comically Deformed Theater

うしおととらコミカル・デフォルメ劇場

Ushio Aotsuki and the tiger yokai Tora turn up in super-deformed miniature for a set of gag shorts. Ushio runs into a purple monster that seems oddly willing to help, Tora gets stuck minding a kitten, and a closing chase pulls in creatures from across the Ushio to Tora OVA line. This bonus OVA is comedy set beside the Beast Spear story rather than a piece of it, released alongside the original video animation series.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

In this 1993 original video animation, high-schooler Jotaro Kujo travels to Egypt with his grandfather Joseph Joestar and their companions Polnareff and Kakyoin, hunting the resurrected vampire Dio. Each of them wields a Stand, a manifested fighting spirit, and Dio sends a string of Stand-using assassins to stop them before they reach him. Adapting the latter half of the Stardust Crusaders arc, these episodes assume familiarity with the earlier story.

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: The Night Before The Carnival

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki: The Night Before The Carnival

天地無用！魎皇鬼 SPECIAL お祭り前日の夜！

Tenchi Masaki has had a few quiet days since the fight that ended Kagato's pursuit, but the Masaki house is anything but calm: Ryoko Hakubi and Ayeka Jurai Masaki are still arguing over which of them he belongs to. Catching Sasami and Mihoshi with a stack of shoujo manga, the two decide those stories are an Earth manual for winning a boy, and they start staging the scenes they read on Tenchi. This bonus OVA episode sits between the first Ryo-Ohki series and the second.

Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks

Dragon Ball Z: The History of Trunks

ドラゴンボールZ 絶望への反抗!! 残された超戦士・悟飯とトランクス

In a ruined future where Goku has died of a heart virus and the rest of Earth's fighters have fallen, the androids 17 and 18 rampage unchecked. The adult Gohan, the last Super Saiyan left, takes the teenage Trunks under his wing and trains him to stand against them. As the two press a losing fight to protect what remains of humanity, Trunks moves toward the breakthrough that will define him. This television special tells the backstory of the future Trunks introduced in the main Dragon Ball Z series.

Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound

Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound

ドラゴンボールZ 銀河ギリギリ!! ぶっちぎりの凄い奴

Months after the Cell Games, a wealthy benefactor hosts an intergalactic martial-arts tournament on Earth, and Gohan, Future Trunks, Piccolo, Krillin, and the other Z Fighters enter to compete. The contest turns deadly when the galactic warlord Bojack, freed from a star that once sealed him away, crashes the tournament with his crew of space pirates. With Goku absent, Gohan is left to stand against Bojack as the strongest fighter on the field. This ninth Dragon Ball Z feature film runs as a standalone story.

Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs. Leotard Devil

Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs. Leotard Devil

クレヨンしんちゃんアクション仮面VSハイグレ魔王

Action Kamen has lost his Action Stone to a villain called Leotard Devil, and to get it back he arranges for Shinnosuke to turn up a rare trading card, then pulls the whole Nohara family into a parallel Japan where half the population has already been turned into the Devil's creatures. Shinnosuke and his parents get swept into the hero's fight, and the missing stone turns out to be closer to hand than anyone realized. Released in 1993, this is the first Crayon Shin-chan feature film.

Battle Angel Alita

Battle Angel Alita

銃夢

Scavenging the scrapyard beneath the floating city of Zalem, cyber-doctor Daisuke Ido finds the discarded head and torso of a female cyborg still clinging to life and rebuilds her with a new body. Naming her Gally, he watches her awaken with no memory but the reflexes of a deadly martial art. As Gally takes up bounty hunting and grows close to a scrapyard boy named Yugo, her buried past begins to surface. This two-part OVA condenses the opening volumes of the manga.

Casshan: Robot Hunter

Casshan: Robot Hunter

ロボット・ハンター・キャシャーン

In a near future where robots have gained self-awareness, the machine army of the Black King, Braiking Boss, has all but wiped out humanity and seized control of the planet. Casshan, a human turned into a nearly indestructible cyborg to fight back, wages a one-man war against the robot forces alongside his transforming robot dog Friender and Luna Kouzuki, one of the last free humans. This OVA is a 1993 reimagining of Tatsunoko's 1973 Casshern, made for the studio's 30th anniversary.

Oh! My Goddess!

Oh! My Goddess!

ああっ女神さまっ

College student Keiichi Morisato dials what he thinks is a campus helpline and instead reaches the Goddess Technical Help Line, summoning the goddess Belldandy through his dorm-room mirror to grant him one wish. He wishes, almost by accident, that she stay by his side forever. Evicted from the dorm for having a woman in his room, he and Belldandy move into an abandoned temple that soon fills up with her sisters Urd and Skuld. This OVA is the franchise's first animated adaptation of the manga.

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

機動戦士Vガンダム

By U.C. 0153 the Zanscare Empire runs Side 2 with the guillotine and is pushing its fleets toward Earth, and the only force resisting is the civilian League Militaire. Uso Ewin is thirteen when fighting reaches his home in Eastern Europe and the militia's Victory Gundam ends up in his hands. He keeps Shakti Kareen out of the line of fire and looks for his parents, who are somewhere inside the Federation's own ranks.

Tetsuwan Atom no Koutsuu Anzen

Tetsuwan Atom no Koutsuu Anzen

鉄腕アトムの交通安全

Atom, the robot boy of Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atom, spends this short teaching elementary school children how not to be hit by a car. The argument is blunt: children die in traffic mostly because they step into the road where they should not, and a child who uses a crossing or stays inside a vehicle is very unlikely to be killed. It was made for classroom screening rather than for broadcast or home video, so it is a teaching aid with Atom in it and not an episode.

New Dominion Tank Police

New Dominion Tank Police

特捜戦車隊ドミニオン

Leona Ozaki is still fighting crime in Newport City with the Tank Police, riding a rebuilt Bonaparte with her partner Al under squad leader Charles Brenten. A string of terrorist attacks carried out with the latest weapons technology leaves the Tank Police outnumbered and outgunned. Leona and Al set out to find who or what is behind them, even though Leona's pursuits tend to wreck more of the city than the criminals do. The Puma Sisters, AnnaPuma and UniPuma, are back as well. This six-episode OVA follows on from Masamune Shirow's Dominion manga rather than the earlier Dominion Tank Police OVA.

Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth

Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth

ドラえもんのび太とブリキの迷宮

Half asleep in front of a late-night TV ad, Nobita Nobi's father books the family into a holiday resort that nobody can find anywhere on Earth the next morning. Then a suitcase turns up in Nobita's room, and opening it reveals a doorway to an island resort built entirely of tin, staffed by robots and completely free. Nobita and Doraemon head through with high hopes, but the invitation hides an agenda: on the island's snowy slopes, unknown aircraft snatch Doraemon away, leaving Nobita without his friend or his gadgets.

Slam Dunk

Slam Dunk

Slam Dunk

Hanamichi Sakuragi, a tall red-haired delinquent with a record of fifty romantic rejections, joins the Shohoku High School basketball team to impress Haruko Akagi, the first girl who isn't afraid of him. Under captain Takenori Akagi, Haruko's older brother, and alongside rival prodigy Kaede Rukawa, Sakuragi discovers genuine talent for the sport and an appetite for competition that soon overtakes his original motive.

Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans

Dragon Ball Z: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans

ドラゴンボールZ外伝サイヤ人絶滅計画

Dr. Raichi, the last known survivor of the Tsufuru race the Saiyans wiped out generations earlier, returns to Earth to finish the job against Son Goku and Vegeta, the planet's remaining Saiyan warriors. He seeds the atmosphere with machines pumping out a deadly gas, and Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, and Future Trunks have 72 hours to track them down before the gas kills every living thing on the planet. This side-story OVA sits outside the main Dragon Ball Z continuity.

Looking Back at It All: The Dragon Ball Z Year-End Show!

Looking Back at It All: The Dragon Ball Z Year-End Show!

全部見せます年忘れドラゴンボールZ!

Aired as a year-end variety special between regular Dragon Ball Z episodes, this one-off has the deceased Goku use Instant Transmission to join his sons Gohan and Goten in an outdoor bath in the dead of winter. The three look back at the Cell Games together before Goku and Pikkon discuss the Other World Tournament indoors. The special wraps with Gohan announcing the coming year's adult martial arts division.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Nightmare Hakusho

Yu Yu Hakusho: Nightmare Hakusho

幽☆遊☆白書夢夢白書

In this four-part comedy OVA, Yusuke Urameshi's dreams throw the whole Yu Yu Hakusho cast wildly out of character: Genkai turns up as a timid elevator operator, and even Hiei acts uncharacteristically friendly. Kazuma Kuwabara, Kurama, Botan, and Keiko Yukimura all get pulled into the same surreal dream logic across the four episodes. Played purely for laughs, it's a side-story detour rather than a continuation of the main plot.

Yu Yu Hakusho: The Movie

Yu Yu Hakusho: The Movie

幽☆遊☆白書

Koenma, son of the Spirit World's ruler, is on vacation when the demons Koashura and Garuga kidnap him and demand Lord Enma's prized Golden Seal in exchange for his release. Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara, interrupted mid-vacation themselves, set off through Magma Valley to retrieve the seal and free him, uncovering a conspiracy along the way. This feature-length film sends the core cast on a self-contained rescue mission outside the TV series' main arcs.

Black Jack

Black Jack

ブラック・ジャック

Kuroo Hazama, better known as Black Jack, is an unlicensed surgeon whose skill matches or outstrips anything the hospitals of Japan can offer, and he is called in for cases everyone else has given up on. He charges outrageous fees and never bothers to correct his reputation for greed, working alongside his young assistant Pinoko on medical crises other doctors will not touch. This OVA takes the character into darker, more adult territory than earlier adaptations, following him through cases shaped by disease, war, and the kind of moral compromise conventional medicine avoids.

Sailor Moon R: Make Up! Sailor Guardians

Sailor Moon R: Make Up! Sailor Guardians

美少女戦士セーラームーンＲメイクアップ！セーラー戦士

Usagi Tsukino and Chibiusa overhear two girls debating who among the Sailor Senshi is the smartest, most elegant, or strongest, and Usagi can't resist claiming each title for herself before anyone mentions Sailor Moon at all. When the girls finally do bring her up, their backhanded compliments send Usagi into a dramatic, tearful meltdown. This theatrical short played before Sailor Moon R: The Movie, using clips of each Senshi's debut to introduce the cast.

Sailor Moon R: The Movie - The Promise of the Rose

Sailor Moon R: The Movie - The Promise of the Rose

劇場版美少女戦士セーラームーンR

A day out among the flowers with the Sailor Guardians and Chibiusa turns strange when Fiore, an alien Mamoru befriended as a lonely orphaned child, returns to Earth bearing the flowers he once promised. But Fiore is being controlled by Kisenian, a parasitic flower that drives him to drain humanity's life energy. As Fiore fixates on Mamoru and resents Usagi for the bond they share, Usagi and the Guardians must reach the friend buried beneath the flower's influence. This feature film accompanies the Sailor Moon R series.

From Today, It's My Turn!!

From Today, It's My Turn!!

今日から俺は！！

Takashi Mitsuhashi and Shinji Itou meet as transfer students determined to reinvent themselves as the toughest delinquents their new school has ever seen. Their over-the-top attempts to build fearsome reputations keep colliding with rival gangs, teachers, and each other, turning every scheme into a fresh disaster. This OVA adapts the manga across ten episodes, each a short self-contained run of gags.