When hopeful screenwriter Ryou Matsumoto is told that he should write about his own experiences, he believes nobody would want to hear about his uneventful life. However, one evening he witnesses a man get gunned down in an alleyway. After barely escaping from the killer and dealing with unhelpful police, Ryou must channel the hero inside himself if he wants to evade the dangerous group he has accidentally run across.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
Singan
Based on a story by Kazunori Ito (the scriptwriter for Ghost in the Shell & Patlabor movies), Urban Square: Chasing Amber is a very unusual OVA as it can be perceived in two different ways, and the way you choose pretty much determines whether you'll like it or not. STORY Essentially, it's a classic detective story where the main character witnesses a murder and gets into trouble with the mafia; eventually, he ends up an action hero, fighting the criminals and protecting the girl he likes. Not only the plot is rather simple in general, but it also contains quite a lot of cliches typical for thiskind of stories.
However, if you look at the story from a different angle, all those cliches were initially supposed to be there. You see, the main character is a scriptwriter who factually ends up a protagonist of his screenplays, and that makes the OVA a witty parody on/homage to detective stories which may be shortly described as "B-movie coming to real life". Although the show never openly admits its nature it gives some hints during the story: for example, when the protagonist and his future girlfriend meet for the second time, she wonders how two complete strangers have met twice in two consecutive days, and he replies: "That's why fiction can't win against reality. In reality, coincidences are allowed, but in fiction, coincidences are ridiculed". By doing that, the anime elegantly mocks its own narrative and performs the parody in a more subtle & intelligent way than many other shows of this kind.
So, the story is good and well-written for what it is, providing an enjoyable watch if you keep in mind its actual purpose and don't take it too seriously.
ANIMATION
The OVA clearly reveals its age: not only it features classic 80's character designs but also some minor age issues here and there. On the other hand, the animation displays very nice fluency of motion that makes the action quite enjoyable; also, the movie is depicted in eye-appealing dark blue tones that add a subtle noir feeling to the show. So, the OVA looks pretty good despite some age imperfections it has.
SOUNDTRACK
Performed by a band called Chickenshack, the soundtrack is an elegant jazz mix of piano, sax, drums, funky guitar and slap bass. In general, the OST is unmemorable because it doesn't contain any songs or even a main theme; yet it suits the OVA extremely well as background music. The voice-acting & sound effects (gunshots, explosions etc.) are also well-done and fitting.
CHARACTERS
The characters have simple personalities, and some of them are straightforward action/mystery movie stereotypes, so don't expect much depth or development here. However, it doesn't become a serious problem because they were supposed to be like that anyway (it's a parody, remember?), and thus they're still fine for this kind of show. Besides, the protagonist, his girlfriend and the detective who helps them are all quite likeable.
OVERALL
If you want a witty parody on mysteries or just some quick 80's fun with good visuals & soundtrack, this OVA will be a nice choice for you.
However, if you need a clever & intricate detective story, this show is a wrong place to look for it. Perhaps, you should try something like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex or the first Patlabor movie, as those two feature the best detective plots I've seen in any anime.
matthigh
A fair-to-middlin' OVA action/murder/mystery from the eighties. From a time when practically every other anime movie or OVA featured characters with mysterious extra-sensory powers, it's actually refreshing to come across a story that features REAL people behaving in REAL situations, doing REAL things. Well, the story does get a little over the top at times, but what I mean is there's nothing supernatural in this story. A rarity in eighties OVAs! Granted, the plot of the story is a little far-fetched, as a mild-mannered writer gets unwittingly involved in a murder mystery, faces off against a honest-to-godBruce Lee karate guy in his apartment, hard-boiled detectives, hanging from a helicopter by one leg, and, well, you get the picture. No more ridiculous than, say, Die Hard. This short story is definitely not lacking in money-shots.
That being said, there is an actual plot and an actual resolution, regardless of some of the implausible twists and turns along the way. And the artwork is, well, pretty decent. As is the animation. Although it pales in comparison to another similar OVA, Hello Hedgehog -- Urban Square ain't so bad by itself.
SlateDBiggs
The vibes are immaculate. It's really sad to see that the small amount of people who took the time to give this a review haven't seen or don't appreciate older classic anime. They just cry about the main character and how "there's no plot" So I felt compelled to give my quick 2 cents. The art and animation is absolutely gorgeous and high quality, especially for the time that it came out.The dialogue is fantastic. There are some scenes that are laugh out loud. Hilarious. The music is absolutely fantastic everything about this OVA screams hidden gem. Yuki Tamura is so fucking cool that chase scenein the car was insane, she looked damn good doing it too!!!
Ryo matsumoto is a little silly but also very suave. A fun protagonist to follow.
A really fun action flick. For 1986 this ova at the time of me writing this is 39 years old And it holds up extremely well. You are hard-pressed to find better ova that are as well put together as urban square is. I'm a huge fan of '70s/90s ova And found this one to be quite high quality. Only a handful are this fun and engaging. Really impressed and I can't stress enough. The vibes are immaculate.
Another time another place
8/10
AnimeEnjoyer420
A lesser known work from Kazunori Ito, more popularly known for his work on Ghost in the Shell, among many others, this is a straightforward crime thriller about an average Joe getting caught up in a criminal conspiracy. Personally, I love these kinds of movies, so I was already inclined to be generous, but this is just a really nice little movie. It moves along at a brisk pace, the animation is solid, the soundtrack is filled with bitchin' 80s guitar solos, and the action scenes are appropriately ridiculous and fun for the genre. There are certainly some bits and pieces here that you can nitpick.Yuki is kind of superfluous, the plot is pretty conventional, and the length is a bit too short (under an hour even if you include the credits). But this is a very fun and easily watchable movie in spite of all that. One which could have fixed most of its flaws simply by adding on another 30-45 minutes of content and expanding into a feature length film.
KamuiX1999
I love coming across an obscure OVA from anime's golden era that's different from the pack and good to boot, and this certainly fits the bill. Not only is it well done, but it's quite unique in that it's a rather serious crime noir, something you don't often see in the genre. There's not a whole lot of ha-ha or goofiness on display here, which is a hallmark of a lot of crime anime from the period, such as City Hunter or Lupin III. This makes it all the more odd that as far as I can tell, it's never been officially licensed for anEnglish language release, as I feel like this would have stood out as something very different amongst the samey stuff that would get licensed and translated for English speaking audiences. It could have been another Blackjack, an anime about a surgeon that sat side by side on the same video shelves with Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and Akira back in '90s video stores and always intrigued me because of it. Ah well, guess you gotta stick with what you know will sell.
The director uses some cool camera tricks that I've rarely seen in the medium, such as a scene where two guys lock eyes from across a room, and then we get a top-and-bottom split-screen, one guy's eyes in the top screen, the other guy's in the bottom screen as they stare intensely at each other. The main character being a screenwriter and not a cop or some sort of professional felt fresh too. Hell, a couple of things he says throughout about chance and coincidence might make you think we're just watching a script he wrote and inserted himself in as the protagonist, but it's never blatantly put out there, just sort of a nod and a wink to the attentive viewer that catches it.
My only two complaints would be as much as I liked the story, I thought the characters could have been more fleshed out and developed as I never felt connected to any of them nor do any have standout personalities. I know it's an OVA, but it's an hour-long one, and being a single OVA never stopped a bunch of other sub-60 minute releases being able to create compelling characters, such as Riding Bean or Kite. My second complaint is that on more than one occasion I confused one character with another. You see, the main cop and the main bad guy both have the same haircut and the same luscious Tom Selleck moustache, with the only defining difference between the two being the villain is slightly wider and a bit fatter. But with some of the camera angles and long-distance shots, it makes them hard to distinguish from one another, at least for me, and I had to rewind a scene more than once due to a little confusion.
Oh yeah, and does anyone know where I can get that movie they were playing in the theatre? You know, the one with a guy wearing a Jason mask attempting to murder a guy on a boat with Leatherface's chainsaw while fucking JAWS rises up, ready to eat everything? All I know, is these five seconds are hands-down the best cinematic footage ever released of a guy wearing a white hockey mask killing people on a boat.
