If there’s one thing you’ll constantly see Kamen Rider fans question it’s why the franchise has never received some sort of anime adaptation. Whether it be an adaptation of the popular Kamen Rider Spirits manga or something wholly new, there is definitely an eagerness to see what Kamen Rider could do without the limitations that come with a tokusatsu series. After all – if it worked for Kikaider it can certainly work for Kamen Rider too. What many people don’t mention however is that Kamen Rider HAS in fact received an anime version in the past – albeit not in the way many people would have hoped. Kamen Rider SD is a one-shot OVA from 1993, based on the manga series of the same name. As the name suggests, it stars comical super-deformed versions of the various Kamen Riders battling against a unification of their enemies working under the name ‘GranShocker’.

In terms of iconic anime franchises, it’s hard to get much bigger than Ghost in the Shell . Though originally a manga series by Masamune Shirow , the perhaps better-known 1995 anime film adaptation directed by Mamoru Oshii proved heavily influential and is widely recognised as one of animation’s greatest offerings. The film also spawned a sequel, as well as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – a separate continuity television series that ran for seasons and had a few movies of its own. Partly in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the franchise, Production I.G. produced Ghost in the Shell: Arise , a brand new retelling by Tow Ubukata (who created the similarly cyberpunk Mardock Scramble ) spanning four OVA films. These films were also re-released as a 12-episode series bearing the name Ghost in the Shell: Arise – Alternative Architecture , featuring two brand new episodes to lead into yet another movie – this time simply bearing the name Ghost in the Shell: The New Movi...

Following his time on the Android Kikaider  live-action series, lead actor Daisuke Ban  immediately went on to star in another superhero creation of Shotaro Ishinomori - the moth-like energy mutant Inazuman . Like Kikaider, Inazuman also had its own accompanying manga series with notably differed from the its live-action counterpart - in this case even featuring a different protagonist and design for the hero. While the two never properly crossed over in live-action, an issue of the Inazuman manga saw the heroes cross paths. This issue was then adapted as part of the Kikaider anime series in 2003, becoming the one-off special The Boy with the Guitar: Kikaider vs. Inazuman .

At an anime convention I attended over the summer, Alien Defender Geo-Armor: Kishin Corps (or Kishin Corps for short) was summarised to me as "people fighting aliens and Nazi robots that shoot swastika lasers". With a description like that, obviously my interest was piqued and I immediately went home to download the 7 episode OVA series. Based on a series of light novels by Masaki Yamada, Kishin Corps is set in an alternate history, specifically during World War II. Amidst the war and destruction, the planet is also hit by an alien invasion, but the two sides seem content on continuing their war despite this aggressive new threat. An orphaned teenager named Taishi suddenly finds himself at the center of a struggle over a mysterious black case entrusted to him by his father, Professor Tokamura. The case contains the controlling mechanism for one of the giant Geo-Armor Robots, and the Japanese Kanto Army, the alien invaders, and the Kishin Corps all want to recover the d...

Bubblegum Crisis is possibly the first anime I ever heard about. When I was younger, any VHS I bought released by ADV (so the Sonic the Hedgehog and Tekken movies) always had an advert for it, and even then it always looked like something I'd enjoy. So here I am, years later, watching the original Bubblegum Crisis OVAs for the very first time. These eight episodes were released between 1989 and 1991. The series takes place in the year 2032 in the city of MegaTokyo. Japan is still slowly piecing itself back together after the destruction of the Second Great Kanto Earthquake. The Genom Corporation, known for their intelligent labour robots (called Boomers), took a major role in the rebuilding of Tokyo, and as a result has become one of the largest corporations in the world. While the Boomers are supposed to serve humanity, in the wrong hands they are a deadly threat. Enter the AD Police force, who are tasked with dealing with any Boomer-related crime in the city. The only proble...

A relatively short OVA series comprising of 12 15-minute episodes, Detroit Metal City tells the story of Soichi Negishi, a shy and gentle young man who dreams of a career as a pop musician. Dreams don't pay the bills, so he ends up as the lead singer and lead guitarist of a death metal band called “Detroit Metal City.” In stage costume he is Johannes Krauser II, rumored to be a terrorist demon from hell, to have killed and raped his parents, to wield his giant death penis with abandon, etc. etc. Negishi despises DMC and all that it stands for, but so help him, he's a terrific performer and can't walk away from that. As DMC's star rises Negishi tries to satisfy both worlds, but can't. On top of this he has to deal with a love interest who loves Negishi's (failing) solo work, and dislikes DMC and his alter ego Krauser, and a foul mouthed record company president who constantly keeps him in his place. It's extremely foul mouthed, some of its implied content i...

Macross Zero is  five episode OVA series released in 2002 to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the franchise in Japan. This mini series is instantly set apart from its predecessors as it is in fact a prequel to The Super Dimension Fortress Macross , giving some insight into happened before the war between humanity and the Zentradi began. Set in the year 2008, one year before the events of the original series, Zero depicts the final battles of the U.N. Wars between the U.N. Spacy and the Anti-UN forces, and is also set in the South Pacific, where the titular alien spaceship crash landed 9 years earlier. Amidst the violence, a U.N. Spacy pilot named Shin Kudo is attacked by a strange enemy aircraft that can transform itself into a robot. Crash landing on Mayan Island he learns that this remote island and its peaceful native inhabitants hold a great secret linking them to the alien space ship and would become the focus of the war, whether they like it or not. Shin even...