The seventeen year old Tita, captain of the ship Cha Cha Maru, is one of the colonists of the planet Yietta that benefits from the unique oceans of liquid gas. She and her crew specialize in harvesting the exotic life forms that live in these oceans and selling them to intergalactic pet stores. One day, on his way to work, she witnesses a young girl being chased by the military. She decides to help her, not knowing yet what the consequences will be.After a successful escape, it turns out that Tita has put herself and her crew into a serious conflict, but the girl does not give up and decides to help her new friend Elysse to deal with people who want to obtain confidential data from her, which if revealed can threaten the safety of the entire planet.

Plastic Little – Audiovisual design

If someone wants to show what beautiful cel animation and Urushihara Satoshi’s style (since he is responsible for character design, direction, and animation direction) in its full glory, this short, forty-minute OVA will undoubtedly be the best choice (there is also Front Innocent: Mou Hitotsu no Lady Innocent, but it’s already a bit too much of a title for cultured people ? ). Personally, I love this artist’s character design and I haven’t seen any illustration of his that was even mediocre. As is the case with many short OVAs from those years, the animation and attention to detail are still impressive today, even though the resolution of the material is simply low and often comes from VHS tapes. After watching it, without hesitation I ordered Urushihara’s artbook from the same year – it also contains illustrations from Plastic Little. As soon as the package arrives, I will surely review it too.

The soundtrack is not particularly memorable. Fans of orchestral dramatic soundtracks will surely be delighted, but I don’t belong to this group and for me the soundtrack simply did what it was supposed to do in this title. The voice actors, as usual, did their job very well.

Plastic Little – Plot and Characters

The storyline is difficult to write about, as it moves forward at a merciless pace. I don’t know if the manga shows more events or gives more details – I rather doubt it, because the anime is an adaptation of a one-volume manga (Urushihara Satoshi is also its co-author), so watching an OVA lasting a little over forty minutes probably takes even longer than reading the source material. At times it was difficult to understand what it was all about, but eventually everything became clear. The plot tells the story of the captain of the ship Cha Cha Maru named Tita. She is a young girl who lost her father and took over his business. She is supported by a crew of four men and a doctor. When Tita gets into trouble and decides to help Elysse, who has been pursued by the military, they all step up to the plate almost without a second thought and do some hard work, because fighting the Galactic Federation is not something they do every day. The action scenes involving submarines were executed with aplomb, and the guns of the enemy ships looked like those from Uchuu Senkan Yamato.

We get a lot of beautiful, typical Urushihara Satoshi’s fanservice along the way, with attention to the smallest details. They really add color to the entire short story and don’t seem forced or crammed in by force. This is undoubtedly one of the biggest advantages of this title, especially for fans of Urushihara’s work.

It’s a bit of a shame that the whole thing only lasts as long as two regular anime episodes. This world had the potential to be developed into at least twelve episodes, of which the story presented in this OVA could have been one of the chapters. But in the old days, the OVA market was ruled by completely different laws, and forty-minute works of this type were the norm.

Evaluation and Summary

I have a feeling that Plastic Little’s OVA was created as a showcase for Urushihara Satoshi. There is no denying that this title is beautiful in every possible way. When you start watching, it’s best to simply set your mind to the fact that this title is primarily meant to provide a feast for the eyes, and everything else is just an extra.

Which translation do I recommend to watch Plastic Little?

• Tsundere – the only fairly reasonable (though not ideal) option I’ve found.

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