Anime of Yesteryear Presents: “That little ol’ OVA: POWER DoLLS”

So, another Friday night, another shot of Jack, and another hit of japanimation to watch. If you know the story by now, in which you should, this is the part where I start to pass out and into a world of what is on my VHS tape. As I awoke, I found myself surrounded by a heated battle taking place, where its covered by missile fire weaving through jungle brush. I look to my right and see a full size transport with something that looks like a military style mech in the bed, with a ear piercing shrieking voice of a woman in red and black spandex yelling at me to keep my head down and hop in. Once in, she floored the gas through enemy fire from bipedal robots as they gave us some hostile bullet debris as a welcome gift, where she began to tell her story of what kinda world I am at currently. Oh boy, I can just tell this is gonna be fun, as we gun it into Power DoLLS.

Power DoLLS is, I’m going to go ahead and say it, not that great. Its not terrible in any means, but it just seems it needs some work to be a bit better to most viewers. So I know in my reviews I give you guys about half of what the OVA is so you can go out and see it for yourself, but I am going to spoil what happens, because its pretty short and just really kinda…bland I guess. If I had to compare it to something, you can look at it as a girls version of Gundam Wing, since there is 2 guys in this entire OVA, and none of them are Zechs. Well, let me start this off.

PowerDoLLS takes us to the future year of 2540 AD, where there is a, I guess, civil war between the Terran Government and the colony world of Omni, which is full of machine gun fire and jungle life as to Vietnam. We get introduced to our two main female protagonist Yao and Fahn, where Yao picks up some war orphans as they hightail it out of there location back to base with one of there mechs in the bed of there transport. After Fahn does some female whining to Yao that the Omni military transport isn’t a short bus to the local grade school, they get attacked by the Terran mechs and gun it to the nearest bridge that Yao states is on there way. When the team is on the bridge, it gets blown up by missile fire which Fahn says “screw it” and gives the gas pedal hell as she jumps the gap to head to base. Once there, Fahn and Yao have it out again regarding regulations and Fahn calling out Yao for being to soft since she didn’t want to leave the kids behind.

We then get introduced to the DoLLS commander Hardy Newland as she and the first guy we see in the show are talking about her specialized team. After some shots of Yao moping because of being hassled by Fahn (and a fan service shower scene…yea its like 2 seconds of boobs, like you guys never seen cartoon boobies before) they have some breakfast only to go straight to another mission. In the briefing room there ordered to take out a city that the Terran forces are pushing to take back, and Fahn has the idea of destroying the dam to the river that the city is bordered too, as the easiest alternative to avoid fighting the Terran forces in the city and getting owned (I’m sorry, pwned). Yao then states she disagrees with this plan due to local villages being affected by the attack on the dam, but Hardy states the villagers have been evacuated so its cool.

While on the transport plan to the dam, we get a flashback of Yao past and how she became an orphan, which is why she sides with kids in the first place. Fahn then gives her some crap, but not after the group reaches there drop zone and into a fire fight with the forces of Terran. We find that Fahn is hung up on the plane, where we also find out that Yao has the best shooting on the team since she can pick off the leaver hatches at some 50 yards WITHOUT SHOOTING DOWN HER OWN PLANE!!! But this becomes the part where the show makes Yao look like Rambo since she can shoot anything and take some missile shrapnel for her team, which she saves Fahn ONCE AGAIN and causes her to crash land in the village. With Yao’s mech screwed up from taking the missile for Fahn, she decides to hold off the Terran forces while the team goes to destroy the bridge all “Force 10 from Navarone” style, and tells her team that the village they are at is her old hometown before coming an orphan.

With some ammo and plot armor in place, Yao is able to hold her own against the Terran forces by going all Rambo 2 on them before she herself is outta bullets, and ejects to cockpit while the mech is being trashed, only for her to come back to the mech to activate the self destruct mode on the outside. This begs the question, why would someone design a self destruct sequence on the outside of a mech that you have to run back too once you eject in order to activate it? Maybe there is an internal self destruct mode and was trashed before she ejected, I really don’t know. But her mech goes boom and takes out the forces. So with Yao running back to meet her rendezvous, Fahn and the gang are setting up the charges on the dam and getting it ready to blow. Yao then goes to her old house and talks to her stuffed bear she had as a kid stating that she feels bad about destroying the dam her dad built. Yea, the same dam that is being blown up is the same one her dad built when she was a kid, but yet shes not the one doing it, but her team is.

So after the team gets done, they don’t see her at the chopper, which we meet the second guy in this show who is saying “screw you girls, your all crazy, I am getting the fudge out.” But before the copter pilot can get ready to go back to base, he gets hijacked at gun point, from the COMMANDER OF THE GROUP, NEWLAND, who I am pretty sure has rank and jurisdiction over the pilot. So I guess the copter pilots on Omni are mercenaries, like in Rambo 2 where Trautman couldn’t order the copter pilot to land to pick up Rambo and the POW. I guess for a resistance group of female mech pilots, you get what you pay for. The group then somehow finds Yao at her house and tells her to “Get To Da Chopper!!” as Yao Jordan jumps to the copter moments before the waters take out her old house. Fahn gets teary eyed and gets poked fun of, and that’s this OVA.

So that is Power DoLLS everyone. Again, the only good parts were the parts that were pretty stupid and crazy, but its so so so little compared to the rest. This OVA is something you can forget most of what happens after a couple of days, or hours depending on your memory. Like I said, its kinda bland and thrown together it seems, but it is short since its only a half an hour long. I found the tape to this over 3 years ago, and seeing it today, I forgot A LOT of what happened, because there is not that much to remember really. This is an OVA that came out in the mid 1990’s, so this is taking me off my track of 80’s OVA I have been touching on for the past couple of reviews. And I found the DVD collection to this sometime after finding the VHS when I worked (the little time there) at Play N Trade when I lived in Raleigh which had… another Power DoLLS OVA to it. Yes, there are two of these that exist, and they are quite different.

Also to point out, this seems like this was an Evangelion VA reunion since about half of the people who worked on this were in Eva. With Fahn being dubbed by Tiffany Grant, Yao being dubbed by Allison Keith, and with Laura Chapman and Sue Ulu in it as well. What I found to be enjoyable in the dub was Grant making Marine Corps jokes by saying “Semper Fi” and giving a funny crapped out version of “Halls of Montezuma” while driving through enemy territory. I am not sure if they dubbed this before Evangelion or after, but its a bit of a treat to listen to if your ADV dub fans or Eva dub fans.

So, I will one day get around to doing a PowerDoLLS 2 review in due time, but now I am going to take a break from the PowerDoLLS universe for now. But hey, If you wanna check this out, be my guest. Its available through BakaBT so you wont have to spend anything for it, and I am sure the VHS copy of this is on the cheap if you do decide to own it. But see you guys next time.

You can also check out my blog over at Anime of Yesteryear.