3x3 Eyes

Also Known As: Sazan Eyes

Genre: Action/Comedy/Drama/Romance

Format: 4 OVA

Allegiance: Kodansha/Bandai Visual

Director: Nishio Daisuke

Vintage: 1991-1992

Intelligence Agency Report by: Lady Sage

Yakumo has been alone ever since his father ran off to study demons in Tibet four years ago. Then one day on the way to work, he comes across Pai, a mysterious girl who presents Yakumo with his father's skull, along with a note from said father. It explains that Pai is a Sanjiyan, an immortal demon, and the last of her race. He asks that Yakumo aid Pai in her search for the Statue of Humanity, which can turn Pai into a human.

Field Agent Report by: Lady Sage

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

8.00
7.50
6.75
8.50
8.75

Overall

7.25

(not an average)

The original 3x3 Eyes manga was a little bit of everything: action, comedy, drama, horror, and romance. The manga was quite long, and there was time to fully explore and develop all these disparate elements. The anime tries to do the same and unfortunately, because of its brief running time, is nowhere near as successful.

The characters were... okay. Two hours does not allow for really ample character development. Yakumo is easily the most developed character, and the easiest for the audience to sympathize with. His entire life is thrown into turmoil and he has to leave behind everything he ever knew and although he has some trouble dealing with it at first, he manages to go on with a minimum of angst. Secondary characters, on the other hand, suffer. They rarely stick around for any longer than absolutely necessary and are frequently defined by a single character trait.

3x3 Eyes actually functions fairly well as a plot-driven anime. It moves at a brisk pace and doesn't dwell on anything for very long. There are a few interesting twists, but it's a straightforward story. However, many of the more subtle plot points were lost in the translation from the manga. The romance between Pai and Yakumo, for example, is practically nonexistent until the last episode, and then it feels incredibly abrupt.

Technically, 3x3 Eyes has held up well even though it's over a dozen years old. The pudgy-faced character designs are closely imitate Takada Yuzo's original manga designs, and their cuteness belies the show's dark nature. The show's OVA budget serves it beautifully and though it's not quite theatrical-quality, the animation is quite fluid and dark. The music is mostly lovely orchestral pieces, the sort that you never have to worry about becoming dated. The ubiquitous Hayashibara Megumi does double-duty as the dual-faced Pai, and plays both sides with her usual adeptness.

3x3 Eyes is a hard recommendation to make. It definitely has its positive qualities, but those are almost completely overshadowed by its negative qualities. Overall, it's best for fans of action or plot driven anime who think of character development as a nice extra, not an absolute necessity.

Field Agent Report by: Miki

Plot
Characters
Impact
Visual
Audio

7.00
7.50
8.50
8.50
9.50

Overall

7.50

(not an average)

3x3 Eyes is a lengthy manga series by Yuzo Takada, the creator of All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (and its iterations) and Blue Seed, some of the earliest releases by the anime companies now best known to American audiences. The 3x3 Eyes manga ran in Japan from 1987 to 2002, so the release of this short adaptation early in its run indicates that this OVA is going to be open-ended, condensed, and watered down.

This sounds immediately negative, and while it is, the series also has its upside. For one, it's very entertaining. The plot moves briskly and explains just as much as necessary as it goes along. The character premise of someone who can't die as long as his partner is still alive also affords some rather violent and bloody scenes to no ill—and sometimes amusing—effect. Furthermore, there were only a couple of brief fanservice moments, the lack of which was nice to see. The characters do suffer from simplification and a lack of any gradual development, but this does not mean that they aren't fun to watch. There are a couple of scene changes in which a span of weeks or maybe months could have passed, allowing sudden changes in characters to seem less abrupt than they may have seemed otherwise.

As for the technical aspects, the visuals and the audio are very competently done. Even though the OVA is now almost two decades old, it doesn't look nearly as dated as most TV series of the age. The characters are well-drawn and the animation is fluid. The music is pretty good, nothing phenomenal, but up to the task. The acting is very, very well done— Pai is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara (Slayers's Lina Inverse, Evangelion's Rei Ayanami, Cowboy Bebop's Faye Valentine), one of the best in the business. The rest of the cast infuses their performances with a lot of, for lack of a better term, gusto. The only downside is that there are several obvious places in which the animation and the audio don't quite sync up—and this is in Japanese!

Anime is notorious for offering confusing or even nonexistent endings, and 3x3 Eyes falls into the latter category. However, because it is an adaptation of the beginning of a long-running manga series, viewers have the option to pick up the series in print to find out what happens next. There is also a sequel OVA made in 1994 (licensed and released in the United States), offering some hope that the animated version can reach a satisfactory conclusion. Unfortunately for us here in America, only the first nine volumes of the manga were released domestically, so even if you are interested enough to pick up the published version, you'll hit another brick wall.

3x3 Eyes, despite being a truncated adaptation, is still a nice way to spend a couple of hours. It was fun to watch and definitely got me interested in the story—if only the whole story were available.