Game OVA Season 3: Episode 3 — Ushio to Tora

I've been looking for something to help me through the hot 'n' humid summer months and what better way to beat the heat than to stay indoors watching questionable anime and playing questionable games based on said anime? For a rundown of this little project, check out the first episode.

The Property

Ushio to Tora, or Ushio and Tora, is a supernatural youkai (spirit creature) battle manga with a familiar premise of a powerful monster helping the human descendant of the one who once sealed him away to defend the local town against other lesser but still dangerous creatures despite their animosity towards each other. It's a similar supernatural mismatched buddy dynamic to something like Inuyasha or 3x3 Eyes (though, it should be said, with far more initial antagonism between the leads). The overarching story explores their burgeoning partnership, such as it is, with the menacing Tora displaying a more benevolent soul than he perhaps lets Ushio believe (or believes himself).

Ushio to Tora was created by Kazuhiro Fujita (also the mangaka for Karakuri Circus) and was originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday before being published in its own set of tankoubons (TPBs) from 1990 to 1996. In the midst of that, it saw a ten-episode OVA run released between 1992 and 1993 that was capped with a one-off parody OVA. That was followed more than two decades later by a two-part TV series that ran from 2015 to 2016 for 39 episodes. Finally, there were a couple of video game adaptations that appeared towards the end of the OVA run, one for Super Famicom (SNES) and another for regular Famicom (NES). We'll explore almost all of the above in more detail below.

Cast

• Ushio Aotsuki: Designated protagonist. Human descendent of a bunch of powerful shaman and secret anti-youkai warriors, fated to wield the Beast Spear to protect mankind from youkai. Like the Belmonts, but with pointy sticks instead of whips. Typical shounen protagonist personality: dumb, yet earnest to a fault and willing to see the good in others, even an ornery old bastard like Tora.
• Tora: A fierce tiger-like youkai that had been pinned in place by the Beast Spear for half a millennium. While eager to get back to his old habits of murder and destruction, he's also fascinated by modern Japan since he went to sleep around the Sengoku era. The type of ancient being easily placated by hamburgers and pop music, in other words, though his combat potential hasn't dulled in his many years of captivity. Still plans to eat Ushio someday. Nice to have dreams, I guess.
• Asako Nakamura: An assertive tomboy whose family runs a local ramen joint and the main love interest of Ushio. Classic tsundere type. Tends to be the target of youkai looking to draw out the protags.
• Mayuko Inoue: A second girl to make things complicated. The demure and polite class rep who is pals with both Ushio and Asako and has put her own romantic feelings aside to play matchmaker with her two besties. Eventually becomes interested in the maneating Tora instead, which... might be a tough nut to crack.
• Shigure Aotsuki: Ushio's dad. An ornery and stern guy who is kind of a badass. Meanwhile, Ushio's mom Sumako is a no-show that's presumed deceased but we all know how that sort of thing goes.

The Anime

We'll be covering the 1992-93 OVA series, or at least the first three episodes, which was created by Pastel Studio, directed by Kunihiko Yuyama, and written by Kenji Terada. Pastel's a relatively obscure anime studio compared to the usual customers we bump into like Madhouse or Sunrise and of their few other projects what probably stands out the most are the Eurobeat-infused touge drama Initial D, fish-out-of-water samurai comedy (and potential Game OVA candidate) Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba, and an adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's tragic horror manga Ningyo no Mori. Kunihiko Yuyama should be a familiar name to anime fans of a certain age as he's behind a huge amount of the animated Pokémon franchise, including most of the movies. Prior to that, he got his start directing episodes of Galaxy Express 999 and later worked with Pastel to direct the aforementioned Yaiba as well as the studio's love triangle sports romantic drama Slow Step. As for Kenji Terada, well, this would be his second appearance on Game OVA: he was also the main writer for the Magical Hat anime that we covered in season 2. As I mentioned back then, he's someone who has close links to video games having written the scenarios for the first three Final Fantasy RPGs as well as old Blight Club favorite Batman: Dark Tomorrow. His career has definitely taken quite the odd path.

OVA 1: The Fateful Meeting of Ushio and Tora

The OVAs open on a monochrome retelling of Tora's historical defeat at the hands of Ushio's ancestor, who after four straight days of battling the fierce monster managed to impale it on a rock with his enchanted spear and built a temple around it to ensure the beast would always stay safely imprisoned. Ushio, back in the modern day (of 1992 anyway), has fallen asleep; this is far from the first time he's heard this story and no longer has any interest in hearing the ramblings of his father Shigure as he drones on about spooks and phantoms that aren't even real. This gets him a beating in what is meant to be a comedic father-son moment as the two brawl it out to vent their respective frustrations. One harrowing scene of domestic abuse (and a killer '90s shounen anime opening song, "Yuuki no Fighter" (Brave Fighter)) later, the story begins in earnest with Ushio taking on his punishment of cleaning up an old storage shed, underneath which sits our entrapped tiger monster.

After Ushio falls down there by accidentally ripping the basement trapdoor off its hinges (yo, cut down this dude's protein intake) we have one of those pivotal "matching wits" scenes between monster and man as the former attempts to convince the latter to pull out the spear that keeps him trapped. His opening gambit? Telling Ushio that as soon as the spear is out he'll eat him and then start killing all the humans up top. Half a millennium hasn't sharpened his intellect or diplomatic prowess much (though I'm impressed he still remembers how to speak Japanese after all that time). To his credit, Ushio decides to kick the spear deeper in while insulting the creature's negotiation chops before boarding up the missing basement trapdoor as best he can all the while ignoring Tora's cries that he promises to kill all the humans besides him. This character dynamic is already starting to feel similar to Fry and Bender in Futurama.

Alas, powerful youkai like Tora tend to give off a strong spiritual miasma and now that the trapdoor seal has been replaced by the somewhat less effective "improvised blockage of crates and planks" approach Ushio threw together it's not long before other monsters start sniffing around like they're wolves circling a wounded stag in the forest. Seeking guidance from his father, Ushio instead finds a note that says that Shigure will be "fooling around" in the Sea of Japan for a week; I hope he just means fishing and this isn't some Troy McClure debauchery. Well, maybe it's not that depraved: could be that the dude with a long history of fighting supernatural creatures has some sort of in with the local mermaids. Either way, he's bailed on Ushio when he was needed most and now, to complicate matters further, an earlier scene established that Ushio's friends Asako and Mayuko are on their way over to recover Asako's lent-out science homework before a big upcoming exam.

The duo in question are currently outside of the Aotsuki family temple failing the Bechdel quest as Ayaka demurs on Mayuko's insistence that there's something going on between her and Ushio, all the while the storm clouds gather overhead. These look more like "imminent monster attack" storm clouds than the metaphorical "awkward love triangle" kind though, and sure enough some weird fish-like youkai begin floating through the air as portents to something far less benign on the horizon. Of course, Ushio is the only one who can see them, as his friends lack his ancestry and spiritual training, so we've got a fun little scene where he starts freaking out at what appears to be nothing to get out of his obligation to the girls to hand back the chemistry notes he owes them. After all, what importance does science hold in a world where ghosts and phantasmal beings are evidently real? Right now, Ushio's more concerned about the amassing specters than he is mass spectrometry.

Doing the reliable thing by bailing on the girls while they're surrounded by fish monsters they can't see, Ushio consults with the monster under his bed for answers: these low-level spirits were drawn here by malevolent energy spawned from Tora's frustrations and malice, fostered after centuries like a room full of trapped farts, and now Ushio has aired that business for the whole world to take in. A scream punctuates the increasing peril, as the creatures have now manifested enough to be visible to the girls too. (Thinking about this, it kinda makes sense that most of the ghosts wandering around would be fish given the planet's diluvial past—there were no continents at all for a while there—so it's a reassuring thought that we're all surrounded by the hungry wraiths of megalodons and prehistoric tentacled horrors.)

With no other options to save his friends, Ushio pulls out the spear and Tora immediately tries to claw his face off; however, all this aggression does is trigger Ushio's spear-wielder transformation (in which his hair gets super long and he has a crazed look in his eyes) and Tora immediately recalls the visage of the one who defeated and trapped him long ago. Changing his tune real quick, Tora instead capitulates and fulfils his promise to destroy the gathering fish demons with a combination of claws and lightning magic. The pair subsequently work together to destroy a colossal creature formed from the many ghosts merging and, while attempting to slink off afterwards, Ushio tells Tora to stick around where he can keep an eye on him. The girls wake up no worse for the wear witnessing Ushio loudly arguing with himself, which Ushio laughs off in his embarrassment. Cue the end of the episode and the schmaltzy three-minute ED ballad "Dear My Best Friend", so I'm thinking that relationship might improve over the OVAs' length.

This was about as straightforward an introduction as I was anticipating, setting up all the major characters and the central hooks of a legendary tiger monster adjusting to modern human society, the warrior boy keeping him in check with a fearsome weapon, and an excuse for why a bunch of ghosts and demons are going to keep showing up one episode after the next. The animation's kind of so-so and Ushio is not someone with a particularly handsome design but it all gets the job done for now. I think the show could shape up to be pretty funny too: Ushio kicking the spear deeper in out of annoyance or the way he finds solace from his chaotic life in his "talent for painting" (very much not the case) hints at some solid character work to come. I just hope the same is true for the ancillary characters also, since the heroines are looking sorta archetypal at the moment and they could certainly go further with the Genma-esque antics of his jerkass dad. Let's see how all that pans out with Episode 2.

OVA 2: Ishikui: The Stone Eater

OVA #2 starts with Tora demolishing a TV because he thought the people inside it were real. I was wondering earlier if, for the sake of comedy, they'd just make this dude a giant cat by the second episode and it looks like I was on the mark. Just as long as he doesn't start asking Ushio for a pan of lasagna or makes trouble for Officer Dibble I think we'll be on the safe side. Tora then follows Ushio to school, but adopts his thermal camouflage (or spirit equivalent) to stay hidden while continuing to needle Ushio about that tiny TV person he wasn't able to eat. Ushio's interrupted from all his jabbing at mid-air with a suspicious pole-shaped implement in a crowd of worried onlookers by Asako and Mayuko, who calls him an idiot and greets him politely, respectively. The story then kicks into gear as we see removal people shift some antiques into the old school building, complete with a very ominous set of stone samurai armor.

Ah, the old school building. A mainstay of any HS horror manga, these run-down places full of warped floorboards and broken windows have "haunted by ghosts" written all over them. Ghosts and tetanus. Asako, Mayuko, and a few other girls in their class are assigned to clean the place up a little to make it more presentable for its additions but are stopped in their tracks by the spooky armor. "Ghosts aren't real," exclaims Asako, somehow forgetting that she was attacked by like a thousand of them just yesterday, and walks purposefully up to the suit only to be spooked by a sudden orange light appearing in one of its sockets. Guys, I think the armor might be evil. Ushio feels it too, roused from a boring history lesson on the Battle of Sekigahara (though Tora's fascinated, since it's all current affairs as far as he's concerned) by the spear psychically informing him he's got ghoulies to go poke in the old school building. Must be one of those magic spears with GPS installed. (GPS stands for "Ghoulies? Poke Severely!" in this case.)

Ushio arrives to see one of the no-namers become slowly petrified into a stone statue in what's actually kind of disturbing to watch, crying out as she solidifies completely. Tora recognizes this guy's work: it's the Stone Eater, but when pressed for further clarification Tora gets belligerent and tells Ushio that he doesn't give a hoot about what happens between humans and other monsters and that he's got to get home quick so he can eat the cast of Gilligan's Island. Ushio, deciding he's not going to take guff from a giant talking cat when lives are at stake, switches to his spear psycho mode and bashes Tora around until the latter's feeling more cooperative. They ain't exactly Calvin and Hobbes quite yet but at least it seems they're able to communicate through violence, which is a start.

Asako and Mayuko are trapped in a pocket dimension that the Stone Eater, Ishikui, drags its victims to in order to slowly stone them and feast on their fear (and, later, the statues they turn into). Tora eventually reluctantly tells Ushio this but not how he can get access this pocket dimension, until he gets beaten around and again and admits that the spear could probably cut right through. That thing's powerful enough to Gordian Knot any trap a spirit might create because these episodes are only 22 minutes long and we need to keep things moving. Ushio's too late to save the girls though, even if Asako tried to hold her fear at bay with a memory of Ushio cheering her on during a volleyball game, and Ishikui quickly disarms and pierces Ushio too. Ushio asks Tora to at least save the statues of his friends, presumably because the local park had to tear down all the ones for old Civil War generals and needs replacements, and Tora's mystified by why Ushio is prioritizing them over himself given that's how most creatures are supposed to act. Ushio admits that his self-sacrificing generosity would be his feet of clay, if his feet hadn't already turned into rocks, and Tora decides that if he's going to jump in and save a stupid human who keeps whacking him on the head he's going to justify it by saying that he's not going to let any other monster eat him before he can.

Ishikui uses his gross tentacle mouth things to hold Tora in place too, however, and with only moments before he fully completes his transformation into a garden ornament Ushio calls upon the heretofore unseen ability of psychically calling his spear to his side. Jabbing himself in the thigh with it has the miraculous effect of eliminating the petrification curse without nicking a femoral artery, which was fortunate, and then he sends it flying to force open the gateway to the pocket dimension to stop it sealing everyone inside. Tora then nukes the old school to prevent the Ishikui from escaping, and Tora and Ushio are then free to tear its now exposed centipede form to pieces with the usual mix of magic and stabbing. In order to finish it off for good, Tora instructs Ushio to spit on the tip of his spear (I heard something very similar in the last anime I watched too) as human saliva will cause irreversible damage to the otherwise invincible protean spirit. He gets both heads in the eyes with his spear and, for good measure, hits the statues of all five of his schoolmates to free them from the curse (and their clothes too, in what feels like a completely gratuitous touch given Ushio got unpetrified too and yet he's not brandishing his spear for all to see).

Before blacking out, Asako catches a glimpse of her long-haired rescuer as he flies away with Tora in tow, not quite putting it together that it's just Ushio without his boring-ass crew cut. Maybe it's like a Clark Kent thing. Or maybe it's because she was a piece of basalt only five seconds ago and I should just give her acute powers of observation a break. We end the episode with Ushio and Tora resting back home; sadly, someone managed to tape the fight with Ishikui (Japanese schoolkids had video-recording cellphones in 1992, that's how far ahead of the curve they are over there) and they play it on the nightly news, leading to the second TV death of the episode when Tora attempts to kill the tiny centipede demons, again. It turns out Ishikui's pocket dimension isn't the only place full of rocks: there's also Tora's head.

Second episode down and we're settling into a rhythm now, I suspect. The big developments this time were ghost attacks becoming serious enough to make it onto the mainstream media (typical liberal bias on covering scary centipede monsters rather than the real problem of kids bringing spears to school), Asako getting a hint as to who her savior (twice now) might be, Tora deciding to be more helpful in the fight against monsters for reasons even he might not understand yet, Ushio suddenly becoming a telekinesis user, and the emergence of a very Aqua Teen Hunger Force running gag of destroying an endless procession of cheap-looking CRTs. Let's check out one more OVA episode just to be sure of what we're looking at here.

OVA 3: Exorcist Hyou

Slightly different vibe for this opening, as a sharply-dressed guy with prominent claw-shaped facial scars (hmm) takes down a few disguised monsters who have been eating people in the slums of some undisclosed part of China (but probably Kowloon, guessing from how narrow this place is). He considers letting the last one go with a sizable enough bribe, but retracts the offer when he notices a child's shoe in the pile of bones left behind by the monsters: dude might be an avaricious bounty hunter but he has his limits. He then happens to catch the local news from Ushio's part of the woods from a nearby television and a ominous grin sprouts on his face when he sees a brief glimpse of Tora fighting the Ishikui. One quick flight to Japan later and it looks like Ushio's going to have to explain to this gent why he's working with a notorious maneating demon (though Ushio could probably counter by asking how this guy even has a history with Tora, given he's been stuck in a hole for 500 years).

Speaking of whom, Ushio and Tora have become closer after his unexpected assistance, which is why when the episode switches back to them it's just before Tora tries to murder Ushio in his sleep. Ushio's woken by the spear though, which has become something akin to a Spidey Sense, and the two duke it out for a bit before Tora gets the upper hand and knocks him out. Even so, the spear has a mind of its own at this point and floats up to protect him: it doesn't seem like Tora's going to be able to get the drop on this pesky human now that his spear's become sapient. You hate to see it. Tora escapes into the woods at this point and I'm sure he'll be just fine on its own without any powerful-looking exorcist dudes flying over from China to make trouble to worry about. Speaking of any hypothetical figures that match that description, our Hyou fellow uses his magic to close in on Tora and is instructed by the fates to find "the boy" for assistance. The two then bump into each other in the street: Hyou was momentarily distracted by two thugs shaking down a civilian for cash, but stopped to help when the man's daughter cries out for help. Starting to sense that his soft spot for kids will be an important humanizing factor.

Sensing Tora's musk around Ushio (those 500 years of congealed farts again), Hyou starts tossing kunai his direction while yelling for answers. He's about to gouge out Ushio's eye for his unwillingness to assist a distraught foreigner when the spear comes to the rescue, and upon recognizing it as the legendary Beast Spear despite its long absence from the world Hyou stops his assault and apologizes for confusing its linked owner with a human that might conspire with monsters. I mean, he's not too far off: they were watching TV together not too long ago until a commercial for cat food came on and Tora had to get at it (this wasn't in the anime but I'm still guessing it happened). We then get to the crux of the issue: Hyou has been chasing the creature that killed his family, a wife and young daughter (ah), 15 years ago and sent him on his lonely path as an exorcist. He only remembers a grinning beast with sharp claws and given the time frame it's almost certainly not Tora: Ushio's smart enough to realize this much, but since they had their falling out he's not going to turn down a powerful ally experienced with hunting monsters to teach this dumb cat a lesson.

As Hyou and Tora draw each other out for a fight, Ushio tries to push down any feelings of guilt he might have in setting up his former basement tenant for an exorcism he doesn't strictly deserve. After all, even if he didn't personally eat Hyou's family he killed plenty of humans over 500 years ago and the statute of limitations is pretty long for those kinds of antics. Plus, all those TVs don't grow on trees. Even so, it takes a talking to (and some violence, because tsunderes gonna tsundere) from Asako before Ushio realizes he's been a jerk by standing by and allowing all this to go down and decides to jump in to protect Tora from Hyou's killing blow. Ushio's argument that Tora cannot be the same creature that killed Hyou's family is based on his facial scar, received earlier that episode: it has four scratch marks instead of the three on Hyou's face. Talk about winning a legal argument by citing the right clawses.

Hyou's still lost in the sauce however, so Ushio takes a barrage of knives in Tora's place to prove that while the tiger demon is a bad guy, he's not a bad guy, to quote Wreck-It Ralph and he explains through the blood loss that killing a human-devouring monster that isn't the one you're specifically trying to exterminate out of vengeance is just murder. Coming to his senses, because someone has to, Hyou finally breaks down and begins processing his grief in a more healthy way (or he goes back to China to hunt the actual culprit; the OVA doesn't say which). The episode then ends with Asako's family being granted a watermelon as thanks for her advice—I swear the romantic gestures of teens are getting harder to unpack as I get older—and Tora now hesitates while poised over the sleeping Ushio, justifying to himself that the kid's too beat up to make a fine meal this time around and flies off into the night presumably to eat someone else's family instead. Happy ending.

This episode has established that both Ushio and Tora need each other to survive the dangers that will come a-knockin' thanks to all that malevolent fart gas floating around, and that Tora's getting less and less enthusiastic about killing the annoying block-headed human in his midst. We also get a more concrete glimpse into the completely gross romantic dynamic between Ushio and Asako, one largely based on abuse (hey, it worked for Ranma), and a feeling that we're this close to the girls finding out about Tora's existence given he's not doing the best job of hiding himself if he was on the TV in China. He'll just have to hope that everyone confused the broadcast with an elaborate Kellogg's Frosties commercial.

That's going to do it for our coverage of the Ushio and Tora anime: I keep thinking of this as a shounen anime for kids but it can be pretty graphic with its violence on occasion, in much the same way DBZ could be. Not so much in how the various people in Ushio's life keep bopping him on the head (seriously, his father, girlfriend, and animal companion all got in their licks in these three episodes; it's no wonder he's become as durable as he is) but in images like the bloody kid shoes or the multiple stab wounds both Ushio and Tora received. A shounen with some bite to it, for sure, though one still uncomplicated enough in its plotting and morals for a younger audience to follow. Reminded me of how permissive the '80s and early '90s could be: I grew up with The Goonies and that has multiple corpses in it (and dick jokes).

The Game(s)

Just the two games this time, going in release order of the January 1993 brawler game for Super Famicom simply titled Ushio to Tora and then the July 1993 turn-based RPG Ushio to Tora: Shin’en no Daiyou (or Ushio and Tora: Great Demon of the Abyss). Only the latter has a fan translation, but since the former's an action game I don't imagine it'll be an issue. Famous last words.

Ushio to Tora (Super Famicom) was published by Yutaka and, according to the GDRI, developed by Natsume. Natsume's a cult favorite of SNES owners, having brought Harvest Moon to North America as well as being behind attractive third-person shooters like Wild Guns and Pocky & Rocky (another shaman/youkai team-up). Yutaka's a little more obscure: it was a fledgling video game label that was quickly snapped up by Bandai and put to work on manga/anime tie-ins. In addition to this they also released SFC games based on the licenses 3x3 Eyes, Dear Boys (it's about basketball), and Kousaku Shima which is a long-running serial manga about a salaryman doing business things. Yeah, they made a game out of that too.

Does it do right by the anime? It cuts a lot of material out, mostly any part that isn't just the big fight at the end of each arc, but otherwise I suppose it does get the feel right. The characters are constantly getting messed up in the show despite their supposed profound fighting talent and that's the case here too given how seriously busted those hitboxes are.

Ushio to Tora: Shin’en no Daiyou was also published by Yutaka and developed by Tom Create with some assistance from Pixel. Tom Create's a name that's popped up over in my WonderSwan feature a few times, so I'll just copy/paste what I wrote over there like the hardworking type I am: "Owned by Bandai, they're another company where few of their games ever released overseas as most of their output was licensed fare: a handful that made it out include SD Gundam Force for GBA and Bleach: The 3rd Phantom for DS. They're still around too: they just put out some manic-looking shovelware for Switch called Throw it! Animal Park." Pixel's a subcontractor usually brought in for programming assistance; with a name like that you'd think they were on the art asset side of things.

I'm going to break from the screenshots for a moment to talk about the fairly novel combat system of Shin'en no Daiyou. Ushio starts with one attack and learns more as he levels up, while Tora (once recruited after this battle) has four and learns more as well. Each attack, whether it's magic or otherwise, burns up a stat called "willpower" (or qi, I suppose) and the earlier attacks have higher damage and use less willpower. So why use the others? It's because you can go into a menu at any point (whether in a fight or out) and switch attack modes between "restore HP", "restore MP", or "maximize power". These cause your attacks to have additional effects, and that effect is more pronounced the more elaborate the move: restoring HP makes it so you can stay in the fight without needing to heal, restore MP lets you recover willpower instead of spending it, and maximize power vastly increases both damage output and willpower spent.

Ideally, for normal fights you use the basic attack (which is also the first option for convenience's sake) to quickly defeat enemies or switch to regaining HP/MP if either gets low, and then for bosses you alternate between the MP-recovery and maximize-power modes (switching to HP-recovery if you start getting low). Since the game has no equipment, no currency, and very little in the way of items or opportunities to heal, this system lets you explore dungeons to your heart's content without worrying about running out of HP and MP before hitting the boss like you might in a DQ or FF game.

Does it do right by the anime? About as well as the SFC game does, albeit with way more padding rather than way less. The maze-like dungeons and ad nauseam random encounters were sadly unavoidable in RPGs made in that era but I did appreciate the convenience of the siphon system as a way to sidestep constant recuperation visits to the local inn or overstocking on curatives. In fact, Shin’en no Daiyou was remarkably well streamlined all around and I've read that it's a pretty short game overall, which I suppose is probably what you want from a licensed product that exists largely to advertise its source material in lieu of an original "gaiden" story.

That's going to draw this episode of Game OVA to a close and indeed this third season, short as it was. This is meant to be a summer diversion after all and there's not a whole lot of that season left to suffer through as of writing. Don't get the wrong idea about this truncated season, though: I'm not running out of material for this feature quite yet, not by a long shot. There are, after all, as many anime OVAs and bad video game adaptations of them as there are fish ghosts floating in the sky. See you again soon in the opening credits of one scratchy ADV VHS or another.