Maze

—by Mark L. Johnson

MAZE is a two episode OVA series (30 minutes each episode) that was released a few years ago in Japan and is now approaching our shores. The main character of the story is Maze, a relatively young woman from good old Earth (and with a limited memory of our planet), who for mysterious reasons was teleported to a fantasy world. In the tradition of many an anime, she gains magical powers, the ability to command a giant robot and, at night, a different personality takes over as she transforms into a lecherous male.
However, except for a whirlwind narrative at the beginning of the OVA, the viewer is really left in the lurch trying to figure out what is going on. We see that Maze is traveling with a young princess named Mill and a group of powerful hand-to-hand fighters. Everybody seems attracted in some way to Maze (women, men, you name it), and male Maze's main goal is to bed every woman he meets.
This series skips over who these characters are and ignores their larger goals to instead concentrate on a side story with our heroes traveling through a strange kingdom. The populace seems comatose at best, and the king is transfixed with building a huge tower monument as his legacy at any cost.
Maze's group, while dealing with ease the occasional attack from the non-explained enemies pursuing them, gets invited to the king's tower, only to have Maze imprisoned and the rest thrown into the catacombs. The remainder of the tape shows Maze and friends dealing with the mystery of the tower, the king, past foes, fantasy mecha combat and a deadly quiz show.
Visually, the production values are decent. This is an OVA and, as such, there are points that look better than your average TV show (like some of the combat and Maze's male/female transformation), but there is nothing overly spectacular. One other "feature" of MAZE being an OVA is the larger amount of nudity and more frequent adult situations than you would find in a TV show.
The English dub, however, could have been much better. The quality is rather poor in parts, and some of the emotion and dialog seemed really wrong. That and saying "big sister/brother" all the time really does not roll off the tongue as well as "oneniisama." Overall, I would describe the dub as painful.
The show does have its moments, and I will admit to laughing out loud at the dungeon quiz show. Unfortunately, I generally found MAZE to be lacking any cohesive plot or development. It moves at a lightning fast pace, and never stays long enough in any one part to be really good in this short amount of time.
The best audience for these MAZE OVAs would be fans who have already seen and enjoyed the TV series or followed the manga. The OVAs are more a taste of the character interactions, humor and action than anything else, and therefore do not have much to stand on by themselves. This installment of MAZE would fall into my definition of a mild hentai or adult story, as the amount of light nudity and sexual situations is higher than your average anime. If women, jokes and combat are your thing, you may get enough from this, but I would suggest that most people check out the TV series first (to be released later this year domestically) before deciding to view this OVA. These two episodes would then make a lot more sense.

Released in North America by Software Sculptors
VHS, 60 minutes
Dub SSVD_6077, $19.99
Sub SSVS_6078, $24.99
Available now in the USA
Where to buy