Original video animation

"OVA" redirects here. For other uses, see Ova (disambiguation).

Original video animation (オリジナル・ビデオ・アニメーション, Orijinaru bideo animēshon), abbreviated OVA (オーブイエー or オーヴィーエー, ōbuiē or ōvīē) (and sometimes as OAV), is a term originating from Japanese animation (anime) for animated films and series which are made specially to be released on home video formats. The majority are released direct-to-video, without prior showings on TV or in theatres, however, there may be very rare occasions where, for example, the first part of an OVA series is broadcast for promotional purposes. OVA titles were originally made available on VHS, later becoming more popular on LaserDisc and eventually DVD.

Format

Like anime made for television broadcast, OVAs are broken into episodes. OVA media (tapes, laserdiscs, or DVDs) are usually sold with just one episode each. Episode length varies from title to title, and might be anywhere from a few minutes to two hours or more. An episode length of 30 minutes is quite common, but this is by no means the rule. In some cases, the length of episodes in a specific OVA may vary greatly (in GaoGaiGar FINAL, the first 6 episodes last around 30 minutes, while the last 2 episodes last 40 and 50 minutes respectively; the OVA Key the Metal Idol consists of 15 separate episodes, ranging in length from 20 minutes to nearly two hours each.) An OVA series can run anywhere from an episode (essentially a direct-to-video movie) to dozens in length. Probably the longest OVA series ever made was Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which spanned 110 main episodes and 52 gaiden episodes.

Many popular series are first animated as an OVA, and later grow to become popular television series or movies. Tenchi Muyo!, for example, began as an OVA but went on to spawn several TV series, three movies, and numerous other spin-offs. Other OVA releases are made as sequels, side stories, music video collections, or bonus episodes that continue existing TV series or films, such as Love Hina Again and Wolf's Rain.

OVA animation is well regarded for its high production quality. OVA titles generally have a much higher budget per episode than that of a TV series; therefore the technical quality of animation is almost always superior to TV series; occasionally even equal to that of animated movies.

OVA titles are also known for the detailed plots and character development which can result from greater creative freedom it offers to writers and directors than other formats. This also allows for animated adaptations of manga to be adapted more faithfully to the source material. Since OVA episodes and series can be any length, the director can use however much time he or she likes to tell the story. There is a great deal of time available for significant background and character/plot development. This is in contrast to TV episodes that must begin and conclude an episode in 22 minutes, or films which rarely last more than two hours. There is likewise no pressure to produce "filler content" to extend a short plot into a full TV series; OVA titles are generally targeted to a specific audience, rather than the more mass-market audience of films and TV series, and are not bound as much by content restrictions and censorship (such as violence, nudity, or language) that are often placed on television series.

OVAs are typically aimed at male anime enthusiasts. Bandai Visual stated in a 2004 news release (for their new OVAs aimed at women) that about 50% of the customers who bought their anime DVDs in the past were 25- to 40-year-old men, while only 13% of them were women, even with all ages included. Those statistics are about anime DVDs in general, not only about OVAs, but it shows the general tendency at this point. Nikkei Business Publications also stated in its news release that anime DVDs were mainly bought by 25- to 40-year-old adults.OVAs specifically aimed at women are few, but do exist – Earthian is one such an example.

Usually, one volume costs 5800–9800 yen as of 2006, higher-priced than other anime DVDs, though some are less expensive (Mobile Police Patlabor OVAs (1988) were priced at 4800 yen per volume).

Some OVAs based on television series (especially those that are based on manga) may be designed to provide closure to the plot that was not present in the series. The Rurouni Kenshin OVAs, to name one series, exemplified numerous aspects of OVAs; they were based on chapters of the author Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga that had not been adapted into the TV anime, had higher-quality animation, were much more violent, and were executed in a far more dark and realistic style than the TV episodes.

The later was the same case for Masami Kurumada's famous manga Saint Seiya. The anime adapted two of the three arcs in Kurumada's manga, as the project to adapt the third arc to the anime was never started. As Kurumada had completed his manga in 1991, its third act was finally adapted to anime, releasing the episodes as OVAs, starting in 2003 and finishing in 2008, at last adapting Kurumada's manga completely to anime.

Most OVA titles run 4–8 episodes and tend to have a complex and continuous plot which is best enjoyed if all episodes are viewed in sequence. This is in contrast to TV series, which generally have many short "mini-stories" that happen to be related somehow, rather than a unified plot. Many OVA titles can be thought of as "long films" that just so happen to be released in parts. Release schedules vary, as some series may progress as slowly as 1-2 episodes per year. Some OVA titles with a lengthy release schedule ended up unfinished due to lack of fan support and sales.

There are many one-episode OVAs. Typically, such an OVA is a side story to the TV series that gained popularity. At the earliest stage of the history of the OVA (1980s), one-episode OVAs were not rare. Hundreds of manga that were popular but not enough to gain TV series were granted one-shot (or othewise extremely short) OVA episodes. OVA's could be found on many anime websites, most of them are bad quality though.

History

OVAs originated during the late 1970s. As the VCR became a widespread fixture in Japanese homes, the Japanese anime industry grew to behemoth proportions. Demand for anime was massive, so much so that consumers would willingly go directly to video stores to buy new animation outright. While "direct-to-video" was a pejorative in the United States for works that could not make it onto TV or movie screens, in Japan the demand was so great that direct-to-video became a necessity. Many popular and influential series such as Bubblegum Crisis and Tenchi Muyo! were released directly to video as OVAs.

The earliest known attempt to release the first OVA was Osamu Tezuka's The Green Cat (part of the Lion Books series) in 1983, although it cannot be counted as the first OVA since the VHS tape may not have been immediately available, along with the fact that the series was incomplete. Therefore the first official OVA release to be billed as such was 1983's Dallos, directed by Mamoru Oshii and released by Bandai. Other famous early OVAs, premièring shortly thereafter, were Fight!! Iczer One and the original Megazone 23. Other companies were quick to pick up on the idea, and the mid-to-late 1980s saw the market flooded with OVAs. During this time, most OVA series were new, stand-alone titles.

As the Japanese economy worsened in the 1990s, the flood of new OVA titles drained to a trickle. OVAs were still made, but in smaller numbers. Many anime TV series ran an economical 13 episodes rather than the traditional 26-episodes per season. New titles were often designed to be released to TV if they approached these lengths. In addition, the rising popularity of cable and satellite TV networks (with their typically less strict censorship rules) allowed many new titles to be broadcast directly to the public when previously that would have been impossible. Therefore many violent, ecchi, and fanservice series became regular TV series when previously those titles would have been OVAs. During this time period most OVA content was limited to that related to existing and established titles.

However, in 2000 and later, a new OVA trend has begun. Many TV series are released in a fashion in which not all of the episodes are broadcast normally – some are released on DVD-Videos of the series. Examples of this include the DVD-only 25th episode of Love Hina, while several episodes of the Ah! My Goddess TV series are DVD-only. In addition, the final episode of Excel Saga was offered only as an OVA, mostly due to content issues that would have made TV broadcast impossible. In these cases the series as a whole cannot be called an OVA, though certain episodes are. This trend is becoming quite common, and furthermore, many recent OVA series pre-broadcast the episodes and release the DVD with unedited and better quality, revised animations – thus further blurring the boundary between TV and video anime.

See also

• Direct-to-video
• V-Cinema