Sol Bianca: The Legacy – Episode 2

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re stepping back into Sol Bianca: The Legacy, a six-episode OVA from the tail end of the twentieth century, and the sequel to a never-concluded predecessor from the early ‘90s. Anime’s direct-to-video era is littered with such artifacts, series that were cut short either by disappointing sales or staff exodus, leaving only fragmentary segments of ambitious, beautifully realized fantasy in their wake. Works were smaller in scale yet greater in implication; in an era largely given over to franchise replication, a landscape dominated by such lingering absences feels strangely alluring.

Anyway, context aside, Sol Bianca’s first episode introduced us to the titular ship and its crew of apparent bounty hunters, on the hunt for a pistol scavenged from the ruins of Earth. Along the way, they ran afoul of the ambiguous Terra Force, and ultimately picked up a young girl named Mayo with a mysterious past, who claims her parents await on the long-lost ruins of Earth itself. Thus the stage is set for a grand pilgrimage, one overtly framed in the context of Abraham’s journey to Canaan. Whatever awaits, I’m looking forward to more of this production’s sumptuous art design. Let’s get to it!

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Sol Bianca: The Legacy – Episode 1

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re going to be embarking on a new journey, as we explore the first segment of six-episode OVA series Sol Bianca: The Legacy. I’ll admit, I know basically nothing about either this series or the original two-episode OVA that preceded it; I’ve frankly never heard of either, but that’s little surprise, as the OVA boom was flush with productions that didn’t necessarily make an international splash.

The original Sol Bianca was actually cut short at two installments due to low sales, and only followed up a decade later by this quasi-sequel. The two share the titular all-female pirate ship, as well as animation director/character designer Naoyuki Onda, who’s enjoyed a fruitful AD career on projects ranging from Record of Lodoss War to Rage of Bahamut. The Legacy’s director Hiroyuki Ochi has also mostly worked in animation direction and key animation, so if nothing else, I’m expecting some luxurious cuts and character art ahead of us. Let’s check it out!

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