OVA 2/Episode Guide 1: Bride of Roshtaria

The Bride of Roshtaria

SYNPOSIS

Peace has returned to the many lands of El-Hazard and the big adventure that the travellers from Earth endured is now merely a memory. We join the latest adventure, just as Miz Mishtal and Mr. Fujisawa plan to get married. However, the mischevious Princess Fatora is up to no good behind the scenes; generally causing all sorts of unwanted trouble.

A fortunate side effect of one of these misadventures causes Makoto Mizuhara to catch Fujisawa just before he runs out on the wedding. Fujisawa explains to Makoto that he's going on a bit of a climb to sort his mixed thoughts on the whole idea of marrying Miz. Miz does not like this one bit and ends up destroying the wedding chapel in a rage of water.

The morning after, the gang sets off on a new quest; to find Fujisawa. Fatora and Alielle once again manage to cause much confusion which ends in Fatora being rewarded by a french kiss from Shayla Shayla. And so, more elemental rage ensues...

Meanwhile, Katsuhiko Jinnai, Queen Diva and the Bugrom discover a strange tomb. Investigating further, Jinnai finds that another "horrible new weapon" is buried there...

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

Check out Miz's wedding. Snazzy stuff. Nice to see that El-Hazard 2, although not in very good quality to the casual viewer, stays very faithful to the original plotline of the first OAV. It's always nice to see the little references to the bath in Arliman and such.

However, that being said, as "El-Hazard - The Magnificent World" wasn't as messy as, let's say, "Tenchi Muyo! Ryoohki". It was hard for the successor to tie up any loose ends that the original had hanging. Simply because it had little to none left.

I doubt neither Hiroki Hayashi or Ryoe Tsukimura had planned to collaborate on a sequel to their completed 7 part project of 1995. That's not to say that Hayashi didn't have some input, as he did some work on the radio play that was transformed into El-Hazard 2 (the job wasn't director, or anything major if my memory serves correctly), but I don't think he was expecting a fully fledged (albeit short) animated sequel.

Another great addition is Fatora, who's character has been expanded into something more than your regular "missing princess". We had already seen that she was a stone cold bitch at the end of OAV1, and this episode does everything in it's power to bring that (amusingly) to light again.