Neo Ranga packs a lot into each 15-minute episode. © Shou Aikawa/Pony Canyon/ Studio Pierrot/Marubeni

Neo Ranga. V.1, A God is Risen. V.2, Lost in the Spectacle. V.3, The Right of Kings. V.4, A Nation Apart. V.5, Ghosts of Days Gone By. V.6.
To be determined TV series (48 episodes), 1998-1999. Director: Jun Kamiya. V.1-6, 8 episodes/120 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

Nankai Kio Neoranga (Strange World of the South Seas: Neoranga) is somewhat of a curiosity among recent TV anime serials. The episodes are only 15 minutes each. Neo Ranga (animation by Studio Pierrot) was not an independent program, but was part of satellite channel WOWOW's Anime Complex program, with the first half (1st season) broadcast from April 6 through September 28, 1998 and the second season during the same dates in 1999.

The 15-minute format works quite well. It keeps each episode's story compact and succinct, within a convoluted plot about three sisters inheriting a mysterious giant robot. Their lives become chaotic as they are swept up in conspiracies to gain control of Ranga. Friendships shift as their neighbors squabble over whether Ranga is an asset (a big tourist attraction which will increase local trade) or a menace (so big it can't help smashing houses by accident; and what if it deliberately runs amok?).

The three Shimabara sisters (Minami, 24; Ushio, 15 and Yuuhi, 12) live in the Tokyo residential district of West Musashino. Their parents died about 10 years ago, and their older brother disappeared soon after. A young boy with tribal facial tattoos appears, claiming to be their nephew Joel from the small, independent, equatorial island kingdom of Barou. He tells them that their brother settled there and married their princess, becoming co-ruler. Both recently died. Joel is too young to become ruler, so Barou's elders have chosen his sisters as their new king and high priest, which includes control of their god Ranga. The sisters are not about to leave Tokyo for some primitive island. They are shocked when Ranga, in the form of an ancient giant robot, strides out of the sea, blithely smashing through buildings and overpasses, and settles in their neighborhood.

Minami, who has been raising her sisters as a harried single parent, wants to turn Ranga to their financial advantage (while denying liability for the damage it causes). Idealistic Ushio wants to use Ranga to help their neighbors in West Musashino, while egotistical Yuuhi wants to become a queen. Army Engineering Commander Takesue sees Ranga as a convenient "threat" to test his new weaponry against. But top-level orders come to secretly capture Ranga while pretending to destroy it. Then conflicting orders imply a struggle between secret political cabals within the government. Violence supposedly caused by anti-Ranga terrorists turns out to be a plot to frighten away the Shimabaras' neighbors and buy their property cheaply.

Ushio is distraught that her simplistic ideas of using Ranga to "fight for justice" is stymied by the invisibility of corrupt politicians, one of whom may be the father of one of her best friends. She denies that Ranga is a menace even though she is guiltily aware that she has no idea of its origins and powers (but apparently at least one of the secret cabals trying to seize Ranga does), and that Ranga sometimes acts when not controlled by her or her sisters.

A.D.V. Films will follow the Japanese precedent of holding a hiatus (although not for a whole year) before releasing the second half of the series. Neo Ranga is worth the wait.