Ruin Explorers: Quest for the Ultimate Power!
OAV series, 1995-96. Director/Screenplay: Takeshi Mori. 4 episodes/120 minutes. Price & format: bilingual DVD $29.98. Distributor: A. D. Vision Films.

Ruin Explorers: Quest for the Ultimate Power! © 1995 Kunihiko Tanaka, Nippon Columbia, Movic.

Ruin Explorers is a lightweight comedy/adventure very obviously inspired by Dungeons & Dragons; an animated adaptation (four half-hour episodes, released 6/25/95, 8/25/95, 11/25/95 and 2/25/96) of a comic-book serial by Kunihiko Tanaka in a Japanese gaming magazine. It demonstrates the Original Animation Video market's ability to take advantage of a pleasant story that is not strong enough to be made into a TV cartoon series or theatrical feature, but does quite well in the direct-to-video market for a niche audience (in this case, role-playing gaming fans). Also, this is a complete story, unlike some anime "movies" that end in mid-story because they are really releases of OAV serials that sold so poorly they were never finished.

In the story, a stereotypical fantasy world has so many ruins of past civilizations that a whole industry has grown up of "ruin explorers" who plunder them for lost treasures. Fam and Ihrie, two mid-teen girls, are getting into it earlier than most. Ihrie, human, is determined to prove that they are just as good as the more experienced explorers who mock them. Fam, her elf friend, is her hesitant follower. Both have magic powers, but due to a spell earlier cast on Ihrie, she cannot use her magic without turning into a mouse. Ihrie must urge Fam to use her Wiccan powers, which she does so hesitantly that it is usually too little, too late. Ihrie's exasperation with Fam finally blows up into a spat at just the wrong time. A search for a magic talisman pits them against rivals, the arrogant Rasha (sorceress) and Migel (swordsman), plus a conniving merchant, Galuff, who sold a map to the treasure to both teams in the hope that they will set off all the traps and kill each other off, leaving the treasure for him. New players enter in episode 2, and the story veers into a new and more serious direction. The five are forced to become reluctant allies in support of handsome Prince Lyle who needs the talisman to stop the mad enchanter Rugudorull from destroying all life on Earth.

Ruin Explorers is also an example of the Japanese penchant for throwing references to American pop culture into their productions. These may indicate the introduction of those images into Japan. When the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise moved into Japan in the mid-1980s, American anime fans wondered why there were suddenly so many brief sightings of Col. Sanders in anime productions. This anime adaptation of Ruin Explorers (animated by Animate Films studio) has a new character not in Tanaka's comic book; merchant Galuff's pet dog, Gil, who is a dead ringer for Hanna-Barbera's snickering Muttley. Why? Who knows? Gil contributes nothing to the plot, but his appearance is undeniably amusing, not least because of how he clashes so much with the character design of the others. (Presumably this is part of the joke.)

A.D. Vision Films previously released Ruin Explorers on two videos of two episodes apiece in June and September 1998, in both dubbed and subtitled versions. Due to the anime market's new demand for bilingual DVD releases (both English-dubbed and in Japanese with English subtitles), A.D. Vision is now remaindering those two video versions. Video releases of anime in subtitled form alone have become virtually extinct over the past year.

Fred Patten has written on anime for fan and professional magazines since the late 1970s.