Audience reviews
12 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
lucaaa
Having just read the book, I was insanely curious as to how well it could be adapted into a 45 minute OVA. The answer turned out to be..... Passably??? It's an alright adaptation, but I kept being confused by the changes and cuts made, and the reordering of events seemed strange.
The original novel is not very long by any means, and in my opinion it is... Not very good, to be honest. Middling stuff at best for young readers, which is fine, but not what I personally enjoy reading. That said, however, the one thing I can say about it is that its linear storytelling is at the very least easy to understand. There are rarely any parts of the book that are told out of sequential order, and I was never confused while reading it (but I was sometimes bored).
The OVA on the other hand, continuousl…
Read at the source7gatsu
A premise is necessary here. Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei is a 1987 OVA based on Aya Nishitani’s novel, which was later adapted into a Famicom game and ultimately gave birth to the Megami Tensei series. This is not Shin Megami Tensei, but the earlier fictional work that started everything. For those unfamiliar with Nishitani’s output, it’s important to understand that he is a novelist whose stories are deeply rooted in witchcraft, occultism, demon summoning, and explicit violence. If these themes are not for you, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. There’s no need to dismiss or dilute the legacy of this franchise.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the direction, handled by Mizuho Nishikubo. Given the challenge of condensing Nishitani’s short novel into a 40-minute OVA,…
Read at the sourcemailboxspiders
If you're wondering at any point what's happening in this OVA--or why--you should just watch a good anime instead.
Better yet, just play the games because they're amazing.
Mind you, the music isn't bad at all--it's actually probably the best part of this OVA--especially the last two tracks.
Plus, the OVA is only 45 minutes long and, again, the music is good. Not amazing... but good.
I recommend just listening to the soundtrack and watch a better anime on mute while you listen. For those studying Japanese, the dialogue is slow enough and simple enough that it's not a terrible way to study Japanese either.
That said, the pacing of this OVA is nonexistent, the animation and character design are unmemorable, the story is boring.
It's not good enough to care, it's not bad enough to meme.…
Read at the sourceVex_Sprite
I had to finally leave a comment on MAL to counter some disinformation. You don't need to be a fan of SMT to enjoy this, and it is actually a very unique and fun OVA. It's full of atmosphere and many of the visuals are powerful and carry a lot of weight to them. The confusing elements of the plot just leads to it feeling more abstract, which allows it to get away with any 'inconsistencies' that other viewers might locate.
Highly recommended for fans of 80s horror OVA. This certainly has an interesting feeling to it, and while I understand that fans of SMT might find this to be an unsuitable adaptation of a universe that they are already familiar with, I believe that a casual viewer will still find a lot to enjoy.
Read at the sourcediasante
Far from being a good entertainment, this OVA is for MegaTen die-hard fans, mostly because it was where everything begun, not only for the SMT series, but for the whole JRPG niche. It is said that Dragon Quest V started with the whole catching monsters, befriending them, but in reality in 1987, 5 years before DQ5, the very first megaten game was released based on a trilogy of japanese books. The plot? Summoning demons through OG computers.
Can't really say its bad adapted since the first book which is the whole ground for this OVA has more than 450 pages, so if there isn't any prior knowledge of MegaTen it might get confusing.
What's best about is the darkness of it, megaten always had this feeling, this vibe of something obscure, but it kinda lost that throughout the years, don't get me w…
Read at the sourcearyathehuman_
Digital Devil Saga : Megami Tensei OVA is a pretty good animation for me to keep me interested in the lore of the whole franchise. The first half of the OVA consists of 3 parts, namely the main character's present point of view, his backstory (on how he became involved with demons), and his flashbacks (memories from his past life), which interchange at a moment's notice and can be a bit disorienting if you're not focused on watching the OVA. The last half of the OVA is focused on the main character's redemption arc (the beginnings of his redemption arc, at least).
As a young adult who did not grew up in the 80s, there are points in the OVA that was pretty shocking and amusing to watch (pretty graphic depiction of sexual and violent imagery). The story is pretty standard for an anime, and…
Read at the sourceLegendanime
This anime is...decent. I am trying hard to see how this book was able to produce not only more sequels, but was able to spawn a whole franchise that created such games like Persona 3 and Cathrine. Maybe there was more to the book, but everything here just felt dull and average.
The art was ok, sound ok, the end song was typical 80s cheese, and there was a lot of blood. But after the beginning where we see Loki summoned? That was when it just felt dull and lifeless, like the anime wanted to get to certain points as fast as it can with little care for the characters and stories.
Read at the sourcematthigh
I knew it! Fortran is the programming language of the Devil!
To cut to the chase: This one-shot story is just one huge pile of horse manure, with a confusing and convoluted story featuring characters you don't care about.
The 'novelty' of this OVA is that it involves summoning a demon through the use of the high school's computer, complete with cheesy bleeps and bloops and reel-to-reel tapes and all that. The way that computers are shown here may seem way quaint and silly, but keep in mind when this was made -- in an era when only a tiny fraction of the public had access to any sort of computer at all. Anything involving computers was, for many people, a Big Unknown. And when you have a Big Unknown, it can be kind of scary -- or, at least turned into something big and scary for the pur…
Read at the sourcekryhelm
I found it very difficult to get attached to Akemi and you don’t find out his motivation until about half-way through so he just seems like an ass throughout the beginning. Yumiko is not too bad, but isn't too great either because she becomes useless later on . The animation is not great even for standards back then, but I’ve always enjoyed older anime aesthetics so I enjoy the look of it. Overall I don’t think it is atrocious. Overall the story and the characters are not very strong so I couldn't get too much enjoyment out of it. I feel like if you’re a fan of SMT it’s an interesting piece of history to watch, but is not really worth the time of anyone else.
Read at the sourceD5
Basically, I enjoyed this anime because it fleshed out the background of the megaten series a bit. It is more directly based on the DDM book than the Famicom game that followed it, leading eventually to the "two men in black" splitting off from NAMCO to form Atlus.
However, in general, it is fairly pathetic, even by old-fashioned standards.
Taken as a compliment to the light novel, though, it works fairly well, so overall, I rated it as "good", or 7/10... however, for most people, I would recommend watching something else... leave this for diehard megatenist, or fans of the DDM light novel (which is still not officially in English, but there is a fan-translation).
Hope this helps.
Read at the sourceShidira
Story: A girl named Yumiko transfers to Juusei Academy and finds very accepting people except for one guy, Nakajima, who treats here like dirt and seems to have a large amount of power, given the students and even teachers scrape and bow to him. Later that night, Yumiko spies on Nakajima and finds, to her horror, Nakajima is trying to summon a demon by the name of Loki through his computer. Eventually Loki is able to be fully summoned out of the computer and turns on Nakajima, almost killing him and Yumiko. Through a brief series of events, Yumiko and Nakajima break free and eventually end up killing Loki.
The story seems very easy to follow, but the anime makes it difficult to understand what is happening and why. Throughout the story, Nakajima constantly shifts between dreams and real l…
Read at the sourceTwoSoxs
I like old school anime a lot. Since I hadn't seen this one I decided to watch it.
The RPG was great fun, so I wanted to check out the OVA. I shouldn't have done that >_<
It's one VERY cheesy OVA even if you consider how old it is.
Still it's entertaining in a quaint and WTF kinda way. Has loads of action and hack and slash, BUT the story is filled with so many inconsistencies that it's both confusing and annoying.
The plot is pretty bad, and the horror effects are medicore.
Sad sad adaptation. If you want to get some cheap laughs, or your really bored, go watch it. If not, stay far away from this one.
Read at the source