Old, Obscure, or Overlooked - KITE LIBERATOR
And we're back again with the final of the three Yasuomi Umetsu OVAs. With a bit of a leap in time (ten or eight years, depending which OVA you want to count from!) we come to...
Kite Liberator is a 2008 single episode OVA and the sequel to Kite. Written, directed, and with characters designs by Yasuomi Umetsu and once again animated at Arms, Liberator is the only one of the three OVAs that wasn't produced as a Hentai OVA - that means no uncut version with sex scenes, just an hour of story and action. There is a flash of nudity or two, though.
Set 10 years after Kite (coincidentally, of course), Liberator follows... a few people, actually. Monaka Noguchi, the poster girl, is a schoolgirl moonlighting as Sawa, the Angel of Death (yes - named after the original Sawa, who has apparently disappeared), doing pretty much everything you'd expect an assassin like Sawa to do, as well as leaving bundles of feathers on the corpses of her prey. Her dad, Orudo Noguchi, is an astronaut on the International Space Station, which is being supplied new miracle space food to prevent loss of bone mass in zero gravity, the brainchild of Defy Food's Kouichi Doi. And then there's police officer Rin Gaga, who's face and voice are strangely familiar...
While it seems at first that Liberator might be about Monaka and her experience moonlighting as the Angel of Death, the plot is honestly a confusing twister of three seperate plotlines, forming mostly into one somewhat more coherent main plotline just over halfway through the OVA. If I was to name my main personal issue with this OVA, it would be the plot in general, and the atmosphere it creates with it. While at times it definitely feels very Kite, it inevitably steers off into a new direction, one that feels at odds not only with the original OVA but also itself. It's honestly rather confusing, and I've seen people on both sides of the fence regarding it.
Visually, Liberator continues the trend set by Kite and Mezzo Forte - good animation, generally solid direction, and an expressive palette, though this time around we get a lot more night scenes (meaning a lot of blue tones) and anime gag faces for the first time. For a purely visual experience, Liberator is exactly what you'll have come to expect from Umetsu's OVAs if you watched Kite and Mezzo Forte. Sound design isn't slouching either, of course.
But the big question: is this sequel worth it? If you were to ask me, I'd say no. Aside from for the sake of completing the saga (well, sagas - the Kite series and the Umetsu OVA trilogy), I honestly can't recommend this. The ultimate plotline and twists it creates feel too out of left field even for a Kite entry, and if you weren't fond of Kite's cliffhanger ending, you will hate Liberator's cliffhanger ending. Various characters, particularly officer Rin Gaga, are basically left in the dust for the sake of Monaka, leaving the cast even less engaging than Kite's offering. I can only imagine how much more disappointed I'd have been in Liberator if I hadn't rewatched Kite and instead had waited for at least 16 years to see it.
If you can get past the plot, what lies left is still a bit lackluster compared to Kite. There are no big, zany gunfights in Liberator aside from a single duel between Rin Gaga and a criminal, and the action otherwise feels a bit limp. It's not helped by one of the new elements introduced by the plot, which quickly brings what could be a tense fight scene into a snore-inducing battle of attrition.
Ultimately, you might actually prefer the tonal shift and less realistic approach Liberator has. Or you may not, like myself. Liberator does at least provide answers for Kite's ending, but above that and completion, I can't really see a reason to recommend it. Ultimately, the choice is yours.
Next time I'll be moving onto an OVA free of Umetsu's influence, though I haven't decided which in particular yet. Look forward to that surprise! It might even be one of the OVAs I finished while writing this.