Dream Hunter Rem - 1985 OVA

[Area88]

Dream Hunter Rem is an very original and unique anime 3 episode OVA series released from 1985 to 1987. It is about a character called Rem AyanokÅji who is a dream hunter. She is a woman capable of entering the dreams of sleeping people in an attempt to extinguish the demons causing the nightmares. Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of Dream Hunter Rem are the educational Dream Sequences that feature in the middle of each OVA. The show is also very diverse in it's execution shifting between many genres such as fantasy, horror, romance and drama.

Unfortunately you won't be able to see the diversity of Rem since the episode included below is only the first half of OVA 1 since that was all that was released by AnimeCoalition. It is taken directly from laserdisc and the quality is very good. However since then the show has been rescued from obscurity and remastered for a dvd release in Japan. Currently a boxset containing all 3 episodes plus extras have been released to which it currently retails for around $120 although can be attained at a much cheaper price through a bit of searching.

Here is the link to the episode below:

Dream Hunter Rem - 01 (Download via Torrent)

Trivia - Dream Hunter Rem visually looks quite similiar to a videogame called Time Gal which is an anime laserdisc game released in 1985 and later ported to the Sega Mega Cd in 1992. Despite appearances there is no direct link between the two although the game itself is very good and highly regarded by anime fans.

Stayed Tuned - More Rare 80's Anime Classics Coming Soon...

Edited May 17, 2007 by Area88

[gerwalk25]

IIRC Time Gal for Sega CD was also brought to the US. I heard the English dub for the game was Horrible!

[danth]

That show looks awesome. I'm downloading it now.

[Mercurial Morpheus]

I watched that long ago, back when the torrent was released. I was always hoping they'd release more. Shame that they haven't.

[JB0]

IIRC Time Gal for Sega CD was also brought to the US. I heard the English dub for the game was Horrible!

It did get a US release. I own it(it was cheap, and I needed an obligatory FMV title).

As far as the dub... it was an early 90s CD game. The only time a dub was worth even mentioning was when it WASN'T horrible.

[Area88]

Time Gal was also ported to the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn but only exclusively to Japan. They were much closer in terms of video quality to the original laserdisc since the Sega Mega Cd's hardware was naturally very grainy and pixelated. Also all the original Japanese voice acting and music was kept in.

Here are some screen caps of the higher quality version:

Other FMV laserdisc games include Road Blaster (screencap below), Cobra Command and Ninja Hayate.

(All of these are available on the PS1 and Sega Saturn)

I'm lucky enough to own the Road Blaster and Cobra Command doublepack on the Playstation but i've been looking for Time Gal for ages now. Apparently it's very rare and prices are high on Yahoo Japan Auctions.

Edited May 18, 2007 by Area88

[JB0]

Time Gal was also ported to the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn but only exclusively to Japan. They were much closer in terms of video quality to the original laserdisc since the Sega Mega Cd's hardware was naturally very grainy and pixelated.

You're thinking live-action FMV.

It fared MUCH better when dealing with animation. The low number of colors made available by the Genesis/MegaDrive(the CD expansion added no new video hardware) resulted in aliasing rather than the pixellation hell showcased so effectively by most live-action titles.

[TheLoneWolf]

Talk about nostalgia! When I get home I need to see if Xenesis will play Time Gal.

Anyways, here's a link to the Time Gal booklet for the Mega CD.