Desert Rose OVA Review
Desert Rose ~ The Snow Apocalypse
Suna no Bara
砂の薔薇
Suna no Bara (Desert Rose) – Yuki no Mokushiroku
砂の薔薇（デザート・ローズ） 「雪の黙示録」

For years now, my Twitter/X feed will feature some sort of meme, GIF, or even clip featuring a sassy, blonde woman, taken from a early 90s anime title. Eventually I decided to check what series this was. Finally, now that I have a bit of free time, I decided to finally watch this single episode OVA series. Funny enough, the blonde woman was only a supporting character in the OVA. Go figure! 😂

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis

After the death of her husband and child at the hands of terrorists, former housewife Mariko “Marie Rose” Rosebank now leads an all-female, anti-terrorist division of Counterattack Terrorism, C.A.T. Her team successfully route a terrorist group and defuse a massive bomb in the building. As such, her C.A.T. team make plans to head to Florida for training and the beaches.

However, their plans are cut short when the team gets sent to a remote, mountain resort in Switzerland. Their new mission is to guard world leaders who are discussing how to help the newly unified East and West Germany overcome economic and political issues. It is felt that terrorist will take advantage of the situation.

Marie’s team dress and work as maids, with Marie and other leaders in business dresses, acting as assistants to the delegates. Two of Marie’s team are sent to Paris, where they meet a pervert bomb maker. After plying him with booze, they learn he didn’t make conventional bombs for the conference. However, before he can tell all, he gets assassinated.

After the two girls deal with the assassins, Marie feels something’s amiss, despite their precautions and the Swiss military’s excellent security. Nearly too late, Marie realizes how the terrorists plan to take out the conference. Now, it is a race against time to get everyone to safety.

Based on a Manga Series

The first thing of note about the Desert Rose OVA is that it is based off of a manga series of the same name (Suna no Bara). I’d never heard of the series, but it went on for fifteen volumes. I don’t believe it was ever licensed for release in the U.S. The series was done during the popularity of kick ass girl titles like Dirty Pair or Bubblegum Crisis (to name just two).

However, this OVA is not an adaptation of any story in the manga. Marie’s flashback to the incident where her husband and child were killed in a terrorist attack came from the first chapter of the manga. The bit in the episode where we see world leaders discussing the girls of C.A.T. (and the mission at the beginning of the OVA) came from the second chapter of the manga. After that, the story of the OVA was original.

However, it does tie in with the general theme of the manga series. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t make this a ringing endorsement to go read the manga. While the foundation of the plot was understandable enough, it didn’t make for a very compelling story. It was fine for what it was, but I would just say things were average on the whole.

The only confusing part to me was the side story featuring two of the girls finding a perverted bomb maker in Paris. I must have missed the connection (twice) where Marie knows to send the girls to Paris for the info. Then after they ply him with booze, he starts speaking. But then he gets assassinated, but the assassins don’t bother trying to kill the girls. Didn’t make sense.

Girl Boss?

Going into the Desert Rose OVA, the initial scene featuring the girls of C.A.T. made me wonder if this was going to be some cringe, girl boss rubbish. Sure, it was made back in the time of Dirty Pair, and I love Dirty Pair. However, thanks to modern day rubbish where a petite girl weighing barely 100 pounds can easily beat up a 250 pound man of solid muscles, I’m suspicious.

Fortunately, that’s not the case in this anime. I can’t speak for the source material as I only glanced through some of it. However, the anime writers thankfully don’t have situations where any of the girls in C.A.T. have to physically fight anyone. Instead, they are just good with guns and explosives. The initial fight was done in a way that I believed a woman could do and shoot up a group of male terrorists.

I liked how the OVA took into consideration the notion of the differences between men and women. When the video of their mission (don’t ask how it was recorded) at the start of the anime was shown to the world leaders, they were understandably skeptical. Later, the Swiss Army officers tested the girls to see how they’d react to a threat situation. That felt real.

Scene Stealer

I earlier mentioned that seeing memes and such featuring a sassy blonde woman is what got me into Desert Rose OVA. Her name is Irene Sanders and she steals almost every scene she’s in. Right out of the gate, she and Delilah exchange hand signals on the mission. However, Irene suddenly cups her breast as a sign, initially confusing Delilah. What Irene wanted was a grenade, which Delilah kept at her breasts. 😅

Then in the main mission, Irene as a maid with an attitude made me chuckle when she received a couple of featured moments. The OVA also makes it clear that she has an increased sexual element to her. I’m guessing that’s what also increases her appeal to guys as a character.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Desert Rose OVA with some final thoughts.

• ORIKASA Ai plays Helga Mittelmeier in the series. Why does this matter? Well, she plays Ryoko on Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki. So I always love hearing her speak in these OG anime titles.
• The art and animation for the OVA was pretty good. There’s not a ton of music in the anime, but it is typical, 80s rock, without vocals.

In the end, Desert Rose OVA isn’t anything that special, but it is interesting and entertaining enough.