El Hazard: The Wanderers Review
Shinpi no Sekai El Hazard
神秘の世界エルハザード

Since the Community Anime Reviews site has been down for a week (looks back up now as I write), I’m republishing some of my OG reviews from there. I have corrected obvious spelling errors though. I will add new notes in parenthesis, labeled “ANB  note.”  😅 I won’t count these as part of the “Back to the Vaults” series as I have not rewatched them.

–> Buy El-hazard The Wanderers Blu-ray Collection BD Collection on Amazon.com!

Community Anime Review of El Hazard: The Wanderers

(ANB note: This series was originally reviewed on 27-April-2003.)

I had not seen the original El Hazard OAV’s nor the Alternate World TV sequel when I watched El Hazard: The Wanderers. Taking into consideration that this was a remake of that original, I decided to see this series first and then the original OAV’s/TV series.

Story and Characters

Story-wise, Mokoto is doing an experiment that even he no longer knows really why he’s doing it. That is a great analogy for the series as a whole it is a story being done without knowing why (beyond making a quick yen). Nanami, a major character, is all but forgotten…for several episodes! What? But this is only the start of the problems. The series suffers from characters who have almost no depth and a story with almost no depth. Things just happen with no explanation as to why.

Characters go through the motions without any real feeling. This is due to the writers wanting to make their own mark on the series while paying tribute to the original OAV. So Jinnai has to end up with the Bugrom because thats who he ended up with in the OAV. The hows and whys of this were deemed unimportant.

Humor wise, most episodes have one good laugh and that’s it. The main problem though is with the highly juvenile nature of the show. This is primarily revealed in the character of Jinnai. He’s gone insane as he leads the Bugrom and is done as a buffoon cartoon bad guy as is the queen and the insects. The stories are written for a younger audience which is fine, but a serious letdown for those who’ve seen the original OAV series.

Additional Thoughts

Despite all of these problems, I found myself looking forward to the next episode, so when I’d finished the first 2 DVD’s (with the next 2 on the way), I was bummed not to have any more episodes to see. The series did get better as it went along so something worked though I’m not sure what.

Maybe it was my desire to see Rune-hime and Makoto get together. Their romance was sweet, especially since Rune is voiced by Inoue Kikuko. Rune was made several years younger in order to romance Makoto and to add to the harem element I suppose. It worked though.

What also worked was no yuri princess — no Fatora! This also meant that Alielle was not a loli yuri play-toy which was also a relief.

Bottom Line

El Hazard: The Wanderers is light “fluff” (to borrow another reviewers term) with zero depth, yet something I mostly enjoyed killing time with it.