El Hazard 2: Awakening of Kalia

El Hazard 2: Awakening of Kalia

Genre: comedy/fantasy

Length: 60 minutes (2 episodes)

Audience Age: 13+

Opinion: A series that may only appear to be a great buy to the fans of the first series.

This is a review of the subtitled VHS version.

© 1998 AIC • Pioneer LDC, Inc. • TV Tokyo

With Roshtaria's war against the Bugrom finished, the heroes from El Hazard are preparing for the wedding of the Great Priestess of Water, Miz, and former history teacher at Shinanome High, Masamichi Fujisawa. That is everyone...except for Fujisawa who leaves to his students the responsibility of telling his fiance that he has gone on one last climbing expedition. After nearly flooding the entire castle with her rage, a determined Miz forms her own search party (basicly the past heroes) to drag her cold-footed fiance to the altar.

Meanwhile, Katzuhiko Jinai is determined to re-establish the Bugrom Empire. While looking for a new location to base the planned headquarters, Jinai finds a shrine similar to the one which imprisoned the destructive force of the Demon God Ifurita. As his luck would have it, he finds another demon god called Kalia who tells him of a weapon that has more power that the Eye of God, a device that nearly erased the existence of El Hazard in the previous series.


So all of the earthlings from the last series paths will cross once again which would make anyone fear for the fate of this "Magnificent World".

El Hazard 2: The Magnificent World is a two VHS, four episode series, so it would immediately seemed that the story will not have the same chance to develop as fully as its seven episode predecessor had. Fortunately, there are only two story angles to combine unlike the three from the premiere series, so the pace is not hurried and the plot runs smoothly. Yet, it does not feel like El Hazard: The Magnificent World because there is only the addition of one new, interesting character, Kalia, but when we (assuming you have all seen the first series) are familiar with the power of a demon god, we do not get a character with any great comic quirks or weird ability that made all the original characters so likable. Besides for a consistently well developed story, the uniqueness of the characters is what I considered to be one of the key draws of the first series. 

Along with lacking one of the best reasons to see the original series, El Hazard 2 feels likes is was done quickly and cheaply. The colors seem to be rather bland compared to the first series and its soundtrack while being good, is not near the high quality of the first OVA (Original Video Animation) series. These accusations are further supported by the fact there are only four episodes. Despite the stereotype that the Japanese are not Walt Disney fans (at least in terms of directors like Hayao Miyazaki of Princess Mononoke and Kiki's Delivery Service), they seem to have adopted the Disney Conglomerate's methods of capitalizing on a series success by creating a cheap sequal.

Image from the CG Shrines