Fashion Lala: The Story of the Harbour Light

Harbor Light Monogatari - Fashion Lala Yori is a slap in the face to pretty much all common sense in story telling. From the opening you can tell this anime is having a serious identity crises. The opening consists of assorted jumble of scenes from 1980’s jazzercise to some really fairly odd science fiction space shots. This mishmash pretty much sums up a lot of this anime as it tries to mesh together a whole lot of things that just don’t work. It also features more conflicting moods then a temperamental two year old. On one hand you have a pseudo Cinderellastory about the main character Miho who is living with her ill-tempered Aunt and her three snide cousins while her father is away. This part of the story seems the most fairly tale like, and with Miho wondering around a seaside town with her dog delivering packages for her Aunt’s business and hoping to make a dress for her one cousin to wear in the upcoming Disco Queen contest. This part of the anime has an almost dreamy like quality to it and has the most potential to be something cute to bad it's all lost in a giant flushing toilet of bewilderment. Then there is other plot of the town Mayor’s son coming back into town. At first he seems the typical bad boy who is just a little rough around the edges and with a soft spot in his heart but then he transforms in to heartless terrorist. Seriously, I am not kidding! They bring him in to a place in the story where you think it a might creepy but not insanely out of place (for an anime) love interest for our little Miho, but it just turns out he is a cold hearted bastard and gang leader. Who was so scared by his father and sister, he now must blow up the town’s Disco Queen Contest. Really, still not kidding! His character is never really fleshed out more then that, and what starts out fitting in the dream like quality of the anime ends up being so over the top and out of place it’s just amusing. There are several other mash ups fitted into this short OVA that never seem to get there fill of screen time. Several places early on in the story seem like it’s going to take it some where else then it ends up going to, they would have been far nicer places really. It almost seems like the creators wanted to do a longer story but got stuck with forty-five minutes and decided to fit all the bits and pieces they liked best into it. The art used in this story is also a jumble of 1980's anime style. Most of the characters are pretty normal looking with natural hair colors except for Miho's which is purple, uh ok, sure she has the rare purple hair gene. Style wise though up to a point everyone looks like a normal person from a small town, from the 80's, but still they still conform. It isn't until the mayor's son picks up his fellow town misfits/terrorists who look like bad rejects from a discarded Streets of Rage game. Sure they still look 80's but they look more like Fist of the North Star or Mad Max then fitting in a cute story about a young girl who wants to do fashion. I also have to mention something I really did like was the background art, it was very charming and pleasant feel to it, with lots of nice detail showing the town off. Sadly it wasn't used in a better anime. All that being said, I still really enjoyed this anime. Don’t get me wrong, it’s terrible, it really is, but I couldn’t look away and while I was watching it. It starts out with a kind of cute 1980’s charm but then turns into a insane schizophrenic mess at the end it’s hard to look away. I can’t recommend this for everyone, but for anyone who likes something that is so bad it’s good, I think they will get great enjoyment out of this.

I recently heard a friend describe this anime as conflicting with it’s internal parts, but I disagreed. I felt everything worked together well to produce a single narrative. The point of the OVA is all in the end, which I still find playing in my mind from time to time. When the magic happens, it gives a huge payoff for everyone involved, and it does so without words, which I thought was magnificent. The entire town was consumed by the father’s greed, which caused backlash. Meanwhile, a cute loli being abused can still have beautiful thoughts, and saves everyone by becoming a magical idol. It’s asif the inner decay of the community all fell on top of her, and yet she still could dream. When everything she worked for fell apart at the end, she still wanted her dream to come true, and it did come true. She didn’t even want to go there to dance and show off. She accepted that she was too young. She just wanted to show off the dresses she made that no one in the world believed in but her one sister. However, when the world conspired against this simple dream, and no one else was left to fulfill it, she was forced to become that goddess of dreams and fulfilled it herself. And it doesn’t even hand hold you to show you this. This is the best thing about the OVA, that everything is subtle and you have to pay attention to see what’s happening. After all, it’s mostly in the perspective of a little girl who doesn’t understand much of her community’s decay or anything. When everything fell apart, Miho went back into her room and worked on the one thing that gave her solace in her life, her drawings of the dresses she wanted to see dance. The fairies felt so strongly for this cute, innocent little girl who only wanted to dream and let the world see the innocence of everything she wished for. Miho’s dream came true when she became Lala and wore the outfits she made on stage – all of them. This final sequence is breathtaking. No one expected an actual goddess of disco to appear. The father took advantage of the women, and the women became vain and harsh for it. Everyone is too self-important to believe in childlike dreams anymore. However, Miho’s dream was so pure that it shattered the father’s intentions, melted the terrorists’ doubt, and purified the hearts of everyone watching. I was just as awestruck as everyone else. The point of the OVA is that everyone was selfish, doing what they felt was right and it caused problems. What everyone actually needed to see, was the beauty and innocence of a child’s dream. She was the only one who could dream pure enough to save her community, even if she didn’t know it was in peril. It’s reminiscent of the Zentradi being saved by Minmay in Macross. It’s so much I love in animu all together, well compiled and well executed. I watched the OVA twice over when I first found it, and I find myself rewatching the ending from time to time. The animation isn’t that great, but the direction makes up for it. I recommend this for those who feel the passion in the creator’s efforts, likes subtle themes over production value, and enjoys the atmosphere and character of a beautiful city, which, while it may be morally decaying on the inside, it’s in the perspective of a child who’s too innocent to see it.

Wow... what a disappointment. I really thought it was going to be a cool OVA, but it's bad. It could have developed a much better story in those 48 minutes of length, but... I already lost hope when Miho was almost run over bad in a very imbecilic way. But since there was only 30 minutes to go, I watched it to the end. The story is pretty bad, and I will mention everything that I found shitty. The story has no focus, and everybody seems to dislike Miho, except Shuri. It could very well unfold the plot with Miho getting to be a designer for the contest insteadof throwing in a plot out of nothing about a guy (son of another guy who is doing the contest) that nobody cares about and has an extremely vague and unexplored motivation to end up ruining the contest. I don't even remember this guy's name, but he was mad at his father because his father didn't release something of his. Release what? I really don't know, it wasn't even explained, just thrown out there. Is this guy a singer, a dancer, an artist? He himself goes out and gets a bunch of people to blow things up in town to get revenge on his father, and in the end he and a gang go out and blow everything up in the contest. It gets worse. Shuri asks Miho to make an outfit for her to participate in the event, and Miho does. But her aunt, who seems to hate her, rips up the outfit she made. Why? Her aunt keeps picking on the girl for what reason? She also loves to underestimate Miho and refuses to look at the clothing designs she makes, without any motivation. Back to the beginning of the OVA... Some typical Mahou Shoujo bugs are introduced, but they only appear at the end in the most convenient way possible. They appear for Miho to become someone older and go to the contest, which is all destroyed and everyone has already fled because of the explosions. The worst comes now: She arrives from the sky using magic and starts dancing, and out of nowhere a song starts playing... Where did the music come from? Who turned on the stereo with everything destroyed just for a "woman" to dance? And she starts dancing and changes her clothes with magic and nobody wonders how this happened, it is very clueless. It is not only the clothes that change, but also her hair that is long, becomes short and vice versa. In the end she goes flying and a bunch of people (who appeared out of nowhere to see her show) start raising their hands as if they were glorifying a goddess. Basically this OVA doesn't explore the most important things, it throws things out of nowhere to make it seem like it has a plot, and in the end it does nothing. It's just another bad anime. The only thing I can praise is the character designs, especially the girls who are beautiful. I really like the design and aesthetics of the 80's, so there's not much to complain about in this aspect. The animation is not bad, but it is not that good. It is average. It has some nice music, but I can't remember any of it. I just hope Mahou no Stage Fancy Lala doesn't suck like this OVA.

And thus, a new magical girl was born! Except, well, no, not really. Knowing very little about this OVA from 1988, I suppose it was to kick-start a new 'magical girl' franchise. But if that was the case, it really didn't take off -- at least not for a FULL decade later, when a short-lived not-really-the-same anime series and manga series came and went without much of a splash in 1998. Maybe it was because this OVA was pretty bad. A mayor and his rebellious son clash over a fashion show. Young little Cinderella...er,I mean Miho...gets caught up in the middle. Scorned by her older sisters and dreaming of being a fashion designer and model, can this clumsy but strong-headed nine year old suddenly transform into a magical girl, win over the town and save the fashion idol contest? I think we all know the answer. Formulaic plot, but the actual story that fills out that plot is nothing to write home about. The artwork is kinda meh, the dancing scenes are laughably poorly done, the music I don't even remember. This is a totally forgettable, throwaway OVA. I mean, if you want magical girls, there's plenty of other better shows to choose from.