On May 26th, 1995 the gates to the magnificent world of El-Hazard were opened. Thirty years later, it still stands as my favorite anime series of all time, if not one of my favorite stories, period.
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World was originally a 7-part OVA [Original Video Animation – a direct-to-video series not aired on TV or released in theaters first (Note: being direct-to-video was not seen as a mark of lower quality in the anime industry during the 80s and 90s, and OVAs often had larger budgets and more freedom with runtimes than TV series.)] It was animated by Anime International Company (AIC), produced by Pioneer LDC, and created by Hiroaki Hayashi (Original concept/ Director), Ryoe Tsukimura (Writer), and Kazuto Nakazawa (Character designs), with music by Seikou Nagaoka.
Hayashi has said that El-Hazard was heavily inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story A Princess of Mars, which was the beginning of the Barsoom/John Carter stories that inspired a lot of science fiction and science fantasy of the early 20th century.
Like Barsoom, El-Hazard is a portal fantasy, with a group of normal Earth humans transported to a strange, new world and where they find themselves playing vital roles in the grand events that unfold.
The basic gist of the story is that Makoto Mizuhara, a high school student at Shinonome High School, is seemingly “called” to recently discovered ancient ruins under his school. When he entered the ruins, he is greeted by a beautiful and mysterious woman who acts as if she knows him, even though he’s never met her before. She informs him that she must now send him to El-Hazard where he will confront his destiny.
A moment later, he finds himself transported to an alien world full of strange creatures and peoples seemingly out of the pages of Scheherazade’s A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Transported to this new world with him (though he is not aware of all of them at the time) are three others who were at the school at the same time. They are his history teacher, Mr. Fujisawa, his childhood friend/crush, Nanami, and his one-sided rival Katsuhiko (who is also Nanami’s older brother.)
The story takes off from there. It has almost everything! Monsters, princesses, superpowers, mistaken identities, war, comedy, drama, prophecies, quests, magical warriors, subterfuge, demon-gods, apocalyptic weapons…
…and even true love.
Part of me wants to recap the whole four-hour story, but a bigger part of me wants people to watch it and fall in love with it like I did when I first saw it in 1997.
The original OVA is not available currently on any streaming services and Pioneer/Geneon Entertainment went bankrupt in the 2000s, so many of their older titles have vanished or have been in licensing limbo. As of right now, it is available on Blu-Ray through a company called Nozomi Entertainment, which was bought by Crunchyroll. However, Crunchyroll have stopped selling it on their store website, so it is not known once the existing discs are sold if further pressings will be made. If you want to own a physical copy, you might want to buy one sooner rather than later.
Nozomi did release the first 45-minute English-dubbed episode of the series on their YouTube channel, so if you can probably get a good idea if you would want to see the whole thing from that:
It’s definitely a 90s anime and it does lean into some of the tropes that were popular at the time, especially considering that both Hayashi and Tsukimura were heavily involved with the original Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVAs. However, I like to think it stands out from other fare of the era and it zigged when other series zagged, but that might simply be the rose-colored nostalgia goggles firmly affixed to my face. I will let others judge for themselves.
Like many 90s series that achieved some success with the audience at the time, El-Hazard became a franchise. There was a second follow-up OVA series, as well as a 13-episode follow-up tv series that continued the original story (though without most of the original creative team.) There was also another 26-episode tv series that came out around the same time as the original OVA was being released that was a psuedo-retelling of the original story, but with many major and significant changes to the plot and characters. Unlike the original series, that version is available on streaming through Crunchyroll and on YouTube. It does lean heavier into goofball comedy than melodrama, so if that’s your thing, you might enjoy that version more.
Along with the other video versions, there were also music CDs, drama CDs, radio drama shows, a Sega Saturn video game (which was another version of the story), art books, manga [comics (which were yet another different retelling of the story)], a tabletop role-playing game, and the occasional merch from figurines to playing cards.
Honestly, I could literally sit here all day and gush about these series. I’m such an uberfan that in the days of Geocities and other website hosts, I had not one, but two websites purely dedicated to El-Hazard fandom. Even all these years later I can still make a detailed argument that there are at least 13 distinct possible timelines of events depending on which radio dramas you listen to and supplemental books you read. Gushing would not be a problem. But hey, if you remember and liked this story, too, then please feel free to drop me a line through email or Bluesky and we can geek out together sometime.
Because if you still love this story, even thirty years later, then the gates of El-Hazard will always be open to you.
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, El-Hazard: The Wanderers, and El-HazardL The Alternative World and all associated video, images, and audio are owned by AIC, Pioneer LDC, Geneon, Nozomi Entertainment, and Crunchyroll. Copyrighted 1995. Used without permission under Fair Use doctrine covering commentary/critique
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