Singles

The Margaret video series was a set of six shoujo OVAs released at monthly intervals in 1993. They were based on manga published in Margaret magazine and animated by Madhouse. In chronological order, they were:

• Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru (April)
• Singles (May)
• POPS (June)
• Oedo wa Nemurenai! (July)
• Kiss wa Me ni Shite (August)
• A-Girl (September)

Orphan has released A-Girl, Kisa wa Me ni Shite, and POPS. Now, our October shoujo spree comes to a temporary end with Singles.

Singles varies the Margaret OVA template a little, by moving the setting from high school to college, but the structure is pretty much the same. Graduating senior Sakisaka Saki is secretly in love with her older sister Noriko's boyfriend, Kazame Kaname, unaware that Noriko and Kaname have broken up. Saki hopes to escape her dilemma when she goes to college, but she ends up attending the same college as Kaname. During orientation, she is recruited to Kaname's video club. He wants to film her, but so does another boy, Tachibana Daichi, who is secretly in love with her. Can the knots be untangled and true love find its true course? Well, duh...

The voice cast includes several familiar seiyuu.

• Minaguchi Yuko (Saki) is best known for Yawara!, her breakout and defining role. She debuted as Kii in Greed, an Orphan release, and appeared in numerous other shows, including Dragon Ball Z and GT, Sailor Moon, and One Piece. She played Roxanne in Alexander (Reign: The Conqueror) and Felicia in Oz (another Orphan release).
• Matsumoto Yasunori (Kaname) starred as Johnny in Starship Troopers and Tooru in Every Day Is Sunday, both Orphan releases. He was in numerous OVAs in the 1990s, including Seikimatsu: Humane Society and Al Caral no Isan, both Orphan releases. Among his notable roles were Wataru Akiyama in Initial D, Jean Havoc in Fullmetal Alchemist, Gourry Gabriev in Slayers, Ryou in Sonic Soldier Borgman, and a personal favorite, Dick Saucer in Dragon Half. He is still active, appearing in Violet Evergarden in 2018.
• Kusao Takeshi (Daichi) played the lead roles in Junk Boy and Fujilog, the title role in Babel II, Trunks in the Dragon Ball Z franchise, the teenaged Tezuka Osamu in Tezuka Osamu Monogatari, and the icy director Kurume Kenjirou in Smash Hit!; the last two are Orphan releases. He is still active, appearing in the recently concluded Major 2nd.
• Amano Yuri (Noriko) played the title role in The Legend of Snow White, Julia in Daddy Long Legs, Kiyone in the Tenchi Muyo franchise, and Moemi in Video Girl Ai. She appeared as Kuzunoha in Akuemon, Angie in Condition Green, Elthena in Eien no Filena, Kitagawa in Nozomi Witches, and Yuko in St. Michaela Gakuen Hyouryuuki, all Orphan releases.

The director, Abe Tsukasa, is better known as an animator.

Credits are pretty much the same as the other Margaret OVAs. Sunachan translated, M74 timed, I edited and typeset, bananadoyouwanna styled the songs, and BeeBee and Nemesis QCed. The raw is a VHS tape rip from ARR. It is missing one of the stereo audio tracks; I've remixed the audio to mono. Orphan bought a video tape of our own, but it has problems; if the encoders can extract a usable raw, we'll do another release.

So at the two-thirds point in the Margaret OVAs, we'll pause for a while. Sunachan has moved on to more interesting projects (sports anime!), and the team is a bit shoujo-ed out. Meanwhile, you can get Singles from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.