Sweet Spot

Here's an almost totally unknown work from director Sugii Gisaburou, the 1991 OVA Sweet Spot. Based on a manga by Chuusonji Yutsuko, it tells the story of OL (office lady) extraordinaire and golf fanatic Oyamada Non. She is 23 and works at Major Products in Tokyo's commercial district, Marunouchi. Between bossing her bosses and managing her managers, she finds time to golf, shop, party, and pursue the important things in life, i.e., marriageable men. In short, it's a comedy.

Sweet Spot doesn't have much of a through plot; rather, it's a series of vignettes. First, Oyamada organizes a "50th anniversary golf competition," even though the company is only 42.5 years old. Next, her drive to succeed convinces her boss that she can entertain an important client at a golf resort; the client turns out to be a lush. She then confronts the different attitudes of the younger generation - her sister and some college students - who regard golf more as a fashion accessory than as a serious game. Finally, she tries her hand at socializing, first at a mixer with colleagues, and then with her manager. Throughout, she runs rings around everyone. The laughs are frequent, unexpected, and not in the least mean-spirited. Even though I concur that "golf is a good walk spoiled," I quite enjoyed the show.

Sweet Spot has unusual character designs, very flat and cartoonish. It was the first project for character designer Eguchi Marisuke, who would collaborate with Sugii Gisaburou on many other projects, including Nozomi Witches and Hidamari no Ki (both Orphan releases), Arashi no Yoru ni, Lupin III: The Secret of Twilight Gemini, and Cinnamon the Movie. Sugii was at the height of his fame, having just finished his Adachi Mitsuru trilogy - Nine, Touch, and Hiatari Ryouko (the first and last are also Orphan releases). The OVA was made in collaboration with Fuji TV. In an unusual move, there's only one real seiyuu - Morio Yumi (Oyamada Non), who starred as Kasumi in Hiatari Ryouko. All the other roles were played by announcers from Fuji TV, most of whom never appeared in any other anime. The ending credits feature live action of the dubbing session, and there's a short promo at the end that showcases more of Fuji TV's announcing talent.

Sweet Spot is another goodie from Erik's pile of Laserdisc Goodness. He ripped it on his Domesday Duplicator and encoded it. There's some video and audio glitches, but as Erik noted in his release blurb, the disc is rotted, and there's only so much software can do. Iri translated and rough timed, Yogicat fine timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and BeeBee QCed. The show has a ton of location signs, and they're all rather jittery, but they're not motion-tracked. Life is too short. Both the digital and analog audio tracks are included. The digital sounds better, but the analog has fewer glitches.

The show is heavy with 1990s slang. For example, Oyamada is referred to as an "oyaji" (old man) gal, because she likes activities associated with older men - golf, table massages, etc. The "kogal" dialog of the college girls is almost incomprehensible, perhaps in order to set up Oyamada's "I can't understand what you people are saying!" outburst. The absurdist humor is evident in this exchange between Oyamada and her section head:

Boss: Oyamada-kun,can you stop wearing spikes and making noise as you walk around the office?
Oyamada: I cannot.
Boss: Huh?
Oyamada: Section Head, even as I'm making tea, I'm walking on the fairway called life.

Well, perhaps you need to be there.

So if you're ready for a break from the heavy stuff Orphan's been releasing lately, you can find Sweet Spot on the usual torrent site or download it from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. As Oyamada says, "Shot!"