We finally learn the girls name after 18 minutes more than a third of the way in. Not that the main characters names matter anyway nor does the plot nor the characters backgrounds nor really any of the specifics. In this way California Crisis reminds me of Monte Hellmans sunbaked road movie classic TwoLane Blacktop that is there is a story one about a road trip but that story also happens to be the aspect of least interest. Forget the story and the focus is now what is being presented on screen. Youve got the really striking art style reminscent of Patrick Nagel with its bold colour palette on clean yet detailed line art and twotone shading that gives a strong sense of directional lighting the wonderfully 80s boogie soundtrack delivered by city pop singer Miho Fujiwara the 80s Hollywood movie staples of SoCal dive bars diners and car chases. https://i.ur.com/pW6io2y.jpg But even looking at the plot certain familiar threads pop up like the optimistic scifi elements tying outer space to the domestic life Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was also released in 1986 or the highly idealized sexual freedom of American women think of all those provocative comingofage sex comedies the 80s is known for. Yet at the core of California Crisis is a novelly foreign critique of the American Dream. Here we have Noera the male protagonist who claims he cares about his job his car his wallet etc. but whose actions say otherwise he is barely coerced by a complete stranger to take a road trip to Death Valley and during said trip ends up totaling two cars on unpaid loans. There is no hesitance in this adventure the brakes never pulled to sit and wonder what the point of it all is only the impulse to move forward to the next leg. Reflected is an attitude that pervaded Americas and Japans economic prospects of the time. During a reunion scene between Noera and his old classmate Jack Varo his friend unwittingly sums up the mood of the trickledown era while reminiscing about their high school basketball days: Those times were great werent they? We all just did what we wanted. Still California Crisis is even more explicit. The trip to Death Valley is initially decided on a whim when after receiving a vision from the mysterious orb at the diner Marsha dazedly blurts American Dream out of the blue. This tenuous association along with Marshas suspicious lack of a past gives the impression that shes running from or towards something. But their arrival at Death Valley is met with a final car chase after which they end up breaking the Space Mind after falling into a river. Whats left is a transparent glass ball leaking river water. And then the OVA abruptly ends their journey as fruitless as the American Dream. https://i.ur.com/u9cUjmL.jpg California Crisis is a document of what director Mizuho Nishikubo and his production team saw and felt on their location scouting trip to California. The sum total is a time capsule of a certain era of American pop culture which is a bit odd coming from a Japanese animation but the accuracy is undeniable. Theres a chase scene set to a neonlit night club performance whose storyboard could have been taken straight out of a classic 80s action movie Im thinking Beverly Hills Cop?. Captured is not just the decades aesthetic but also the deadends of its materialism. And how fitting for this idiosyncratic Westernfacing production which could only have been born out of the 80s anime boom from a studio that almost immediately went out of business.