"No love for kick-boxing! ProWres forever!"At this point in time, it would truly surprise me if someone hasn't seen Ayane's High Kick yet. I still see this title almost everywhere at sells anime in my small town as I know it can found quite cheap at online retailers. It's probably been re-packaged at least three times by now as well. If, by chance, you haven't seen this two part OVA yet then I can safely say that you're not missing much. Not that the OVA is bad, just that looking at it now, it feels like it was a missed opportunity for something more.

Central Park Media - Action - DVD - 60 min. - $9.99Ayane (Yuko Miyamura) is an upbeat high school girl with dreams of wrestling for All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling. Which, at the time, was probably the premiere female pro-wrestling ("Joshi") association in the world. On top of that world was Manami Toyota (which the subtitles spell as "Toyoda"), the WWWA Champion, whom Ayane dreams of fighting. Sadly for Ayane, her audition goes very wrong and she doesn't make the cut. She is approached by Kunimitsu Tange (Akio Ohsuka) who comes off very creepy as he oogles over Ayane's legs. He convinces her to train with his "gym" (a storage shack underneath a freeway) to become a great fighter. Except he doesn't tell Ayane that he intends to train her as a kick-boxer.

Everything plays out like you would expect it to. There are training montages, lingering doubts about what Ayane is getting herself into by her friends and the eventual fight where Ayane finally realizes that she's in a kickboxing fight and not a pro-wrestling bout. Topped off with the comeback K.O. victory in her first bout. Her friends, the shy glasses girl Saruraku Miyagawa (Maria Kawamura) and the fight Otaku Kappei Inagagi (Keppei Yamaguchi), support Ayane's efforts even if Ayane isn't so thrilled at the prospect of being a kick-boxer. To make things somewhat more interesting, a rival is introduced who quickly gets on both mine and Ayane's nerves and the Vice-Principal of the school wants her expelled for her activites. Why is it always the Vice-Principal who is the bad guy?

Ayane's High Kick is a by the numbers affair that has a little bit of charm to it. Ayane is determined to follow her dream, but she finds herself warming up to Kunimitsu's belief in her. He's eccentric, but he truly thinks she can kick her way to the top and we all buy into it. Sadly, the second episode ends in a completely unsatisfactory way that indicated that there may have been more to this show planned. However, it wasn't to be. It's a shame because this could have turned into something really fun if it was extended into a 13 or 26 episode series where it would have time to develop. The female version of the great series Fighting Spirit (Hajime no Ippo) perhaps? It could have been. Instead, it's a fairly average OVA across the board with some good voice acting talent and a bunch of potential. Sadly, potential alone doesn't quite cut it.

Thumbs in the middle.