Being a tale of revenge and corporate malfeasance, the OVA strikes a serious tone with few moments of levity. Iria, being the main character and responsible for carrying the weight of the series, is no-nonsense and by the book. She is naturally skilled if a bit inexperienced, and takes her fair share of cuts and bruises when she becomes too reckless. Iria is a likeable tomboy, and maintains a mostly neutral disposition. Her brother Glenn is skilled at Bounty Hunting and obviously cares for Iria immensely. But he doesn’t have enough screen time to be much more than that. Out of all the protagonists, Fujikuro and Kei are the ones that show the most character growth; the former being a rival hunter who becomes concerned for Iria’s well being and the latter who initially views Iria as a robbery victim to a mentor to emulate. Outside of the corporation, the only antagonist is Zeiram itself. It’s an imposing design that takes inspiration from Darth Vader and the Alien Xenomorph, but as a character, remains a silent automaton.

And that’s the ultimate weakness of the series. It does everything well enough but doesn’t much to excel. The marketing uses the designs of Iria and Zeiram to catch your interest. But everything else seems like lost potential. I normally don’t look at reviews, but I was curious to see what other people had to say and if nostalgia had any influence. Most liked the show, but there were a few that thought it was merely meh. Nobody thought it was a complete failure. It was tough to find much production history on the show or live action sequels. But I read the show’s creators were inspired by the Female protagonist Ripley and the Aliens movies. And that is very evident with the Iria-Zeiram dynamics with the "shady corporation" motiff. But this series isn’t a claustrophobic horror movie and can’t be compared to as such. It is wide open and takes place on two planets with the spaceship Karma. Ironically, it really didn’t need to be. Both planets look similar to one another, and the ship was only a brief plot device to introduce Zeiram as a threat. It could have taken place just on Myra with Zeiram crash landing on the planet as hidden payload by the corporation. Which also gets to Zeiram as the protagonist. It seems to be more than some mindless animal, with the capability to plan and attack with purpose. But it’s never 100 percent clear what that purpose is. It’s only brought to the planet through nefarious machinations. And we don’t get much insight into how the corporation was going to control and utilize it as a weapon. Like the OVA itself, Zeiram seems a bit underdeveloped. It’s imposing and dangerous enough to be an onscreen threat, but it appears too often to maintain a mysterious mystique.

Music and voices live up to the task, although I can’t remember much of the soundtrack standing out during the show. As with the rest of the show, it didn’t offend nor excel. The original English dubbing is done well for 90’s anime standards, but does suffer shortcomings as a result of timing and script. The Japanese version is probably the better choice unless you can’t stand reading subtitles.

So, should you watch Iria: Zeiram the Animation? Since it’s free to watch online, you certainly should if you have any interest in anything Anime. I think most viewers will at least enjoy it. Once you get past some of the visual designs, you may find the story is a bit plain and vanilla. Which seemed to be masked with the majority of nostalgic tinged reviews. But sometimes, you just want plain old vanilla ice cream with one of those cocktail umbrellas on the top.