Green Legend Ran DVD

The oceans are gone. The rain has stopped. Six massive alien objects — the Rodo — fell from the sky and drove themselves into the Earth, and in doing so drew all the planet's water and vegetation into themselves, leaving the surface a vast, scorching desert. Centuries later, humanity survives in scattered settlements, ruled over by the Rodoist faith: a theocratic military order that worships the Rodo as divine and enforces its doctrine with armed soldiers. The little water and greenery that remains is controlled entirely by the Rodoists. Ran is a hot-tempered young man who has lived his whole life in the desert slums, driven by one goal — find the silver-haired Rodo soldier who killed his mother years ago and take his revenge. His path toward that goal pulls him into the orbit of the Hazard, an armed resistance movement fighting against Rodoist control, and more importantly into the orbit of Aira: a soft-spoken girl with silver hair whose mark — identical to the Rodoist elite — suggests a connection to the alien Rodo that neither she nor anyone else fully understands. The Holy Mother, the spiritual center of the Rodoist order, wants Aira specifically. The reason, once revealed, will determine whether the Earth lives or dies.

Green Legend Ran is a three-episode OVA released between 1992 and 1993, directed by Satoshi Saga and produced by AIC. It sits comfortably in the tradition of early 1990s environmentally-themed sci-fi adventure anime — drawing comparisons to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for its desert-world ecology and to Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water for its visual style and youthful protagonists — and features notably fluid character animation with a distinctive angular design aesthetic that animators Kenji Teraoka and Yoshiharu Shimizu also brought to the Final Fantasy OVA series.

Released in North America by Pioneer Entertainment on VHS and laserdisc in 1994, and later on DVD in 1998 — one of Pioneer's very first DVD releases, notable as a piece of early anime DVD history.  An edited version of the series also aired on the Sci-Fi Channel's Saturday Anime block in the late 1990s. 

Notable Staff & Voice Talent

Director: Satoshi Saga
Studio: AIC (Anime International Company)

Japanese Cast:
• Hikaru Midorikawa as Ran
• Kikuko Inoue as Aira (Tenchi Universe, El-Hazard, Battle Skipper, Gate Keepers)
• Takeshi Aono as Hazard Commander (Tenchi Universe, Slayers, DBZ)
• Issei Futamata as additional cast (Urusei Yatsura 2)

English Dub Cast:
• Jason Gray-Stanford as Ran
• Janyse Jaud as Aira
• Paul Dobson as additional cast (Jin-Roh, Green Legend Ran)
• David Kaye as additional cast
• Michael Dobson as additional cast

DVD Features

• Bilingual Audio on Single Disc
• Pioneer Entertainment Previews
• Note: Original 1998 Pioneer DVD release contains no menu navigation — one of Pioneer's earliest DVD releases

Spoken Languages: English & Japanese Audio, English Subtitles

Edition Details

Japanese Title: グリーンレジェンド乱 (Gurīn Rejendo Ran)
Runtime: ~140 Minutes (Complete OVA, 3 Episodes)
Director: Satoshi Saga
DVD Release Year: 1998 (U.S. Release, Pioneer Entertainment — one of their first DVD releases)
Original Release Date (Japan): 1992–1993
Publisher: Pioneer Entertainment (Geneon)
Rating: Unrated
Region: Region 1 (U.S. / Canada)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic, Adventure
Themes: Alien Invasion, Desert Earth, Theocratic Oppression, Resistance Movement, Environmental Allegory

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.