Mysterious relics belonging to ancient civilisations are being uncovered around the world and organisations from various countries round the world including America and Russia are after their power, including the world's biggest weapons manufacturer, Trident. After discovering a message on a plate of unknown material, "Seal away our legacy if you do not have the wisdom to yield it yet" a single organisation known as ARCAM makes it their purpose to keep the relics away from falling into the wrong hands.

Repurposing such relics dubbed "OOParts" ARCAM creates tools for their special operatives known as "Spriggan (derived from Latin "spiritus" meaning spirit)". Mystery fanatic 16 year old Yu Ominae is one such member granted with a specially enhanced "Armoured Muscle Suit", created from orichalcum they once discovered and amplifies muscle strength thirty times. Being dispatched around the world for on relic recovery missions becomes a large part of his life.

Was looking for a sci-fi show that doesn't involve cocky kids stealing mechas and getting away with whatever they want. Then I remembered seeing a bit of this on TV and decided to watch this although I know nothing about the plot, just went in blind.

It gets off to a fairly good start since it gets to the action quickly. There's the odd scene of some lore and terminology but it doesn't bog you down with too much of it as it lays out the world setting and whatever relic they're after.

Each episode is over 40 minutes long in this 6 episode ONA. The show's episodic, each episode features a different ruin in a different country and our elite Spriggan team does their best to fight against other country's elites. Somehow it manages to not feel like watching an RPG game where Yu and his friends are just making their way through a dungeon and boss fights.

There's a dash of comedy to lighten up the mood after all the gore filled fights or in-between even such as the treasure hunting, money loving thief Soumei Yoshino. Yu is your usual cheeky high school student of the show who just sleeps in class, ticking off the teacher and his classmates but we hardly get any glimpses of his daily life. So don't expect any character development because it never delves into any of the character's pasts. You meet them for an episode then they're gone.

Background art isn't that impressive, very basic and does the job. When there aren't any fight scenes the character animation feels really rigid but once you reach the action fight scenes, it's smoother and well choreographed. Feels like two different teams worked on them separately. Other than that it's full of gore with overpowered characters duking it out with each other while the average soldier gets shattered into pieces so not pretty.

I quite enjoyed the show. Good pacing, science versus myths surrounding advanced civilisations and a team that defends it all. It's fun mixed with intense action scenes. It's just a straight forward action show with no clever plotting.

So want a sci-fi action show that doesn't involve high school students piloting giant mecha suits of armour? Here's one for you.

Looking forward to a season 2 that's been hinted at.

There's an older 1998 movie length adaptation which I decided to watch after this and it feels like the original lengthy version of episode 2 focusing on Noah's Ark with the same villains even. Direction's very similar with a lot of the exact same dialogue but the scenes that are different feel quite out of place. Colonel McDougal's voice acting is really poor which is understandable when they actually got a kid to act out the entire role instead of a woman like modern shows are done.

You get some background on Yu that the ONA only teases you with but I'm presuming they will shed light in a future season so a minor gripe.

The first half hour feels like a gangster chase movie and the loud soundtrack is another thing that felt out-of-place.

I'd skip the movie and just watch this series instead unless you're up for some 90s psychic kids on the rampage vibes, some proper intro to the AMS and see some old skool Macs. Otherwise you can just skip it and stick with this ONA.