Coicent/Five Numbers!

This release pairs two anime sci-fi OVAs. Coicent is a sort of rom-com-mecha escapade (with a nod to the Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday) set in the futuristic city of Nara, which is celebrating its millennium anniversary with high-tech attractions. A lifelike robot named Toto, programmed to look and behave like a goddess, escapes her cruel creators (disguised, naturally, as a schoolgirl) for a romantic idyll with a student named Shinichi (voiced by Kensho Ono, famous in Japan as the dubbed voice of Harry Potter). The darker Five Numbers! is set on a space-station prison orbiting Earth, where five nameless convicts serving life sentences wake from drug-induced slumber to find the complex deserted, except for an old man and his cat. The men struggle to figure out the situation in this sardonic piece that could have come from the mind of Rod Serling in a nihilistic mood. Presented on a dual-language disc, rated TV-PG, extras include cast and crew interviews. Recommended. (C. Cassady)