Iria: Zeiram the Animation

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For other uses, see Iria (disambiguation).

IRIA: Zeiram the Animation

イ・リ・ア　ゼイラム　ジ　アニメーション
Genre	Adventure, Science Fiction
OVA
Directed by	Tetsuro Amino
Studio
No. of episodes	6
Released	1994
Runtime

IRIA: Zeiram the Animation (イ・リ・ア　ゼイラム　ジ　アニメーション, IRIA: Zeiram the Animation^?) is a six episode OVA series featuring Iria, a female bounty hunter. The series serves as a prequel to the original live-action film Zeiram, taking place several years earlier when Iria is still a rookie and detailing the events surrounding her first encounter with the unstoppable Zeiram.

Iria hails from the Batabitajira region of the planet Myce and is employed by Ghomvak Security & Investigations, a bounty hunting agency. She's somewhat of a tomboy and is considered eccentric for her habit of wearing men's hair ornaments. Her hunter ID number is 9799-5. A hunter's rank is identified by the colour of a stone pendant which resembles a magatama. Iria's pendant as an apprentice is pink with two small dots on it, but when she receives her full license and ID number she is given a blue stone with three red dots on it. Although she is just a rookie at first and a bit reckless, Iria makes up for it with natural ability and a sharp mind. She also seems to have a cool gadget or weapon for just about any situation. Her appearance in the OVA was designed by Masakazu Katsura, loosely based on the original designs by the creator of the Zeiram series, Keita Amemiya. She is played by Yuuko Moriyama in both live-action movies, and by Aya Hisakawa in the animated version.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story begins with Iria as an apprentice to her older brother, Gren, a veteran bounty hunter, and his partner Bob, who work for Ghomvak Security along with a somewhat loutish hunter named Fujikuro. During a rescue mission to a hi-jacked spaceship called the Karma, they discover that the hi-jacker is actually a seemingly indestructible alien called Zeiram that broke out of the cargo hold during transit and began to massacre the crew. Bob is critically wounded by Zeiram while evacuating the survivors, and Gren is lost while attempting to kill Zeiram by destroying the Karma. Returning to Myce, Iria finds herself targeted by assassins working for Tedan Tippedai, the corporation that owned the Karma, and discovers a covered-up plot to control Zeiram in order to use it as a weapon. Iria escapes with the help of Fujikuro and reunites with Bob, who never recovered from his injuries but had his mind downloaded into a computer program. Together they continue to investigate rumours that Zeiram has appeared on Myce, and try to find out what happened to Gren, who also seems to have survived the Karma's destruction...

IRIA was adapted into a Japan-only videogame for the Super Famicom called Hyper Iria, although it doesn't seem to follow the storyline of the OVA very closely. Iria also appears as the main character in Zeiram Zone for the original PlayStation.