Blazing Transfer Student

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Blazing Transfer Student
炎の転校生 (Honō no Tenkōsei)
Genre	Parody, Sports
Manga
Author	Kazuhiko Shimamoto
Publisher	Shogakukan, Inc.
Demographic	Shōnen
Serialized in	Shōnen Sunday
Original run	1983 – 1985
OVA
Director	Katsuhiko Nishijima
Studio	Gainax
Episodes	2
Released	May 21, 1991

Blazing Transfer Student (炎の転校生, Honō no Tenkōsei^?) (BTS) is a manga by a Kazuhiko Shimamoto. It was adapted into a still rather obscure 2-episode Original Video Animation series made in 1991 by Gainax (though technically it was the world's first OLA — see below). For some reason, Gainax does not list it as one of their official works, even though their name is clearly and rather largely emblazoned, in English, during the opening and closing credits.

BTS parodies anime of the 1970s, particularly Tomorrow's Joe, and is complete with intentionally jerky animation, dirty-looking cels, thick black lines, and retro character designs. In this series, Takizawa Noboru transfers to a school where all disputes are settled through fighting. He quickly runs afoul of the school bully, Ibuki Saburo, who has a boxing match with "God's Hall Monitor", Jonichi Koichi, to determine who will date the lovely Yukari. Takizawa is enraptured with Yukari, and decides to intervene in the fight which Ibuki managed to win by bending the rules (of both the fight and of basic physics). Takizawa loses the fight in the first OVA to Ibuki's deadly deathblow punch, but in the second OVA Takizawa develops his own deathblow punch and eventually wins the day.

BTS was technically not an OVA, but an OLA — Original Laserdisc Animation. It was released to laserdisc only, instead of to both VHS and laserdisc, as had been the usual custom with OVAs. By this time laserdisc had become the dominant format for the dedicated collector of anime in Japan.