Ushio and Tora

I suppose I should make some constructive use of this series, so I guess I'll review it. Ushio and Tora is a ten episode OVA based on the manga series of the same name. It's your standard monster fighting series I suppose, with nothing terrifically fascinating about it. The most I can say about is that it's not bad, though not great either. The humor is good enough, the action scenes are easy to follow, and the voice actors did a great job. The word I could best use to describe it is formulaic. The basic plot is a kid, Ushio Aotsuki, is the descendant of a famous Demon slayer, who years ago pinned a foul beast to a rock with the Legendary beast spear, a weapon capable of destroying monsters, but at the price of the humans soul, which may lead to the wielder of the beast spear becoming a monster themselves. This translates to Ushio growing longer hair and fangs, but his flesh also grows thicker, preventing attacks that would normally tear right through a human from going all the way through. As luck would have it, Ushio just happens to live on top of the spot where the monster was trapped, and he winds up stumbling upon him while moving some of the offerings made to his family into storage.
This releases the demons aura, but not after a humorous scene where Ushio and the Demon, from here on referred to as Tora, exchange insults after Tora asks to be released so that him may kill again. Ushio of course refuses and rubs the spear even deeper into the wound. Any way, Ushio's schoolamtes, Asako and Mayuko come by and are assaulted by fish demons, so Ushio needs the spear, but that means releasing Tora. Bad news, right? Well after a breif fight between the two, they team up to destroy the giant monster that has appeared. Basically Tora then swears he's going to eat Ushio, so he sticks around the temple, waiting for the moment to strike, and Ushio is making him clean up the mess he sort of started.
I can't really go into detail about the other episodes, but six of them are two parters, with these episodes proving to be the most violent. I may go into more detail at a later date, but they can be summarized like this: Monster unleahed, Ushio and Tora fight, either by a misunderstanding, or because Tora really was trying to eat Ushio, They team up and either kill the monster or learn some moral.
It's a two disc DVD set, with five episodes on each disc, with a blooper reel and a three episode comedy special, though they're only ten minutes long each, so don't get excited. The episodes are basically one that introduces an Comedy Special character, a monster that cleans the bathroom, one where Tora takes care of a kitten, and a silent movie one where most of the characters from the series chase Tora. This last one is my personal favorite of the three, if only because I enjoy seeing all the characters Super Deformed.
I've never read the manga, so I'm not sure how great that is, but I'm sure it ends better than this. Not sure whether or not it's been translated, though I doubt it. 33 volumes though, so you just know it lasts a lot longer than this. If each book covers at least three stories per volumeThat still leaves upwards to thirty-one volumes. None of the episodes seem to last longer than a few chapters, if that. Maybe on at most for the first batch of episodes are only three chapters long, but I'm sure the two parters were longer. They also left out a few stories from the manga, so that's a bummer. I usually don't advocate using scans of manga, but I suppose since this isn't available in english, I can make an exception, but you really should track down the OVA to balance this out, at least a little.