Early Reins is an original OLM OVA from the early 2000s. That's right. This is from the Pokemon, Figure 17 & Gunsmith Cats studio. A lot of their works I've reviewed have been pretty middling so, let's hope this isn't the one that gets really bad. Story: The narrative is simple enough. It's America in ye olde Western times where everyone wore stupid hats and Sheriff Bart overcame racism to be the greatest, most charming Sheriff of all time. Our story sees a passenger train with union soldiers aboard get overrun by former confederate bandits. The group takes six women and a decorated union soldierhostage and tries to divert the train's cargo to their encampment. Unfortunately for them, their female hostages include a rookie Sheriff and a highly skilled gunslinger.

The story has one major narrative issue. Basically, at the end of the thing, we get a twist that hasn't been foreshadowed at all, doesn't make a lot of sense and comes across more as their way of de-escalating a conflict between two of the major characters than as something that was planned from the start.

With that being said, the OVA is pretty compelling from start to finish. The pacing is well done with the way OLM uses rising action and quieter moments to build up to the climax. There is also one twist that does work to kind of balance out the one that doesn't. Part of why the narrative works so well is that it has a lot of elements you would expect from a Western, like the train robbery, gun play betwixt bandits and western heroes and so on. but it also subverts the expectations for those tropes by giving you heroines instead of heroes. It also does have a good ending point where they could potentially do more with it but it still feels complete.

Characters:

The most interesting characters in the OVA are the young Sheriff, Margaret, and the one-eyed gunslinger, Lola. Aside from that, the characters are fine. They're a bit under-developed but considering that the OVA is only 45 minutes long and they have to fit in all that Western action, they couldn't have gone much beyond archetypes, realistically.

Art:

The artwork is a little dated. In the sense that there are older OVAs like 3x3 Eyes or Bubblegum Crisis that look better than this. The character designs are good. They look like they could be in the Wild Arms games. The action sequences are largely decent as well. They can be a little choppy at points but they still look good and suitably epic. The backgrounds aren't all that great. Mainly because the big backdrops are the train cars and a big expansive Desertscape with basically nothing in it.

Sound:

The actors are pretty skilled. Kawakami Tomoko, Yanagihara Aiko, Takeuchi Junko and the rest all give solid performances. The music is very much in keeping with the Western aesthetic. It's pretty good but not something I'd listen to outside of the anime.

Ho-yay:

There's the tiniest modicum of potential romantic tension between Lola and Margaret but it's really played more as them working together and gaining a mutual respect than anything else. Maybe if this got a proper full anime it would go further.

Areas of Improvement:

1. This OVA should definitely either be longer, thereby giving more time for character development or they should have had fewer major characters and developed the ones they had better.

2. You need some degree of foreshadowing for a big story twist. Something the viewer can look back at and say "oh, that makes sense now." A twist that comes out of nowhere just feels like an ass pull.

3. The animation could stand to be smoother. While the choppiness isn't bad, it is noticeable.

Final Thoughts:

Early Reign is pretty good. It has all the action you'd expect from a Western with a simple but compelling story and some decent characterisation. Overall, I'll give this one a solid 7/10. If you want to see an anime Western consider giving it a go.