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[VGMP] Sega Hard Girls 8 - OVA Movie References

Rory Joscelyne • 12 April 2022

VGMP: SEGA References from Bonus Episode 14

We've finished the series proper but WAIT... there's just one more...

Sega Hard Girls returns in a one-off special called (among other things) Hang-On. You'll have to forgive the image quality on this episode, the full series was released on Blu-Ray by Diskotek Media but it didn't include the final episode. The Bonus Episode was only on the Japanese DVD release in 2016 (after the release of the Blu-Rays in Japan) and as such there is no HD version (or translated copy) available officially yet. Having said that, we've been translating the episode and will release it when it's ready.

PART 1 - Character References
PART 2 - Atrium References
PART 3 - Classroom References
PART 4 - Episodes 1 to 4
PART 5 - Episodes 5 to 8
PART 6 - Episodes 9 to 11
PART 7 - Episodes 12 and 13
PART 8 - Episode 14/The OVA Movie

In the meantime, enjoy finding out what all the references are below (with some details coming from our in-development translation!).
The show opens (and regularly returns to) two actual Sega Saturn consoles who commentate and argue over the competition (among many other things).

Everything about these two characters stands out from the rest of the show. The most obvious is that they are still actual games consoles, not a humanoid reinterpretation. Second is that they both have male voices (With V-Saturn's voice being particularly deep at times). The disc drives flap open and closed as they talk, and they glide along the floor whenever they "walk" from one place to another. They are only ever seen in front of the Sehagaga Academy, and they never interact with anyone in the show (Except Hercules Ricky Blue from Mushiking, but we'll get to that).

Most importantly, these are two Japanese-exclusive variations of the original Sega Saturn. To help build the Saturn's userbase, Sega decided to allow different companies (with the appropriate licencing) to release their own version of the Saturn. The V-Saturn was released by Victor (known internationally as JVC - literally Japan Victor Company) but the only real differences were the smoky grey colour and BIOS startup logo - now showing a V-Saturn logo. Something that isn't visible on the Sega Hard Girls model is the His Master's Voice dog next to a gramophone, which is printed just above the black window to the CD Tray. This was placed on here to sell more music within the music side of Victor's business, and Victor own the rights to the logo in Japan.

The Hi-Saturn has a very similar story to the V-Saturn - it's a licenced co-branding agreement with Japanese company Hitachi. However it had one upgrade - it had the MPEG Video CD Card built in as standard. Essentially the Saturn could play very low-resolution (about 240p) digital video well enough, however with the additional MPEG Video CD Card it was able to decode and play 480p/higher resolution video signals and it could play VCD (Video CDs) flawlessly. 

Video CD's were the true precursor to DVDs, and were released internationally - however because of their pixelated nature (due to file size limitations) they never beat out VHS in the West. In Asia, this was a completely different story, with VCD becoming the video standard for at least a decade. This is because VHS tapes tended to decay very fast in Asia, due to the high humidity - an issue that never affected CDs.

The final part to mention on these two is that Hi-Saturn says at one point;
"I wonder if I can use a car navi to play Outrun..."
Outside of the nod to 1986 Sega arcade game Outrun, there's definitely another reference here since this is suggested by Hi-Saturn. You see, Hitachi actually made two completely different Sega Saturn systems in Japan - just a year apart from one another. The Hi-Saturn Navi was their second attempt, but this time it looks quite different - it includes a flip-up LCD screen and a GPS Antenna Port. The Hi-Saturn Navi was a home games console designed to be twinned as an in-car GPS/Satellite Navigation System. The whole idea is bonkers, but Japan have always been an experimental country.
You can read more about it here.
For the first time in the anime, we are introduced to four other girls (as well as Dreamcast, Saturn and Mega Drive) who will be competing in the Hang-On Competition. I'm a little disappointed that there's no Game Gear here as her design is quite inventive but here's the rundown;

IMAGE 1: Sega Mark III - A girl with bunny ears and a top-hat, she's got clear design elements that are similar to Professor Asobin (see our previous articles), which in turn share a similarity to Center-Sensei - even her pose here is identical. She's played as something of a magician.

IMAGE 2: Robo-Pitcher - An odd choice for inclusion, Robo-Pitcher was a Japan-exclusive toy by Sega. You loaded it with small balls which it would spit out, and then you had a small racket/bat to hit the balls. Basically a baseball trainer for children. It has absolutely nothing to do with the games consoles by Sega at all. An image of the real Robo Pitcher is next to the character in the gallery above.

IMAGE 3: Master System - A young musical maestro in black and red. You can see elements of the Master System's exterior design on her skirt and versions of the controller are blended into the design of her gloves. In reality the Master System is actually just a Sega Mark III with a different exterior and a couple of additions built in. The Mark III had an optional FM Sound Unit that you could add, the Master System (in Japan) included this as standard - this meant that games programmed to use it wound up having far superior sound more akin to 16 bit machines than it's competition (the NES). The other addition (in Japan only) was a 3D Glasses port that allowed compatibility with 3D titles using the official glasses.

IMAGE 4: Mega Drive 2 - The younger sister to Mega Drive, she's dressed very similarly but the clothing is oversized, she wears a blue tie and her hair is different. She acts like a stereotypical younger sister, always calling on her older sibling. I've always found this particular design disappointing, as it's not different enough from Mega Drive whereas the visual differences between the hardware were much clearer. Considering a chibi 3D character had already been made for Game Gear (it's briefly visible in Episode 8) I think she would have been a more visually interesting character to include instead.
We get a brief shot of the girls all together, and then the three leads move further into the foreground so we can get a clearer shot of the new character designs joining us for this episode.

Of note is the world they are currently in - that of Hang-On, a Yu Suzuki super-scaler game. In Episode 12 we get a still shot of the girls actually riding motorcycles here (Which I'd still love to see as an official game or even a mod) but sadly this is as much of the Hang-On world as we get to see in this episode.

While it's not visually interesting, Sega Mark III does suggest (before the race is fully explained) that she might borrow one of the Sega Rally cars. Sega Rally Championship was a 1994 Sega racing game that was hugely successful. It had two main selectable vehicles - the Toyota Celica GT-Four or the Lancia Delta HF Integrale, with the Lancia Stratos HF unlockable in the Saturn port (or an easter egg in the arcade version). This is the only mention of Sega Rally anywhere in the series - yet if you go back to our first article you'll note the American Blu-Ray includes the Lancia Delta HF Integrale in the main atrium. I can only assume this is where they plucked that reference from.
One final thing before we get started with the main episode, is that this is almost impossible to place into the timeline due to either mistakes by the animation department, or an intent to make it not fit in. To be clear, the Japanese culture generally doesn't care about "canon" - this has been seen across multiple series from Resident Evil to Sonic the hedgehog. If it happens on screen, it's canon regardless of what came before or after it. Because of this apathetic approach to story canon, it's likely the following mistake was done on purpose to keep the timeline nebulous.

In image 1, you can see the SC-3000 poster on the wall behind Saturn. This image showed up in the first episode and remained in the room until about Episode 6, when we see it has been replaced with a Quartet/Double Target poster. This Quartet poster remains throughout the series - specifically still being visible in Episode 10 when the girls went to Jet Set Radio.

However Sega Mark III has a present for Mega Drive - the training wheels she was given (and humiliated by) during the girls' adventures in Jet Set Radio. That would place this episode (if we were establishing a canon) between either Episode 10 and 11, or between Episode 11 and 12 (Episodes 12 and 13 run into one another). It is possible someone switched the poster back to the SC-3000 one after the Jet Set Radio adventure, but it's just a piece of trivia worth mentioning.
The first leg of the race includes the girls having to get past a 100 Man Kumite in Virtua Fighter. The girls push Saturn into fighting Akira while they run past everyone. Saturn reaches the end first anyway because Akira punches her across the arena.

The second leg sees the girls return to Space Channel 5. Sadly (likely because they didn't have adult forms made) the 4 new girls don't appear in this sequence. Ulala asks the girls a True or False question on whether she is hungry for Yakisoba noodles. Dreamcast believes Ulala wants the noodles (and guesses correctly), whereas Saturn and Mega Drive believe Yakisoba noodles are too bland for Ulala and choose False.

The third leg of the race sees the results of the girls' quiz answers, materialising in Puyo Puyo Waterslide. Dreamcast gets a smooth ride all the way down, while Saturn and Mega Drive get stuck in the pipe due to a grey Puyo. They're eventually popped into motion by other characters choosing wrong and hitting them from behind.

The fourth leg is in Border Break. Mega Drive and Saturn appear (before Dreamcast, oddly) to find the 4 new girls in a crumpled mess. We never find out what happened to them after choosing an alternate door from the main trio during the Virtua Fighter Kumite.
Center-Sensei tells them that he's going to change things up a bit, and give the girls a "vehicle" to help them reach the end of the race.

The image displayed while he explains this is actually of Sonic in his car from the game Sega and All-Stars Racing Transformed (2012) The full artwork is seen on the game's front cover art.
The "vehicles" come in the form of Sega franchises (sadly nothing new, all characters we've met before - likely to save on cost).

Mega Drive gets Sonic the Hedgehog as her ride. Oddly the last time the girls were chibi around Sonic all three could fit in his quills, now she's not much shorter than him.

Sega Mark III, Master System, Robo-Pitcher and Mega Drive 2 all get Eggman as their ride, his Egg-o-Matic still carrying the Wrecking Ball (he'd probably go faster if he dropped it).

Dreamcast gets Sakura from Sakura Wars as her ride, leaping above Eggman's vehicle and racing to catch up to Sonic.
Saturn is given a range of vehicles, all of them terrible. First off she is offered a bug from Mushiking, which flies onto her forehead.

Then she is carried on a platform by Akira, Jeffry, Wolf and Lau-Chan from Virtua Fighter - but they can't travel very fast.

Finally she is offered a piggyback ride by Gillius Thunderhead from Golden Axe. She turns him down but then takes up his offer of being thrown to the finish line on his axe.
They all make it to Jet Set Radio's Shibuya-cho, aiming for the finish line at the Shibuya Bus Terminal.

As you can see from the image, the race gets very close.
All the girls are thrown from their vehicles like missiles, all stretching out to claim the victory.

The problem is that all seem to pass at the same time, requiring Center-Sensei to have to rewind for an instant replay. On zoom-in, it becomes clear who the winner is.
Hercules Ricky Blue! He flew off of Saturn's head as she was travelling towards the goal at speed, and hit the finish line before everyone else.
The final moment just has a giant Hercules Ricky Blue fly down on V-Saturn and Hi-Saturn, ending with the text "To Be Continued...?"

And that's... everything. The series is done, complete - a chapter closed in the reference materials of history. The only update we might have from this point onwards for Sega Hard Girls will be when our Translation of Episode 14/the OVA Movie is completed - and we can release it in English for the very first time. 

Thank you for joining us on this journey, and we hope you'll keep an eye on our other articles, tune in to Video Game Movie Podcast and join the Discord (www.vgmovie.co.uk) as well follow our other works.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 17 August 2024
Blue Streak, speeds by... Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is Hollywood's first big blockbuster attempt to bring Sonic to the big screen. A much more popular effort than the 1996 anime movie, this one sees Sonic come into the "real world", but that doesn't mean that it isn't jam-packed full of Easter Eggs. And some of them are references to other Sega franchises.

Kung-Fu Master (1988) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 29 July 2024
First things first - DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Kung-Fu Master may have the licence for the game, and it may include a few scenes at Arcades, but the story is nothing to do with gaming - and the story it represents is a literal crime. A vile, vile crime. With that out of the way, there are some interesting arcade machines visible throughout this film - all of which are here. So you have been saved from having to watch this vile garbage - and saving you the criminal act of watching it.

Knuckles (2024) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 29 April 2024
We look into all the Easter Eggs in the Paramount+ series of Knuckles (2024)

Sonic the Hedgehog OVA (1996) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 5 February 2024
Also known as Sonic the Movie, the Japanese OVA was actually a run at a possible series that never materialised, instead leaving us with two episodes hastily stitched into a "feature". And boy, did they push taste and decency for some of this. Other than Robotnik chasing underage skirt, it's largely inoffensive. But unfortunately that story angle wound up kick-starting a long running VGMP joke of Sonic adaptations having to reference breast milk (which the 2020 Sonic movie also references).

The Wizard (1989) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 4 February 2024
I love The Wizard. It's so bad. The first major disagreement between Rory and Jamie in VGMP, Rory fully recommended The Wizard as a movie, whereas Jamie fully rejected it. It's not hard to see why this movie caused such a rift of opinion - it genuinely tries to be a deeper and emotional story, but it's still a Nintendo marketing product (and an out of date one, at that). One thing The Wizard does have, is a lot of videogame references.

House of the Dead (2003) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 3 February 2024
The House of the Dead movie brings together two major events in film. It's the first foray by Uwe Boll into video game adaptations - the start of a terrible career. And it was the last ever movie to use the turn-table technique for 360 degree shots, as it was too dangerous to keep using - much like allowing Uwe Boll to have a film career. This film doesn't have many proper references, instead lazily throwing in random micro-shorts from the first three House of the Dead games (in no particular order, for some reason).

Joysticks (1983) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 3 February 2024
The first appearance of Jon Gries in a video game culture movie, and he would return in Noobz (2012) to steal yet another movie. Joysticks is an awful comedy movie, attempting to cash in on cheap teen humour of the time with a big dose of objectifying women. But to it's credit, it does showcase a lot of great arcade cabinets from 1983, and all in fantastic condition too! These screengrabs are ripped from the limited-run Blu-Ray release of the movie, which represents the best this film has ever looked. However this was a relatively low budget feature of it's time, so don't expect prestine visuals.

Tron (1982) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 1 February 2024
Tron is an undisputed 1982 classic that had a major impact on 80's culture and gaming aesthetics as a whole. And yet, when we reviewed it, it turns out the movie itself is a big bag of style over substance. The main videogame the movie revolves around is Space Paranoids, and it is not a real game. Several videogames were later made of Tron, but none of those appear in this movie.

Video Game Earth Force (2006) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 1 February 2024
The Controller / Video Game Earth Force, is a terrible film from 2006 with graphics that make the PS1 look like Advent Children. Starring Bob Rue as William Fence, this film has become infamous within VGMP as it is the film that nearly caused Jamie to leave the show.

Gamebox 1.0 (2004) - Easter Eggs

by Rory Joscelyne • 1 February 2024
Gamebox 1.0 is an odd 2004 movie starring the guy who played Harvey in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. You could technically call it a dramatic horror, if any of it was dramatic or a horror. As you can see from the shot above, the details were so vital to this film that there's a guy at "work" just staring at a blank screen. Regardless of the low budget nature of the film, there are still a surprising number of references hidden in this movie.
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