Anime Profile: RG Veda

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RG Veda is the debut manga of the all-female creator collective CLAMP, serialized from 1989 to 1996, and a 1991 two-episode OVA adaptation that compresses its early arcs into feature-length episodes. The story is set in a fantasy version of ancient India that draws freely on Hindu mythology, where the heavens have been seized by the cruel general Taishakuten, who murdered the previous emperor and now rules with an iron grip. According to a long-standing prophecy, six warriors will rise to overthrow him.

Among them is Yasha-O, the lonely surviving warrior of the Yasha clan, who follows the prophecy's pull to a sealed mountain and finds a small, mysterious child named Ashura, the apparent last survivor of a clan said to have been wiped out by Taishakuten years earlier. As Yasha-O takes Ashura under his protection, the two gradually gather the rest of the prophesied Six Stars across a doomed celestial empire whose corruption runs far deeper than they first realize.

Visually lavish and emotionally tragic in classic CLAMP fashion, RG Veda established many of the themes that would echo through the group's later works, including X/1999, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, and xxxHolic: chosen families, beautiful boys with terrible fates, and ancient mythology refracted through modern storytelling. The OVA was produced by Animate Film as part of an early-1990s wave of feature-length OVA adaptations of popular manga.