Iria

Iria: Zeiram the Animation
Cover art from the DVD release
イ・リ・ア ゼイラム ジ アニメーション (I.RI.A Zeiramu Ji Animēshon)
Genre	Adventure, Science fiction
Original video animation
Directed by	Tetsurō Amino
Written by	Tetsurō Amino (episodes 1, 3) Naruhisa Arakawa (episode 2) Hajime Matsumoto (episodes 4-5) Yoshihisa Arakawa (episode 6)
Music by	Yoichiro Yoshikawa
Studio	Ashi Productions, Bandai Visual
Licensed by	AUS Siren Visual NA Discotek Media UK MVM Entertainment
Released	June 23, 1994 – November 21, 1994
Runtime	35 minutes per episode
Episodes	6

Iria: Zeiram the Animation (イ・リ・ア ゼイラム ジ アニメーション, I.RI.A Zeiramu Ji Animēshon) is a six episode original video animation (OVA) anime series produced by Ashi Productions and directed by Tetsurō Amino. The series serves as a prequel to the original live-action film Zeiram, taking place several years earlier when the female bounty hunter protagonist Iria is still a rookie and detailing the events surrounding her first encounter with the unstoppable Zeiram. This does somewhat contradict the films, which imply that Iria's first encounter with Zeiram was in the first film.

The story begins with Iria as an apprentice to her older brother, Glen, a veteran bounty hunter, and his partner Bob, who work for Ghomvak Security along with a somewhat loutish hunter named Fujikuro. During a rescue mission to a hijacked spaceship called the Karma, they discover that the hijacker is actually a seemingly indestructible alien called Zeiram that broke out of the cargo hold during transit and began to massacre the crew. Bob is critically wounded by Zeiram while evacuating the survivors, and Gren is lost while attempting to kill Zeiram by destroying the Karma. Returning to Myce, Iria finds herself targeted by assassins working for Tedan Tippedai, the corporation that owned the Karma, and discovers a covered-up plot to control Zeiram in order to use it as a weapon. Iria escapes with the help of Fujikuro and reunites with Bob, who never recovered from his injuries but had his mind downloaded into a computer program. Together they continue to investigate rumours that Zeiram has appeared on Myce, and try to find out what happened to Gren, who also seems to have survived the Karma's destruction....

U.S. DVD release

Original Soundtrack

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

IRIA was adapted into a Japan-only video game for the Super Famicom called Hyper Iria, although it does not seem to follow the storyline of the OVA very closely. Iria also appears as the main character in Zeiram Zone for the PlayStation.