In a world where mankind has unified itself, it now faces a threat greater than any humans could ever pose. Humanity is locked in a war with werewolves; whose physical power is only matched by their terrifying cunning. Key to their strategies is the titular Luger Code; a perfect encryption method that has made their communications impossible to trace.
This is something that child genius Testa hopes to end once and for all. As a member of the allied forces cryptoanalysis unit, he is tasked with deciphering the Luger Code. To that end, he and his superior have ventured to the frigid wastes. Word is that a team of soldiers there has managed to capture a live werewolf.
Luger Code 1951 is an alternate history action anime, released as a 1-episode OVA in 2016. It was produced by Studio DEEN and acted as the directorial debut of Shinya Takahashi. That and the admittedly-awful promotional art may make this anime seem like a throwaway project. I went into it with that mindset myself and ended up being pleasantly surprised.
First and foremost, Luger Code benefits from design work by Medaka Box creator Akira Akatsuki. The characters have a cool shounen vibe going on, which manages to gel surprisingly well with with the World War II-like setting. Testa’s superior, Sergeant Rossa, looks especially cool. The Siberian environments are also neat and the action scenes had some well-choreographed moments throughout. It certainly does enough to compensate for the middling quality of the animation itself.
Unfortunately, Luger Code doesn’t get the room it needs to develop its ideas further. It’s only about 25 minutes long and then comes to an open ending. I enjoyed what I got to see, but was left wishing there was more of it. I wanted to see more sides of this werewolf-infested world. To see what kind of societies live in it and where this whole story would’ve gone.
If you can trace it down, then Luger Code 1951 is a nice, short movie. A quick bite of action, though it may leave you peckish for something more.
