One morning, twenty-two year old Hitomi Aida leaves home and gets hit by a truck. On regaining consciousness she appears to cohabit the mind of another woman, Hitomi Landsknecht, who lives in a dystopian near future, where all men have gone extinct after a world-wide disaster. The world has become largely hostile to human life, in such that not even food can be taken from it, so the remains of humanity has to live off what it can scavenge from the old cities.
Hitomi Landsknecht is a captain of the Guardswomen, a paramilitary organization in what seems to be the last city on earth, led by Her Excellency Commander Julia. They live in an uneasy alliance with the Kisaragi family, whose leader, Lady Kisaragi, is convinced that no effort should be undertaken to save humanity from certain extinction.
Matters between the two parties become explosive once the Guardswomen start experimenting with ICE, a technology obtained from the Kisaragi family and which might be the solution for generating the much-needed offspring. Or maybe it's something else altogether. The pressure mounts when Hitomi becomes involved with Yuki, one of the adopted daughters of the head of the Kisaragi family.
ICE (also called Project ICE) is a 3-episode OVA released in 2007, that has a much older feel to it due to its animation style, which has a deliberately dated appeal. The show has been panned for its seemingly thrown-together plot and rather formulaic yuri slant. For viewers who like a surreal approach, ICE can still be quite enjoyable, but it will hardly be called a masterpiece anytime soon.
Also notable for featuring voice acting by several AKB48 members. Their manager, Yasushi Akimoto, also wrote the story for this OVA.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: All of the fighters in the series. Justified, as males have died out completely.
- After the End: It is left ambiguous as to what the catastrophe was, but it wiped out men and most women.
- Amazon Brigade: The Guardswomen, a paramilitary organization. Justified as the society they protect is all-female due to a catastrophe in the past that killed all men.
- BFG: Wielded by Hitomi.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Lady Kisaragi and Commander Julia are the leaders of the post-Gendercide dystopian Lady Land, and both are fighting each other to accomplish their opposite agendas. Kisaragi believes that humanity as a whole should accept their fate of death, and wants to use a Lost Superweapon to kill the remaining humans, while Julia wants to save humanity by inventing a method of artificial reproduction, but is willing to kill anyone who stands in her way.
- Bling of War: All of the Guardswomen wear fancy uniforms.
- Bury Your Gays: Being a lesbian in an anime of this kind means certain death, as notably happens to Hitomi.
- Caped Mecha: The mecha wear cloaks.
- Cast Full of Gay: By necessity, since males are extinct.
- Childless Dystopia: With the men gone and Homosexual Reproduction yet to be invented, the now all-female humanity is also dying out.
- Contralto of Strength: Julia and Hitomi are in high-ranking military positions and have the deepest voices of all the characters.
- Crossdressing Voices: Julia is voiced by a man in both the Japanese and English versions.
- The '80s: The opening scene with Hitomi Aida takes place in 1986.
- Eye Scream: At one point, Lady Kisaragi
licks Yuki's eyes. - Fanservice: Comparatively minimal, but there is a scene depicting the aftermath of Julia sexually playing with her personal Meidos.
- Gendercide: The setup of the series is that all men have died out.
- Green Aesop: According to the society, men were wiped out because of their fiddling with nature, which has rendered natural sources of food unfit for human consumption.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Kisaragi is the genetic mix of a human being and a jellyfish.
- Humans Are Bastards: Yes, also the female ones.
- Humongous Mecha: Pretty classy ones, too.
- Meido: For some reason there are quite a few of those about, mostly serving Julia.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Lady Kisaragi takes the position that the few remnants of humanity should die for the sins of the past, and is willing to unleash a Lost Superweapon to do so.
- One-Woman Wail: Much of the soundtrack is this.
- One-Word Title: Named for the mysterious ICE system.
- People Jars: The women inseminated with the ICE system wind up in a stasis crystal.
- The Promise: Julia promises Guardswoman Aoi that she can become pregnant with the help of ICE. Aoi goes very far to obtain this goal.
- Psycho Lesbian: Julia, who isn't all too nice to the girls she "plays" with, and Yuki's adopted sister Satsuki, judging by her violent outbursts of jealousy.
- Situational Sexuality: Since all men are dead, lesbianism is very common.
- Unwitting Pawn: Julia spends the series searching for what she thinks is a mass-producer of ICE that can be used to create offspring; when she finally finds it and puts it to use, Hitomi informs her that it is actually a terraforming Lost Superweapon that Kisaragi tricked her into uncovering.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Julia wants to guarantee the survival of the human race by using an ancient machine to produce offspring, but she is willing to kill people to get her hands on it.
- Yandere: Satsuki is in (unrequited) love with Yuki and tries to kill Yuki and Hitomi when she sees them riding a motorcycle together.
