This is the version of Ushio and Tora that still smells like a rental store, and it earns every bit of that grain. The setup lands in the first ten minutes: a kid finds a tiger-shaped monster pinned to a rock in his own temple basement with the Beast Spear, pulls it out anyway, and then spends the rest of his life with a yokai who announces he's going to eat him roughly every third scene and never does. Tora refuses to give his name, so Ushio just calls him Tora, and the sulking about that is funnier than most modern comedy anime. The spear is the real horror element, not the demons. Every time Ushio grips it his hair goes wild and his face goes feral, and you can see him losing the argument with it. Ten episodes cannot hold 33 volumes, so accept it as yokai-of-the-week, hand-inked and pitch dark, and let the buddy act carry you.

Ushio's father tells a family story about an ancient ancestor who pinned a demon to a temple altar stone using the legendary Beast Spear. Ushio dismisses it as nonsense until he discovers the monster in his own basement. He would rather leave the captured demon alone, but its evil energies start drawing other demons to his hometown. To protect his friends and family from the invading spirits, Ushio has no choice but to free Tora. Now he has to hope the Beast Spear can keep Tora under control long enough to save the city, before the demon decides to make a meal of him. The OVA mixes supernatural action and horror with comedy.