I listened to your podcast today and I enjoyed it a lot. It was interesting to going back and watching Legend of Black Heaven 20 years later. I was about 20 when it originally came out and I too really disliked the wife character. And while I still don't love her I have come around a bit more. She is the realistic one in the relationship and Oji is the dreamer. To her life is now about taking care of her husband (who to be honest doesn't seem like a great husband at the start of the story) and their child. Both of their character arcs is about becoming a better partner in their relationship.
The animation I think suffers a lot from being a really early digipaint show. This was right when the big change from doing everything as cell animation to digipaint happened in Japan and those early digipaint shows all look a little rough around the edges. Think Serial Experiments Lain and Boogiepop Phantom.
