The OVA ("Original Video Animation") is a pretty uniquely Japanese phenomenon, where animators would make, sell, and completely control their own product, without the kind of compromises and censorship required for TV or theatrical release. And then sell direct to the consumer, on home-video formats.

The 80's VHS boom saw amateur or low-level animators making their own videos using whatever equipment they could scrounge together, borrow, or use at uni even high school, or after hours at work. And then selling the tapes themselves, direct to stores, via mail-order, at conventions, or direct to consumers, not unlike the "mixtape" phenomena of the 80s/90s/00s hiphop, or the "DIY" approach of punk rock in the 70s and 80s, with many of the artists creating OVAs being college students, or sometimes even high-school kids.

Some OVAs follow a 'Movie'-ish format; A single, uninterrupted story maybe 40 to 100 minutes long. Sometimes it's 4 to 12 TV-style 23min episodes of a single series. Or less often, just a collection of loosely-connected or unrelated shorts

So, while especially older OVAs are less polished than movies or TV, they're also often more innovative, unique, and raw. The low barrier to entry meant animators could just do whatever the individual, or a small team thought was cool, rather than what studio execs or TV producers thought would sell cinema tickets/ad spots. Which meant a lot of horror, bizarre, surreal imagery, and often a very personal, unique vision from the animators.

[Many OVAs are incorrectly catagorized by IMdB as "TV series/mini-series", (or even "Movies") instead of "video", because AFTER the original OVA release became popular, TV channels picked them up for broadcast (a few, like Fooly Cooly or Bubblegum Crisis, even made it onto Western broadcast TV). But (AFAIK) everything on this list was FIRST released on some home-video format; Usually VHS or DVD, but also sometimes Betamax, Laserdisc, etc] ========================================== 50 Best Anime TV Series, Pre-2001 (https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566865122) 

50 Best Anime TV Series, Post-2000 (https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566867873) 

Best Anime Movies (https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566862986)

Akira Kamiya in Fist of the North Star (1984)

Camilla Belle and Elisha Cuthbert in The Quiet (2005)

Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg, and George Newbern in Justice League (2001)

Megumi Hayashibara, Kotono Mitsuishi, Yûko Miyamura, Megumi Ogata, Fumihiko Tachiki, and Yuriko Yamaguchi in Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)

Every anime title I watched to completion, with exceptions or clarifications noted in comments, sorted in chronological order of my finishing it.

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