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Director: Ichiro Itano
Screenplay: Shou Aikawa
Based on the manga by Go Nagai
Voice Cast: Bob Sessions as Jack;
Alan Marriott as Blue; John Bull as Saulus; Garrick Hagon as Tahei; Sharon Holm
as Rikki; William Roberts as Kawamori;
Viewed in the English Language Censored Cut
Synopsis: After the world is decimated and Japan levelled by a mega
earthquake, a post-apocalyptic society ran by marauding gangs who rape, murder
and pillage have taken on whilst pockets of humanity try to survive. In the
midst of them, let loose from the rubble, a mysterious and almost immortal
goliath christening himself Violence Jack walks into this living hell as the
personification of death.
[Due to the length these reviews would be altogether, I felt it wiser
to review the three episode OVA in three small reviews. Be advised of Spoilers
and potential Trigger Warnings as well]
Before I start this trip down the
lurid world of Violence Jack, I'll
clarify the version I watched is the censored English dub version. I did, for
reference, view fuzzy clips of some of the gore scenes and read up on what was
censored from the original Japanese versions of this infamous series. It does
drastically change the tone of Violence
Jack but that as much is an issue when dealing with these OVAs. For starters, it was appropriate to cover the
English version as, obsessed with Manga
Entertainment's DVD repackage of old licenses called "The Collection", the version made
available for that series was the drastically butched version clearly taken
from a flickering VHS rip.
For a long time this English
version was the only one available in the West - Manga Entertainment's reason for censoring the three part OVA are
unknown but whatever spooked them was significant, and with good reason
especially for the Evil Town
episode. Another factor would have to be that, whilst this was the era of lurid
and notorious anime releases like Legend
of the Overfiend (1989), it was also the era when James Ferman ran the British
Board of Film Classification; in this era, other areas like horror and
action cinema were drastically effected by a man whose obsession with removing
inappropriate material became the stuff of infamy, let alone anime which was
frankly indefensible in its content. Eventually the company, known for
releasing these ultraviolent and controversial anime in the nineties, would
find their tactic for anime definitely not for children would bite them in the
backside when La Blue Girl (1992-3)
was rejected outright by the BBFC for
release in December 1996, the same year they released the censored Violence Jack into the Western world.
The decisions behind releasing
titles like this in the West was of the time - that with the likes of Legend of the Overfiend, for good and
bad especially in the mainstream view of anime in the United Kingdom and USA,
they were significant enough to warrant licensing these titles be they what the
distributors thought they should sell or were selling well. And so Violence Jack, a three part Go Nagai adaptation which took over four
years to be churned out, was one such title, one whose uncensored version was
very elusive. For a long time the only uncensored versions was one early US VHS
tape, from the same time through Right
Stuff at the same time as the English dub release, for a long time only an
Italian DVD afterwards, and then in the 2010s the uncut and cut versions put
together by Discotek.
If I was only dealing with the
episodes Hell's Wind and Harem Bomber, I might've bought that Discotek release or at least tracked
down the uncensored versions. It'd still be an indefensible work, misogynistic
and offensive, and especially with Harem
Bomber an embarrassment to animation in general, but it would be a
fascinating look at the era of eighties and nineties OVA anime which churned
out so much that, for every artistic gem, there were oddities and perversities
like this. Weighing on whether to track down the uncensored version was enough
to even hesitate ever covering Violence
Jack at all, debating whether it was acceptable to only review the cut
versions, seeing the gore scenes excised
online at least even if not in the desired way (i.e. in actual sequence in the
episodes). In hindsight, even the infamous necrophilic cannibalism that takes
place in Evil Town, which is
something I can only imagine rather have seen, wouldn't have been to too
off-putting. That sort of material would just be tasteless, body horror
material effected by the issue that these OVAs are excessively nihilistic in
tone to be entertaining.
The problem is entirely with Evil Town, where the creators decided not
only to depict lengthy rape scenes but went as far as having to have digital pixalisation, which raised
alarm bells when I learnt of these excised moments originally. Having read a
blown-by-blow written article of all the scenes removed described in clinical
detail, which is not a pleasant activity even though I have always had a morbid
obsession with the Violence Jack
anime, didn't exactly defend any of this stuff for artistic value either. I
fear I would feel morally disgraced inside if I watched Evil Town uncensored, a step too far and requiring a damn good
argument to not stay away from it. Hence, stuck with an old DVD that will
circum to laser rot, I hesitate to import that Discotek release for a very justifiable reason. There's a fine line
in watching transgressive anime and that which crosses a line even for me.
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Evil Town is the first episode of the three chronologically...already the strange production history of Violence Jack comes to mind as, logically, you start from Evil Town, which introduces the character of Jack found underground by a group of people trying to reach the surface world again. Then tonally, it should go to Hell's Wind, then Harem Bomber, the later with an actual ending even if it makes no sense. The truth is, in the Japanese release order, it was Harem Bomber first, and then Evil Town, then Hell's Wind, the convoluted order being rearranged one of the few good ideas Manga Entertainment had.
Evil Town is the notorious one of them all, the most censorship and
arguably where this series went too far even for hardened anime viewers, where
for myself the version which has necrophilic cannibalism (censored for the UK
cut) wouldn't be an issue, but the eroticised and pixelised rape is why this
review starts with a lengthy prologue. Annoyingly it's also the most
artistically distinct of the three; Violence
Jack is a case of something, aesthetically, in its cheap and nasty
post-apocalyptic presentation which is compelling, but the material inside the
work varies in different ways per episode to why it's bad.
The issues with Evil Town are enhanced by the fact
that, for an incredibly simplistic tale, the extreme content especially the sexual
violence is superfluous, as evidenced by the censored version (barring the
clear cutaways from minutes that were excised) still working in pace in spite
of their absence. It's to debate whether Go
Nagai's original manga is as to blame, despite originally being a shonen
work (for children) it was notorious back then for gore and sexual content,
back in an era before drastic changes in demographics refocused material like
this for adults and the likes of Naruto
for children. As much of it is frankly the anime episode itself being to blame above
anything else, by itself feeling like it went too far in obsessing over this
content to a point that it was too repugnant.
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| From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gBpYz2fcghw/hqdefault.jpg |
Even censored, with it very clear that material was removed in the cut version, its repugnant and against the very nihilistic view of the world on display feels uncomfortable. The cynical worldview does lead to an interesting plot based around three groups and Violence Jack - one group men proven to be hypocrites worse than the evil psychopathic gang against them, as depraved, whilst the women have decided to be their own gang after what had been done to them before - but the desire for a cross between an atrocity exhibition meant to be titillating against a Shonen Jump-like action story is a hellish combination to have to deal with. And frankly, we are dealing with a titular character who, whilst closer to a slasher movie villain than an actual hero, is also completed out of a childish power fantasy especially with his inexplicably yellow scarf, bandages around the waist and jacket combination, which raises questions of the entire premise of what the tone should've been.
If we were dealing with a Fist of the North Star tone, then
things might've been different; in Evil Town,
as most of it is set underground after an earthquake has levelled an entire
Japanese city, children advising each other how to eat insects and a rat for
dinner is the worth of gold, it's not the right time to discuss this aesthetic
unlike in the other two episodes, but that tone would be acceptable here too. Even
if it left grime on the viewer's eyes, there wouldn't have been an issue if it
also embraced the inherent silliness of its villains being mohawk wearing gang
members. It doesn't help that, in lieu of a homophobic streak a mile long
throughout these episode, among them is an evil transsexual and an evil lesbian
stereotype, but looking at times like outtakes from Mad Max (1979) and The Warriors (1979), especially with
the figures of Mad Saurus, a behemoth, and Blue, the evil transgendered
character but (if that unfortunate aspect wasn't part of him) also decked out
like a bizarro Jem and the Holograms member,
the materials wrong for this level of nastiness. Even reading a slither of Go Nagai's work, even if his attitude to
sex and violence can be objected to, I know already his style is laced with
black humour and deliberate weirdness which you definitely don't get in these OVAs.
And tonally, the story itself
falls into this as well as, suffering through even the implication of sexual
depravity and gore, it's about two giant men (Violence Jack and Mad Saurus who,
after eating his girlfriend blue in the aforementioned scene removed from the
English release and turning into a monster) kicking the shit out of each other,
which makes none of the horrifying content even in tone creatively in place. Any
notion of darkness beyond this with a point, the men of Section A who are so monstrous
for all their apparent civilised behaviour they'd drug and rape a group of
women as told in flashback, is lost in a work where it's entirely about
visceral gore and action in the first place, so expecting anything profound is
lost within the sludge. Instead it just
makes things worse as the women are merely victims, left half naked and
(between the script lines) more traumatised stood outside among ruined
skyscrapers with no sense of real meaning.
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| From http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/5/5c/ Violence_Jack_ET_revolver_1_2.jpg/600px-Violence_Jack_ET_revolver_1_2.jpg |
The blame on why Evil Town is objectionably gross, even
censored, is to be debated. All the following is my pure speculation, but it's
like a Rashomon scenario where we
have no one willing to talk about this production in honest detail unless
someone had a gun directly pulled at their head, more so as in the Japanese
version you have big names in voice acting among the cast, the likes of Norio Wakamoto appearing throughout all
the episodes, a production meant to go somewhere but ending like this.
One possible explanation is that
screenwriter Shou Aikawa went through
a very dark period in his life. Long before he became the major screenwriter
for the likes of Full Metal Alchemist (2003),
he wrote scripts for ultraviolent work like Legend of the Overfiend, Genocyber
(1994) and, with the same director of Evil
Town, the notorious Angel Cop (1989-1994).
The thing is that, in lieu of a career with the likes of Full Metal Alchemist, which are so drastically different and where
his own contributions separate from the source material (like overt Iraq War
metaphors) were acclaimed and drastically different from the likes of Evil Town, as were later anime he
worked on past his blood and guts era like The
Twelve Kingdoms (2002) and Martian
Successor Nadesico (1996).
So it leads the question to the infamy
of Ichiro Itano. As an animator, he
is one of the best, immortalised by the "Itano Circus", coined after
his trademark of (painstakingly) animated missiles in a scene to moving in
individual directions. As an anime director, he is panned and notorious - Gantz (2004), his most well known work,
is still a divisive ultraviolent work, and he is held up by his petard for the
likes of Evil Town and Angel Cop; for the latter, whilst this
has never be confirmed and is pure speculation, the infamous turn to full anti-Semitism
in the story alongside its fascist nationalist turn, as an ultraviolent action
sci-fi, has to be taken in mind that Shou
Aikawa only wrote the first few episodes, or at least the first, whilst Itano wrote the rest when that turn took
place. The third potential reason, which would be the most disturbing, is that
adaptation of a very violent Go Nagai
work they either reproduced it or exaggerated the content to sell the material,
especially as anyone who witnessed the car crash that was Harem Bomber, which I will get to later.
The episode itself, removed of
its nastier material, is pretty cruddy in honesty, any sense of enjoyment from
its sickly tone undermined by knowing of the content being removed. That, far
less extreme but as liable to put people off from the uncensored version, this
anime goes to having a villain killing children in graphic detail or someone being
split in half like a wishbone. Trying to deal with the misogyny on display, the
female group not complex figures in the slightest and sexually victimised
twice, is not even worth wasting time on to write on, it's that bad.
Curiously this is Violence Jack at his most eloquent, a
curious anti-hero who will protect people if he isn't prevented by hulking gang
members, but takes his punishment of villains to sadistic and gleeful extremes
which drastically contrasts this. The English dub is utterly inappropriate as,
whilst I liked Bob Sessions as Jack,
this begins the conversation that will carry through this three part review,
the infamous dubbing of the anime where Manga
Entertainment amplified the foal language to a lot of their work but here
went into even ridiculous territory, the one aspect of the entire work that
could ever be "fun". They decided to have this gigantic monster
anti-hero use the term "Captain Buttwipe" twice, as tonally in
appropriate from an anime episode obsessed with offensive material as you can
get, but you are grateful for the comedy to briefly relieve the tone.
Sadly as well, whilst I might be
in a minority, this is all within an aesthetic I like. It's cheap, but
thankfully isn't as bad in animation as when I cover Harem Bomber, with music (barring one or two tonally inappropriate
pieces) that fits the era and a grungy colour palette which stands out. It's an
aesthetic that feels dangerous and edgy but, in another work, didn't need to
actually make me feel grossed out like here but could've been instead better
without it. Evil Town, as much as I
hate its existence, has the one artistically stylish piece of the whole OVA
series with a fight scene taking place with the participants in red outline
against a black screen, one of the other moments which were vaguely interesting
in the midst of the mire. Unfortunately, I have to extract these little virtues
from something that doesn't deserve to be defended for many reasons. Thankfully,
whilst the other episodes have their share of uncomfortable material, the worst
was the first episode in the Manga
Entertainment release before you get to Hell's Wind...
To Be Continued...
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