#104: Strait Jacket (2007)

Director: Shinji Ushiro

Screenplay: Ichirō Sakaki

Based on a light novel series by Ichirō Sakaki

Voice Cast: Ai Maeda as Nerin Simmons; Kei Shindou as Kapel Theta; Shinichiro Miki as Reiot Stainbarg; Akira Sasanuma as Isaac Hammond; Asami Imai as Rachel Hammond; Kōji Ishii as Brian Meno Moderato; Mayumi Asano as Filisis Moog; Tatsuya Kobashi as Jack Roland

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

By the release of Strait Jacket in the US and UK, Manga Entertainment changed a great deal onwards. They've released a lot of big titles and franchises over the years to still be a major influence on the British anime industry (Dragonball, Pokemon etc.) but for every idiosyncratic title like Satoshi Kon films and Mawaru Penguindrum (2011) they've also lost their personality for me, more so as within these few decades MVM (appearing in the 2000s) and Anime Limited (appearing in the early 2010s) have gained dominance in UK anime distribution. It'll be interesting, fingers crossed, how the fact they've been purchased by Funimation, as part of anime streaming and distribution companies have been gobbled up by major companies, will affect them as they'll exist with their brand name, hopefully leading to a much needed personality injection.

A lot of this old personality is that, honestly, their reputation over the years was from a male audience dominated era of violent anime or increasing the amount of swearing within their titles, something we should probably never return to even I'd like that aesthetic to appear again. However there was more to them beyond this thankfully which did blossom, and was even found in some of those ultra-violent or adult titles they got over the years. What is missed, sadly in lieu to the OVA (straight-to-video) anime industry diminishing from the 2000s, is that Manga Entertainment gained their popularity and reputation as much from acquiring far few series originally but one-shot titles like Strait Jacket, films or OVA series which could be sold as done-in-one releases into the DVD era or a few tapes that did not need any long length of time to ingest, could hook people in and kept being of financial reward for them. Even in this still having their annoying tendency to excise the opening and ending credits, to create a "film" from all three episodes, Strait Jacket just feels like one of the last hurrahs of this great tactic of theirs.

And bear in mind, for all their lurid title choices and "beer and curry" anime, even into the early 2000s Manga Entertainment would also pick titles which could be of any genre, as long as they were action packed, getting a huge cult following for Read Or Die (2001) as one of their last big successes. Strait Jacket, whilst not perfect, feels like a title that released earlier would have done well to them rather than sadly fall into obscurity. The OVA does have an interesting premise which never became a franchise annoyingly: set in an alternative history, when magic was turned into a viable power in 1899, in the turn of the 20th century, this new resource is used both for anything from construction to medicine but with the issue that, even with protective suits and charms, it can turn people into monstrous demons that gibber and slaughter anything in their path. Those sent to deal with this issue, using magic containing armour, are nick named Strait Jackets, fraught careers that could lead to death or mutation.

From https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R_miTBYLMhs/Uo_PbiEb2dI/AAAAAAAADuY/dUd0BAAm5gc/s1600/straitjacket01.jpg

For me personally, some improvements could have been made, but it is perfectly fine as it is and has many interesting details. Not only is there the period chosen, with a steampunk (disealpunk?) aesthetic but also the detail that these demons are also being deliberately created by a terrorist group, noticeably in a line of dialogue emphasised to be far left wing, which rather than being problematic conservative messaging from the material strangely invokes the likes of the Red Army Faction in real life, which brings about some really interesting details if this story ever wanted to move beyond fantasy action into something far more complex and enticing. Also there are both the licensed military hired Strait Jackets and the unlicensed mercenaries like Leiot Steinberg, your stereotypical loose cannon anti-hero for anime whose main character distinction here is that he's followed around by a young woman (girl?) with four eyes revealed to actually be part demon, part of a complex relationship between them that hints how he owes her his life for killing her parents.

From there it's a very simple plot, adapted from a light novel series, which could be built from with ease, where even the clichés (the anti-authoritarian hero jaded by all the death he's witnessed etc.) at least have the building blocks within them to evolve into something interesting. Not all the ideas work, notable that the Strait Jackets (their proper name " Sorcerists") use giant magical guns instead of throwing magical spells, which could've easily gotten generic and difficult to work around for a longer series, and some are shown but never used, such as a female Strait Jacket who never gets in her armour but lives in luxury as a madam of a manor, but a lot also stands out. A muted but fascinating turn-of-the 20th century setting has a lot of intrigue and, with a bit of dark fantasy, this OVA is still a throwback to the old work Manga Entertainment used to release, not as violent but still gory with body horror predominant. The "demons" in particular are inspired, horrifying monstrosities of bulbous mass (or strange shapes like an upside down flower man) which, when an unfortunate person turns into one, gibber and rant about the last things on their mind in ecstasy as they rip anyone to shreds.

Wrapped within this is a generic plot but, thankfully, one that has a better pace and structure than longer works (this only one hour and sixteen minutes in this compilation version). Baring the story of our titular anti-hero, the show eventually turns into the downward spiral of a military Strait Jacket which is interesting; it's not perfect, as one character the moment they're introduced I guessed right would be killed off for cheap emotional effect, also sick humoured in how blatantly telegraphed it is if it wasn't cruel to a drawn figure like them, but it at least works as a plot with a dynamic to latch onto. The creators of the production, Feel, have not really made a name for themselves however, having also fallen into making notorious work like Kissxsis (2010)¹ and Bikini Warriors (2015) and complete obscurities. Strait Jacket as a result is one of their most prominent titles in the West, which seems a tragedy as they could've easily worked on from this title or just invest in this type of work rather than a lot of fetishitic material. Again, as with the wish for Manga Entertainment to return to this, even if nowadays there's more likelihood for a TV series to be these idiosyncratic rather than even any actual OVAs to be laying about needing to be picked up, any influence that could lead this animation studio to go back to interesting material like this would be highly rewarded.

From https://sturdypine.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/strait-jacket.jpg

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1) Ah, incest in anime and manga, why is this topic surprisingly common and only tackled seriously, by all accounts, in Koi Kaze (2004) rather than for titillation for their target audiences like for most?