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Directors: Kōichi Mashimo, Nobuyoshi Habara and Takao Kato
Screenplay: Satoru Akahori
Based on the light novel series
and manga by Satoru Akahori
Voice Cast: Kiyoyuki Yanada as Gateau Mocha; Megumi Hayashibara as Tira Misu;
Mitsuaki Madono as Maron Glasse; Shinnosuke Furumoto as Carrot Glasse; Yuko
Mizutani as Chocolate Misu; Sakiko Tamagawa as Dotta; Sumi Shimamoto as Big
Mama; Akemi Okamura as Marris; Banjou Ginga as the Narrator; Fumihiko Tachiki
as Jii; Hiro Yuuki as Sirius; Kazue Ikura as Potee
Viewed in Japanese with English
Subtitles
[Spoilers Throughout]
So this is a strange release for ADV Films to have released in the United
Kingdom...Sorcerer Hunters was initially adapted as a twenty six episode
television series between 1995 and 1996, with the history beforehand that it
was first a light novel series that was readapted into a manga. Set in a
fantasy world, we'd follow a group of magical warriors who exist to protect the
ordinary populous from sorcerers. Those important to the OVAs, which were being
released at the end of the 1996 soon after, are Carrot, the standard perverted
and lustful male lead who has the ability to absorb magical power and turn into
monsters based on them, whose older brother Marron, merely a side character,
looks on in embarrassment. Then there are the Misu sisters, Tira and her older
sister Chocola, who are both in love with Carrot but, not impressed by his
wandering eye, take it out on him in their combat costumes, which are
dominatrix gear with leather and whips thatfor the series toned down for
Chocola as I'll get into.
As I'll get into, the tone
including the pun and dessert based names of the characters, suggest a light
hearted fluff, something playful and silly which even if these three bonus
episodes can get away with material the series could do, more on that later
too, is meant to be ridiculous. There is an obvious question to raise however as,
in their tenure of existence before they closed in late 2009, that ADV Films
never released the series, but did release these OVAs, three twenty minutes
short episodes, over here in the British Isles. Adding a further complication
is that, whilst the TV series is said to be remarkably different in major
aspects from the source material, these bonus episodes only get context knowing
the story, and have characters who only appeared in the manga finally making
their animated debut, like the first episode starting with Potato Chips (Potee),
a young boy (or diminutive man-child?) whose elderly male protector play a pair
of comedic prats through two episodes, complaining in first appearance about
the fact he never appeared in the TV series. The question to ask, with this, is
why did this get a release in the first place?
Because sex sells. This, I vividly
remember, was released around the same time Kekko Kamen (1991-2), a notorious Go Nagai adaptation which was even more
lurid, and when the proper beginning of the episode, a hot spring tale, has
lots and lots of drawn nubile female nudity including from the Misu sisters as
a mass female bathing pool, almost the size of a small lake, you realise why
the work was picked up. ADV Films' reputation, whilst known for
a lot of good work, and also really being the anime company for me of the early
2000s, releasing titles from the likes of studio Gonzo or heavily promoted titles like Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu (2003), includes an underbelly of
luridness, to the point arguably their style is incredibly dated in places and
wouldn't be acceptable nowadays. Even before I got to them, they had a
notoriety in the nineties, when they began, of almost porn-like promotional tag
lines for non-porn anime, and even beyond sex, I think of how comically exaggerated
their English language promo trailers could be, or how upon seeing Ghost Stories (2000-1), their decision
to let voice acting director Steven
Foster rework it as a parody dub included, a lot of humour based on improvised
offensiveness they purposely advertised heavily and wouldn't really be
acceptable as necessarily good nowadays anyway regardless of any potential
political incorrectness. The sex however was just as notorious - you couldn't
get away with the jiggle counter DVD extra I remember on the Burn Up Excess (1997-8) DVDs, an extra
that tallied up the amount of breast jiggling from the drawn main female characters
- a reminder that long after Manga
Entertainment courted controversy with titles like Urotsukidôji: The Legend of the Overfiend (1989), the early 2000s
at least up to the mid way point replaced it, in the case of ADV Films, with a garish and brashness
that could be naughty and in hindsight crass tone, even filming a DVD extra for
Colorful (1999) that was a mock behind
the scenes documentary of the English voice acting director being a bastard and
actress Hilary Haag being tormented. Stuff that, especially
releasing the likes of this and Kekko
Kamen, were still lurid.
Immediately there's an issue that
this trio of OVAs do need their original context, which is odd knowing these
are clearly meant to be more faithful to the manga, which is confusing as hell
in knowledge of this context. There is also the issue, bluntly, that these
would be innocuous, dumb tales of some entertainment value, of bright nineties
anime colour aesthetic and exaggeration I love, but there's the problem that, immediately,
the first episode has a scene that's absolutely deplorable, the second is
tonally jarring and has content out of place or horrifically dated as humour,
making it a poisoned selection box, leaving only the third and final episode
without issue. The first episode would've been fine if I was just talking about
what it is - a sex farce at a hot springs where, lusting after the older mother
figure of Salad Chips, Potato's mother, Carrot wants a midnight liaison with
her, all whilst the older Misa sister Chocola wants to do the same to him. As a
comedy of manners on a dirtier level goes, its eye ball rolling, but still
comedic.
Unfortunately, there is an
extended and deeply uncomfortable joke, early on at a dinner, where Carrot in
his lust over Salad and Dotta, a winged assistant of his boss Big Mama, has
what is quite frankly a rape fantasy. There's no sweetening the language, as
this was likely the moment (possibly alongside the S&M content and such)
which made this one of those rare eighteen certificate anime in the UK. The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)
are surprisingly lax in allowing even a ultraviolent and disturbing show like Elfen Lied (2004) to be suitable for
fifteen year olds to see, meaning the bar to be an eighteen certificate, our
highest rating barring R18 for porn, is even being really ultraviolent,
sexually explicit, or cross a taboo they found uncomfortable. Playfully
imagining himself ripping off Salad's clothing in a kitchen to ravish her,
which is disturbing a sentence to type as sounds. It tries to be jolly with Dotta's
appearance with a strange, nonsensical monologue about how she disguises
herself as anyone from an air flight hostess to a buxom and clumsy waitress,
all shown and disregarding the high fantasy setting on purpose, but then she
accidentally turns him into a literal beast who tries to ravish her too. He
gets woken up from his dream, and gets his head kicked in throughout the OVAs,
but it's so misguided its offensive and makes you wonder, until the third
episode does its damndest to try to redeem this through his childhood
flashbacks, why the hell the Misu sisters would be attracted to him in the
first place. It's clearly a case, probably more unfortunate, of a joke where
time has revealed has tasteless it is, alongside others such as a muscle
flexing obsessed co-hero Gateau constantly hitting his younger sister for not
getting the family inherited flex poses right, that together drops the OVAs as
an entirely in the deep well difficult to wring entertainment from. I mean
hell, whilst it would've been crass too, if you had Carrot just fantasise about
everyone woman he meets throwing themselves onto him, with nudity and sauciness
these OVAs can get away with, it'd at least be more tonally appropriate and
lead to the jokes about him being a perv for the Misu sisters to whack
constantly vaguely funny. Instead it causes one to hiss to watch the scene.
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In general, the sexual nature of the episodes does go further into some questionable details. One little change between the series and this, taken from the manga, is that Chocola's dominatrix costume, rather than a biker costume in the show, is clearly inspired by the famous costume Charlotte Rampling worn in the notorious Nazi drama The Night Porter (1974), all the Nazi insignia wiped away but still the cap, trousers and only suspenders barely covering the nipples on a voluptuous figure. It's strange, and in vast contrast to the obsession with passion and romance these episodes had, there are moments where these episodes go too far. More so the second episode, going from a hot springs episodes to a jarring change of tone to a young woman fleeing her village, all zombified, where it becomes grim horror. Where she is nearly molested sexually, has to escape by braining her undead father, is zombified, and in spite of probably the most abrupt fall that leads to a head splitting blood collision of a rock on the way down, leaves having smashed herself skull first on the drop down to flee. Cue a fun, cute opening to an earworm of a song, Shoot! Love Hunter by Mari Sasaki, singing about romance through the metaphor of hunting and passion as a metaphorical bullet.
Especially as most of the
episode, whilst action orientated, is still very comedic in a lot of gags and
slapstick, there's a lot of issue with this tone, in which a necromancer is
trying to acquire the Necronomicon, (no, not that one), whilst the heroes have
to stop him and save the village in the opening from being zombified. Unfortunately,
as well, you also have to deal with the one episode appearance of Mille. On
paper they're fascinating, a transgender male who is drawn as a woman and (in
the Japanese dub) has a female voice actor Megumi Ogata, (i.e. Shinji from the Neon Genesis Evnagelion franchise and
Sailor Uranus in the Sailor Moon
franchise, which in knowledge that muscle building side character Gateau was
originally bisexual in the manga, his over-the-top macho nature contrasted with
the statement "Beauty transcends gender", would be progressive in
another context. Mille, despite being revealed as being an incredible and
powerful figure who hides their talent, is also a perv who molests the male and
female cast; this is also a case of a joke that was acceptable in that time,
from another country, which has definitely aged badly.
The third episode, barring some
of the humour, offers relief. It even tries to make Carrot actually likable, set
around a magical tree in his and the Misu sisters' home village which only
blossoms rarely and, if stood under in that context, leads to couples who
confess their love under it to be united for eternity. It follows Chocola's absolute
consternation that, now a tourist spot unlike in her childhood, it's populated
by drunkenness and food stands in the middle of the blossoming whilst also she
wants to profess her love to Carrot. Carrot in flashback, shown to be a nice
young boy helping the new village members the Misu sisters, adoptive into that
village and feeling isolated as a result is actually a sweet kid, and the cameo
by his father also proves that his perverted lusts are sadly as a result of very
bad parental influence. It's because of this episode I can admit that there are
things I enjoyed; I openly admit even if I absolutely detested the OVAs I want
to see the TV series, even in knowledge that the original author Satoru Akahori
has a writing credit and is probably responsible for that detestable first
episode gag. Even as average, this third episode shows what could've been
interesting. The very bright, even gaudy aesthetic of anime of the time of
bright colours, rounded and bold character designs, and the general sense of
cartoonishness is appealing. Even if the high fantasy setting is utterly vague,
as I don't remember Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings adaptations having
hot springs, it's still fun when you are not in discomfort or with your head in
your hands.
Even as very adult sex comedy,
when its acceptable, through violent slapstick always aimed at the male lead
and with the bold character designs, it would have a brash potency which is
emphasised by that aforementioned opening credits theme, and the ending one,
which does play up the S&M nature of the Misu sisters' relationship to
Carrot in a plastic J-pop song performed by a female singer telling a lover to
be patient in a lyrically submissive way to her. In another world, whilst still
kinky as hell, this work would've just been gleefully dirty minded and more
tonally coordinated without any of the problematic moments, especially if they
still kept in Carrot's lusts, the Misu sisters' interest in bondage gear, and Mille
without any of the inappropriate groping and more sensual coolness.
Again, I do want to see the
series, which obviously would've toned a lot of the material down and had to
tell a story. This OVA though? Really difficult to recommend, as bloody hell,
when you get to the worst aspects, they are as bad as I have described. It's
more baffling now older and with more context why ADV Films even released this in the UK by itself. This wasn't the
last time the company choose some curious choices - a Leiji Matsumoto adaptation, Queen
Emeraldas (1998-9), only had the first two OVA episodes released in the UK
and the USA on DVD, and never the last two, whilst by the end of their existence
we in the British Isles ended up with the first five episodes of Shinichi Watanabe's comedy The Wallflower (2006-2007) and bugger
all else. I can probably describe many more of these curious examples of ADV Films' history, and like my
obsession with Manga Entertainment, I
am sure the more of their long out-of-print releases I will find, the
likelihood they will paint of a curious picture which doesn't the many strange
and negative decisions as much as the good ones.
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