#165: Perfect Blue (1997)

 

Director: Satoshi Kon

Screenplay: Sadayuki Murai

Based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi

Voice Cast: Junko Iwao as Mima Kirigoe; Rica Matsumoto as Rumi; Emi Shinohara as Eri Ochiai; Emiko Furukawa as Yukiko; Hideyuki Hori as Sakuragi; Masashi Ebara as Murano; Shiho Niiyama as Rei; Shinichiro Miki as Taku; Shinpachi Tsuji as Tadokoro; Tohru Furusawa as Yatazaki; Yoku Shioya as Shibuya; Yousuke Akimoto as Tejima

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

The following review is to be found on my other blog A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) as well as part of its Halloween season of thirty one reviews per day. (Also a great way to promote both of them too). If this is of interest to you the reader, follow the link HERE for many more reviews.

 

Who are you?

Once seen, a long time ago, Perfect Blue has stayed with me for a long time. The irony is that, in another context, this plot would have become a lurid and dumb thriller, as clichéd as the one in the television show, Double Bind, that lead Mima Kirigoe transitions to from an idol singer to an up-and-coming actress from her idol group Cham. Alongside the fact Satoshi Kon was a one-off, this also became an animated production, the tone and rules changed alongside the people behind the theatrical film taking the best route forwards to make a great film from such material. The irony is that this production was meant to be live action, adapting Yoshikazu Takeuchi's source material, only for the 1995 Kobe earthquake to prevent that version and an alternative animated version from Madhouse studios to be created on a lower budget. It says the final film's advantage that, even with a 2002 live action existing, this Kon helmed version is the definitive adaptation to many.

Returning to Perfect Blue, this film's deconstructive nature immediately begins with a live tokusatsu performance beginning the film as a cold opening. These are a cultural detail, especially with knowledge of this film getting such notice in the West it even inspired American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, that I have seen in many anime but are very idiosyncratic and likely to be ignored without batting an eyelid, where actors dress as Power Ranger-like heroes or monstrous villains to entertain kids at theme parks or at least outside, two stating how disappointing this looked to the original television show. Cham are introduced, a three woman idol singing group who are struggling to find success, and the film intercuts the performance with the banality of our lead Mima away from work buying groceries.

Satoshi Kon, who tragically died at too early an age at only forty six, due to pancreatic cancer, would build a reputation as a director, baring Tokyo Godfathers (2003), of stories breaking down reality, exploring psychological states and even dreams. This is where, literalised, Perfect Blue takes a new level as a suspense thriller, where Mima is transitioned by her agency to become an actress, with a stalker soon to murder people "debasing" her. Throughout there is a meta tone, as when we are on the TV show Double Bind, where she is a secondary character on, there are scenes being acted out and also behind-the-scenes ones of the cast breaking character. Mima, as she fears a doppelganger of her exists, is also beholden to her old self to obsessive fans despite trying to grow as a person.

All the fans of the idol group with their own versions of Mima are seen, including the sinister Me-Mania, an obsessive fan connected to the doppelganger. I could not help but think of how much of the film now is tackling gender politics, as this film is structured around a fragmentation between an idealised version of Mima as the Cham idol singer, the star of a lurid TV show and who poses in nude photographs, and Mima Kirigoe herself, a twenty or so year old woman not from the metropolis, wandering along in this career of hers as work, who is neither. The idol singer is another cultural aspect from Japan that is distinct. It is in itself not a squeaky clean industry, but it is also prominent how strict some of the rules imposed on female idol singers can be, some including not even allowing their stars to date, to impose an idealised image for fandom without scandal.  

Mima, as she fears a doppelganger dressed in her old Cham costume haunts her, is beholden to her old self to obsessive fans. All the fans have their own versions of her as mentioned which we see, Kon himself tackling this subject of obsession in a negative light, from this to nostalgia, throughout his career, but in this particular case there is an added poignancy of following a young woman having to step out of her squeaky clean persona, an innocent who sings twee love songs only to now become a fully formed human being, who lives in a tiny apartment and has a regular life. Even though this was based on a novel by a man, and directed by a man, bearing in mind the animators and production team too, there was on this viewing a lot which stood out in terms of gender politics, a strikingly poignant line in particularly, when confronted by her doppelganger, when the other mocks her with the equivalent of "nobody likes idols with tarnished reputations".

But the other side is not glamorous either. Probably one of the darkest theatrical anime made, it has one of the most uncomfortable but morally well executed rape scenes in either live action or animation, involving one Mima acts out on the Double Blind TV show as her character turns to stripping only to be mobbed by the male pundits. It includes the behind-the-scenes of everyone breaking character, the main rapist just an actor asking between takes if she is okay, yet the scene is still uncomfortable with emotional aftershocks for her, acted out in the shooting of the film in full with complete intensity to the content. Now there is a new edge that, in the machinations, there is an added creepiness of the screenwriter writing a scene for an ex-idol, as spoken in the dialogue in regards to her agency wanting more of a role for her, to shed her innocence. Even that it leads to her character developing a multiple personality and being revealed to be the killer of women feels more like a lurid shock to get TV viewers on this viewing, Mima having to put up with this to become a great actor as she goes along.

Outside of notoriously lurid anime like Urotsukidôji or others with dangle precariously (or fall into) the same ball park, Perfect Blue is a dark and intense production in terms of adult content but without stepping over into trashiness. With industrial synth and eerie group vocals adding to the mood, by Masahiro Ikumi before Kon found his frequent collaborator Susumu Hirasawa, Perfect Blue does quality as a thriller but is definitely of the horror genre in mood and content. Even the one dated aspect, from a time when the internet was new and had weird terminology like "URLs", is still uncomfortably relevant about false personas, a false autobiographical diary of Mima's life she finds online scaring her, starting her psychological breakdown, because of how it even knows accurately what foot she steps off a subway train with first.

It is a bloody film, probably the most intense in Kon's career thought his work could be very adult, even over Paranoia Agent (2004) which did not shy away from subjects like suicide, but there is a tone and details here that in the modern day would startle even the world of uncut fan pleasing anime with erotic content. Some of it is unexpectedly subversive, such as how most of the victims in a series of murders are male characters. Some of it is the intensity of scenes of violence in general. One such thing is that, with Mima's nude photo shoot, you have depiction of female pubic hair. In Japanese culture, I have seen male and female genitals blurred in art, and even Japanese pornography is censored for depictions, and whether Perfect Blue was an exception in its home land or not, it would have a greater shock for a viewer (even Western fans outside of uncensored hentai) to see. One scene, where a male victim is stabbed to death with a phallic weapon of a screwdriver, even goes as far as have cuts to the nude photo shot mid-stab, and projected on the television in the background of the murder, intercutting an eroticised female body to a man being penetrated violently with a weapon.

Where Perfect Blue fully hits its stride is when all reality breaks down, starting with little tricks, such as seeing police sirens in the next scene but only to pull back to see a child riding a toy ride-on vehicle. With very realistic character designs, even having a playful touch of cutting to an exaggerated stereotype of a female anime character in one scene, a toy model with comically big eyes up against the camera, you could wonder why this could not be in live action aside from the fact that Kon's film is completely plastic in its ability to distort reality as a result. Literalising psychological states, contrasting the real Mima with a Cham idol Mima whose skin even glows and looks unreal, and with far more preciseness get away with the "it was all a dream" twists by television plotting invading her real life and bending reality. Double Blind scenes blur to psychological analysis Mima herself with obvious ideas, clichés from a trite TV show coming more meaningful when she herself is scrutinised. This became Kon's trademark, a willingness to bend his worlds to scrutinise its characters.

[Major Spoiler Warnings] You can argue this uses broad caricature. The culprit is actually Rumi, an older larger woman, and Me-Mania looks completely alien, but Perfect Blue is thankfully still more complicated than this. This is a very simple plot, with resolution, a clear conclusion where Mima even states in the last shot and line she has found herself, but the execution completely succeeds in adding weight...especially when the final scene I have mentioned, in the Japanese dub, has a play with which voice actor says the final line for added distortion of what is real. [Spoilers End]

Returning to Perfect Blue, it is still a success. It did not come from an abrupt spark of genius mind. Kon worked his way up as an animator, as well as in writing screenplays, and this was created by Madhouse, so this was a collaborative effort where everyone was on fire creating with. The great thing is that, making a lasting impression when Manga Entertainment acquired the licence, Perfect Blue is still held aloft, not an obscurity, and that Satoshi Kon in his brief career never dropped the ball after this initial promise.

#164: Kowabon (2015)

Director: Kazuma Taketani

Screenplay: Hiromu Kumamoto

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

A micro-series, thirteen episodes that are three minutes long each, but rather than absurdist comedy as many I have seen are, this is a horror series, the likes of which are becoming as common too in Japanese animation as bite-sized length series. This one as well is very much an aesthetic experiment too with is rewarding. All the episodes are based upon a piece of technology,  be it a video call to mobile phones, being haunted by a female ghost with malicious intent, something which is very common in Japanese pop culture.

The entire series has episodes ending predictably, where eventually a wholesome start becomes creepier, until eventually no one ends their story well, including the guy in his online show stupid enough to go to the haunting site of the previous episode before him. Japan in its popular culture has been documenting how ghosts would haunt out technology for decades now, and it always feels natural from an outsider's perspective because a) the frequency to which such a modern country shows it yet is still connected to its past, meaning that the supernatural and folklore have not been alienated, and b) there is a flawlessness in how, if there ever was something cheesy about a premise, it would be for a joke unless you came across a bad work, whilst most of the time it is taken more seriously. Their ghosts and monsters are not as likely to be broad, if you are going off the biggest horror films in this area like Ringu (1998) or Pulse (2001), so nothing is out of place or gauche about the combination of the two due to cohabitation. As much of it is how matter-of-fact these stories are, that the ghosts were always there, and likewise here we never get the sensation of these episodes having to reintroduce the female ghost, but that this is always going to happen. Her existence is never even explained, and she is just a malicious figure hanging over the world.

The stories are really spooky scares, more broadly fun scary than the atmosphere of those films mentioned, but it is interesting the choices taken even for three minute narratives. A video call with parents new to the tech, where it is the caller haunted. The video camera at a front door, where another concern is people trying to sell you insurance. Selfies and online blogging of one's self, which evokes self esteem and that, even in the nineties long before a lot of this technology existed, Satoshi Kon's debut film Perfect Blue (1997) and the series Serial Experiments Lain (1998) have stayed relevant just for the fear of a doppelganger who claims to be you being online. A lot of why Kowabon works is that, whilst the show throws caution to the wind and embraces the jolts and evil looking ghosts of a haunted house ride, it still resonates with the fear that even when technology is against us, when it malfunctions or just briefly flickers, there is enough room to induce a dread.

Also, indirectly, the stories for all the ones that are pure scares, some have more to them to read between the lines. The woman at odds with her own online self, and a commenter who is likely ghost, who withers away, as much able to be held as a comment on depression and the dangers of online self image. A wannabe idol, filming a dance video in the park, who is literally corrupted by her own doubt and self-destructs. That video call with parents mutated into only one, a ghost, judging their son for not calling them before. Eerie icing on these cakes.

The other thing of note is that the series is animated with rotoscoping. Ending in the credits with behind-the-scenes footage, the production filmed live action performances at locations first and then animated over them. It has a really practical use here as, alongside not being as potentially time constraining to animate, it offers real necessary use as it means Kowabon does not have to rely on cheap looking digital effects. Instead, it can use the animation for the supernatural content with a stylistic flair. It manages, immensely so, to balance the clear reality of actors onscreen with the more fantastical images from the lack of the restrictions with animation fully.

So, as a result for me, this is as much an experimental series too which succeeded with this idea. Due to the slightness of the episodes, it is difficult to write in greater detail about work which does not have a lot of time in three minutes to work with. The aesthetics however make a huge part of the experience, a very multicoloured contrast to its fights which contrasts the horror with an intentionally cartoonish supernatural tone, especially when the end credits is set to a bouncy J-pop song and cute horror figures bouncing along. At times it even feels like a Superflat pop collage, if Takashi Murakami's work had gone for more spookiness with bouncing skulls, its plasticity against the real actors and locations animated over compelling. In another timeline, we could have easily had a sequel series with even longer episode, if only under fifteen minutes, and separate narratives. In this timeline, Kowabon works well by itself.

#163: Puppet Princess (2000)

 

Director: Hirotoshi Takaya

Screenplay: Junichi Miyashita

Based on a manga short story by Kazuhiro Fujita

Voice Cast: Akiko Yajima as Rangiku Fumiwatari; Norio Wakamoto as Yasaburo Manajiri; Kouji Nakata as Sadayoshi Karimata; Takeshi Aono as Head of the Deathless Ninjas

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

The following review is to be found on my other blog A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies), part of its Halloween season of thirty one reviews per day and together a great way to promote both of them. If this is of interest to you the reader, follow the link HERE for many more reviews.

If there was ever a premise in desperate need for a television series, or a theatrical length adaptation, it would be Puppet Princess. There is however a reason against this. Created by Kazuhiro Fujita, famous for a manga series called Ushio and Tora (1990-6), Puppet Princess was only a short story, part of a group created by him between 1988-1994 that were compiled together into a work called Yoru no Uta (1995). So only if you had license to write more material, which could be a risk that does not pay off, or if Fujita ever decided to retell this narrative in a longer form, a forty minute straight-to-video anime OVA is all we have here.

It is surprisingly late for Puppet Princess to exist as an OVA, as even if there were titles into the mid to late 2000s created for the market, that format dwindled down into bonus episodes for other work rather than the rich format of the decades before. This one saddles the transitional era between the hand drawn and digital assisted animation too - I suspect some computer animation was used for assistance, but it does feel like an old school OVA in its style.

In period Japan, the narrator deliberately saying that this is an obscure tale forgotten of, a young woman carrying a giant box on her back, twice or more her height, wanders the countryside. Acting like the protagonist of a comedy, as she goes on her way with her pure hearted nature, she encounters a ninja whose team has been eliminated by "death-less" puppets, i.e. automatronic puppets that can move by themselves. The ninja Yasaburo and the young woman Rangiku realise they had the same goals, she actually the princess of a kingdom destroyed by Lord Karimata, wishing to hire Yasaburo to help her in revenge against Karimata, who killed her father, murdered her family, but with a greater concern for her the puppet he stole and created others from. Her father become so obsessed with puppetry he invested in them and created giant puppets that could fight, which she carries in the box and can control, alongside one that was entirely autonomous.

This premise is dispensed with quickly in forty minutes. A shame, but only because, from a short story which is in this form completes itself entirely, Fujita created a premise you could make a longer narrative from even if it could be in danger of padding. It is set up almost so, with Rangiku having four puppets, only for them to be barely used, again a shame as alongside their distinctions, the most prominent one used is a hulking samurai, the premise in terms of anime which have distinct logics common to them has one of note. That, having to control the puppets with her hands and feet, she is vulnerable to any attacks, hence why she wanted to hire Yasaburo.  It may seem a base thing to consider, especially as someone in live action who hates a lot of action scenes, as someone who likes comic book logic and martial arts films, these types of details actually become part of the character of anime stories, especially as they can be depicted with some creativity in the storytelling and art style.

It may have helped with the tonal shifts if this had been a longer work. This OVA juggles, even stumbles, over tone considerably. A lot is comedic. Sadly this does include a scene of bathing where implied ravishing is made a joke, even if thankfully the joke turns to Yasaburo being freaked out that Rangiku, somewhat cluelessly, is game in her optimism to try what he was trying to imply. It also stands out as, unsure why Puppet Princess is tagged as a horror anime when it is mostly an action period piece, it fully acquires it when it is revealed the puppet strings are made from the flayed skin of young children, even Rangiku's own as her mission is a conflicted one, arguably revenge but with knowledge her father was also a monster and that she wants to rid his creations from existence.

This material, again, would be a great longer premise, even if it would require new material to let it breathe. That complex little detail in itself adds a lot to this title as it is, but more could be taken from it in a longer story. As much of it is, to be even naive, that puppets are fascinating objects in themselves, and that knowing how in Japanese culture they have their own rich history, this world could have easily grown out the material with its idiosyncratic premise. Especially as it does have horror and comedy and action crammed together, particularly the horror aspects would have grown in weight if this material was allowed to breathe.

It did evoke for me Osamu Tezuka's Dororo (1967-9). Among the countless manga created by the proclaimed God of Manga, one of manga's (and anime's) most important figures, one such title he did not actually finish was also a period action work with a distinct premise and horror leanings, where a son who is sacrificed by his father to demons, leading them to steal as much of his body and organs as possible. Yet the boy in this world survives as a literal worm, going after his body parts as an adult with a mostly artificial form which, with arm swords and even knee missiles, is a literal weapon. Why Tezuka never actually finished that premise is unknown, but it was still enticing enough to have animated adaptations, a 2004 videogame version which had an ending, and even an acclaimed 2019 animated series which also completed the series and took new directions. Puppet Princess in this little shed of an idea, and that abrupt full formed turn to horror, could expand with similar richness.

But Puppet Princess as it is was a rewarding piece nonetheless. It is so slight it is difficult to either elaborate on the material, or to its advantage really criticise it as, in the spectrum of anime OVAs, this is a much more accomplished and rewarding one when, for every good one, there have been plenty of bad ones. The art style is worth bringing up though, idiosyncratic to the point some may find it ugly, at times with characters like Rangiku very supple and lithe, but with shots especially where the eyes are drawn with a weird shape even in the pupils, the teeth becoming sharper like fangs, becoming a style that here can switch easily from light hearted comedy to even the horror with ease in its artistic flairs. Again, it would have been fascinating to see this as a series or a long single narrative just to see how these character designs could develop.

Kazuhiro Fujita himself now also becomes a figure of interest for me. Adapted twice to animation, in the early nineties (as an OVA series) and the 2010s (as a television series), his Ushio and Tora is a well regarded title and, just from Puppet Princess, as an introduction it is a good one to Fujita himself. It says a bit in itself that, whilst known as a distributor nowadays who have been as elusive in releases like yeti sightings, and refuses to die, the American distributor Media Blasters first released soon after its 2000s release, and planned to release this on Blu-Ray in 2020 even as a forty minute only title, OVAS unless multiple episodes tragically maligned in the streaming and high definition era of anime. It was good on them, as this was with flaws but a surprise I was glad to see.

#162: Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro (2006)

 

Director: Hidetoshi Ōmori

Screenplay: Hideki Mitsui

Based on the manga by Ken Kitashiba and Yasuhiro Watanabe

Voice Cast: Teruaki Ogawa as Jotaro Zaizen; Hiroshi Ohtake as Keiichi Suzuki; Kōzō Shioya as Takumi Mochizuki; Rica Fukami as Junko Yoshioka; Rintarou Nishi as Ryuichi Jinnai; Seizo Katou as Kozo Soneya; Tetsu Inada as Naoto Todo; Tomomichi Nishimura as Seijiro Matsuzaka

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles¹

Da bomb!

We will call this review a tribute to the Anime World Order podcast, which started in December 2005 and still continued into the 2020s. It has outlasted other podcasts about anime, even anime distributors in the USA and even companies from Japan. They have seen one form of anime distribution, that insane idea of selling three to four episodes per full price disc for a whole series, die out in favour of streaming, even seen the brief HD DVD versus Blu-Ray war, even saw when Crunchyroll, a beloved streaming service, used to bootleg anime and were suspicious until gaining much respectability, admiration and even co-funded original titles for their streaming service.

I feel the people we admire - authors, writers, commentators - as much influence our obsessions as much as the first of anything we discover in youth. The first anime I saw will leave an impression, but also the titles (alongside manga) that podcast have brought up, and still need to get to, have influenced me over the years too. They also obsess us with obscurities we wish to track down, or at least for myself the oddities they and no one else bring up become like sacred items to at least see once. I seriously doubt anyone else covered Zaizen Jotaro, as we will call this show for short in this review, but they did back in August 2007, and even then, they only covered six of eleven episodes, a rare case where, for the most part covering the entirety of a work, they did not. Back then, it was still being fan subbed by the morbidly curious. Whilst it may seem an odd tribute to choose what is not a good show in the slightly, they have covered worse, and it was always the oddities, as much as a best, which always tantalised me and I am still tracking down.

What Zaizen Jotaro is, and I am glad to finally knock this show off that list to see, is what you do, adapting a manga started in 2004, to try to sell the type of heroic pulp figure of the "Seinen" genre to an older salaryman if he does not fancy any of those fantasy and science fiction tales. Seinen, a type of story meant to be sold to adult men between their teen years and middle age, has evolved over the years. What is actually represents in what the term means is varied nowadays. It can find connections to the "Gekiga" movement, coined by manga author Yoshihiro Tatsumi to move away from children's comics to those for adults, but it can vary between the more violent and adult content to even comedies about high school girls. It has become as flexible as other "genres" targeted to gendered audience, as "Shōjo" is meant for young girls but could go from science fiction by female authors to dramas. Hence, it cannot really be held as one thing or another. This, nonetheless, for me was clearly an attempt at that type of dynamic storytelling from their more action packed, adult tales....somewhere to a target older male reader's world, not assassinating people like Golgo 13 or fighting in fantasy world, but stamping down on political and financial corruption especially in the construction business.

Now, as anime and manga have proven, no idea is too dull or ridiculous if you can pull it off. Here, I could not help but think of the 2001 anime series adaptation of Salaryman Kintaro, based on the Hiroshi Motomiya manga and probably one of the obscurest anime titles to actually get a release on DVD in the United Kingdom. In that show, a former motorbike gang leader with a noble heart entered respectable white collar work in the construction industry; it was not a perfect show, but it was fascinating in terms of trying to make a melodramatic story in ordinary working life, with all the heightened drama and suspense expected for an action story, and this will not be the last time I evoke this show with Zaizen Jotaro. Zaizen Jotaro has more licensed for bombast as it follows the titular figure, a former cop who had his death faked and is a member of the independently ran anti-corruption group the Government Crime Investigation Agency (GCIA). He is a hot headed but noble figure who believes in justice and has carte blanche to take on corrupt politicians, embezzling business managers, and even the criminal underworld backing them.

He can fight, but his secret weapon is unlimited money. Whilst Batman is a millionaire with the advantage of his class privilege, he at least went into exile to learn martial arts and various techniques just in case technology and wealth were not enough. Jotaro, who exiled to the "deserts of Great Britain" (??), has the ultimate credit card which he waves around also as his badge, the designer gold black card which allows him to hire anything he needs. Giant construction trucks, hired armed back-up, anything. He is armed to take on idiosyncratic and colourful figures, such as a gang leader who loves theatre, and between them throw Shakespeare quotations at each other, to the ultimate villain, a ninety plus year old gang boss who yet has the physique of a forty year old man, looking with his huge muscles like a villain from a Fist of the North Star rip-off, and all those decades to build up a group known as the Black Dragon Group who control everything.

Before we actually get to the truth, as I learnt of this show, Zaizen Jotaro is not a subjectively good show in the slightest, but let us step back rather than merely trash it. Reconsider at least that, yet, this is still the same idealised male image of the man found in other Japanese pop culture. One who woos all beautiful women who he encounters; one who can talk back and be cocky in a culture where, infamously, the phrase "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" appears a bit in, and as a fighter for truth and justice, especially to stop corrupt people stealing the populous' tax money, he is a bad ass who can out think or just out style anyone else. The difference is he is now in a realm of the ordinary working man, someone who is suave and stylish even in the world of construction business corruption where their crimes are smaller scale like making cheaper (but more dangerous to use) concrete by mixing in sand.

Jotaro, even with eyebrows so sharp he could open cans with them, to borrow a joke from that AWO Podcast review, is a fantasy ideal for a male reader to imagine himself as. Definitely a ladies' man as, whilst chaste, there is one sex scene and almost every woman he encounters (side agents, criminal mistresses, kept women of luxury) becomes almost the equivalent of the harem genre female characters, joining the GCIA and looking on lovingly at him. (There is even some slapstick of him having wandering eyes; also unfortunately some material, groping people from behind, not acceptable even from the pervert male high school student nowadays). The fantasy of luxury, in spite of this being about the fantasy of swatting down corrupt politicians, cannot be ignored either. Barely really touching the common man, baring at least the police or the one company employee who Jotaro rescues and has on his team, it is as much about middle class or luxurious people with unlimited money to have the best suits, the best food and alcohol etc.

Truthfully as well, this is in context to a very silly show with is also insanely cheap. Before we even get to the series' narrative, this is a rudimentary looking programme to say the least, with the added quirk of its attempt at style. Shorthand that looks jarring, such as many swipe pans to transition to new scenes, one involving a gun being waved across the screen from right to left to cut to the next scene. Or cutting within a shot an extreme close up of a character or an image, in the space originally of the initial shot, in what is like a collage-like hybrid of two different shots which, actually, stands out but is beholden to how cheap the show looks.

The first episode belies this as well as, for a show meant to be about the edgy subject of corruption in Japanese culture, suggesting a detailed and labyrinth mystery, this show is also comically broad. From his introduction our titular protagonist is a cartoon, buzzing an airport control tower, including bending reality of electronics by being able to project his face in a panel, to being able to snap his fingers and have an army of people dress him smartly in public. Even his catchphrase - "Da bomb" - is goofy, and never spoken (in English) in a logical circumstance where it makes sense to. The show tones down considerably, but in that first episode you get a highway over run with large 18-wheelers trying to run him over, to monks, Christian not Buddhist, inexplicably trying to off him, setting the stage for what may seem a hyper-exaggerated farce.

Even beyond then, it does feel like a child's fantasy of cops and robbers, grown to an adult's with no real sense of what it is trying to tackle in political corrupt and a lot of abruptness. I learnt some things, I kid you not reader, of worth to be a better man, quotations of Shakespeare to what foods are detoxins that can help one live longer, like plums, when Zotaro is finally introduced to the main villain by buying the hospital he is at. The show is useless if you wanted any plot to elaborate on what actual business corrupt is. Salaryman Kintaro, whilst also ridiculous, at least had a scene where Kintaro learns how construction companies bid on projects to do the work on, needed as exposition for when Kintaro is aware of people attempting to rig the ballots; if remotely accurate to how Japanese business work, that exposition in itself was at least of worth. Here, there is never even an elaborate plot explanation for the world, even before it leads to business men being assassinated or forced to kill themselves, about the intricacies of embezzlement even if simplified.

Even if broad, even if still pandering to this macho fantasy, even with the limited animation, this show would have been fascinating as a melodramatic tale, with gangs and manly tears being shed, police officers firing their pistols in the air in salute to their fallen comrade at a funeral and a confrontation at the beach, which elaborated on a world of business and political corruption from them. Even for a show as ridiculous as having the daughter of that fallen officer be the one who inspires everyone with words beyond her years yet naive, this could have been an intently over-the-top but in-depth tale. Even a show where the lead literally becomes a superhero by disguising himself like a caricature of a chauffeur could have some gravitas. Anime's greatest virtue is that, grown up with even if usually shown after midnight on Japanese television, it is not that it is more mature, as children's shows existing can attest to, but that like manga you have the ability to tackle any premise or tone. The series Hidetoshi Ōmori, whilst that show is not known about anymore, adapted a shonen (young teen audience) manga called Dan Doh!!!  in 2004 for television, a story about golf. So a business crime narrative would have worked. A man with a credit card for a weapon against greedy fatcats is still credible. Neither is actually done well.

Most of Zaizen Jotaro is amusingly naff instead. An ending of an episode abruptly ends cutting in a  shot of a fighter plane abruptly exploding in the sky, Jotaro not since a film serial lead fraught with fighting against episode end cliff-hangers, others following suit in their unexpected abrupt turns. Characters, usually the men, metaphorically beat their chests about justice and helping Japan be the best without corruption, not necessary jingoistic either as the GCIA is meant to be the Japanese equivalent of the FBI. In another show, it would have had weight that many of the figures we meant are old men, or men in their middle age, which saw Japan rebuild itself after World War II or were there as the country was slowly gaining economic stability, but here it is lost.

I would be amused if it ever got a proper Blu Ray release or streamed in the West. All anime should be available. I cannot hate Zaizen Jotaro, because it is too charming in what it is in spite of what is wasted. But nonetheless, I will not kid the reader that this is a good show. Lowered expectations are not enough to get around the moments that drift along, or the problematic gender politics where one female character just get killed for an emotional weight, or that it does not have a real ending either, just a form of abrupt conclusion, and that most of the show's most dynamic scenes are just conferences by businessmen being really polite as they apologise for scandals that the plot does not explain. It is however an odd, amusing piece of time capsule, with some interest, some entertainment, and some fascination.

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1) Unreleased in the West, I had to rely for this piece on a version, found in the year 2020, where the subtitles were clearly translated by someone (or a computer software) with not the most perfect grasp of English specifically in sentence structure, which could be awkwardly put together at times. I am still glad to have been able to see the show, and it still made sense, so my heart goes out to the person (or even software) that let this review even happen.

#161: Ben-To (2011)

 

Director: Shin Itagaki

Screenplay: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu

Based on the Light Novels by Asaura and Kaito Shibano

Voice Cast: Emiri Katō as Ayame Shaga; Hiro Shimono as Yō Satō; Mariya Ise as Sen Yarizui; Ai Kayano as Ume Shiraume; Aoi Yūki as Hana Oshiroi; Ayana Taketatsu as Asebi Inoue; Eriko Nakamura as Chapatsu; Kazuyuki Okitsu as Ren Nikaidō; Ryoukichi Takahashi as Bōzu; Tomoyuki Higuchi as Agohige; Yui Horie as Kyō Sawagi; Yūichi Iguchi as Hiroaki Uchimoto; Yukari Tamura as Kyō Sawagi

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Proving anime can have the oddest premises, Ben-To presents a ridiculous yet enticing one which managed to last for fifteen volumes of a light novel series. The title refers to bento, boxed lunches which are a trope even in anime and manga of homemade meals in boxes, but can also be bought at stores, of a higher quality in fact then you would presume for store made food depending on the bento in question. Unlike say a TV dinner or a ready meal as well, bento boxes can be historically traced back to the Kamakura period (1185 to 1333), so they have developed a historical and cultural relevance in Japan which, just from how many anime I grew up with referenced them, makes them worthy of even a very silly premise about. Here, this imagines if, when the unsold higher end ones are labelled half price later in a day, a world of high scholars and young adults who have set up ritualistic brawls over them. People, gender equality involved as women fight men and each other, defeat all the competitors who wait in which store this happens in at night, known as "wolves", until the winner claims the top prize, which is usually the best bento marked with a laurel leaf sticker, the runners up get the remaining bento, and everyone else has to do with cup ramen.

Enter into this Yō Satō, a new high school student who is the stereotype of the male anime lead, very horny around the female populous, who is a plucky and clumsy figure. Give Ben-To its due, with the first episode told in reverse until the middle which him trying to remember what happened, it opens with him having had his head kicked in at a store and, upon his short term memory coming back, realising he had wandered into a culture of bento brawlers without realising it and got decimated. This does however lead him to the stern female figure of Sen Yarizui, nicknamed the Ice-Cold Witch, who decides since she is the only person in her own Half-Price Club, for bento brawlers where the discount stickers she claim are kept in a book and put on the wall, to welcome him and Hana Oshiroi in, the later a girl who merely dodges through the brawls and, in a running gag, is using Satō and others in this world as inspiration for her man-on-man fan erotica called Muscle Cop.

Any premise can work in anime, particularly as Ben-To has a huge advantage in a bigger budget than most shows. This is likely because, frankly, of the entire real product placement. We will get into all the fan service and sexual humour, but this again is history of the video game company Sega's weird marketing decisions in terms of anime, doing this a decade earlier in Arcade Gamer Kabuki (2002), alongside there being licenses products from others as well, in the stores and a pharmaceutical company a co-producer. Ben-To as a result is able to indulge in more polish and style, able to indulge even in three elaborate opening animations, one just used once. It also takes advantage in having fight scenes which are elaborate and of a good quality, even if they are pointedly not martial arts fights, but brawls. This in itself is unique, with characters able to flip in the air, mass fight fights among a horde of competitors, one enemy early on nicknamed the Boar, a woman who uses a loaded trolley a battering ram, and the ultimate opponents having perfected hand baskets as defensive/trap weapons for limbs.

The world as it is promises a deeply silly but potentially inspired one - where there are fights like this in every store in Japan, here with West and East groups established, and a code of ethics among the wolves, such as only fighting when the person who puts the half price labels on finishes, and that once someone gets a bento they cannot be touched or have it stolen off it. Everyone has nicknames and, as I presumed the show would be, the tropes of an anime fighting tale of increasingly stronger enemies and elaborate scenarios would play out.

Arguably there are too many characters for only twelve episodes, but you have enough even as clichés for good material. Satō and Sen are regulars, as is Ayame, Satō's cousin who is the stereotypical big busted character who is also a wolf; inexplicably half-Italian, which is not even used for character detail but this being one of the only anime who needs to explain a female character with blonde hair, and is very intimate with Satō in a borderline way. Her friend Asebi, a criminally underused figure, is a holy fool who is so cursed with bad luck that, for all the disasters and chaos she causes herself but especially to everything near her, is blissfully happy. Thankfully more used is Hana, the Muscle Cop writer, and Ume, the school council president who is explicitly attracted to other girls, and beats up Satō up for presumed mistreatment of Hana, who she is very more attached to, only with the issue that Hana (even if not sexual) has a fascination with muscled men and gay erotica. Ume has an additional aspect to her in that one of their classmates, secretly a masochist, has found since she will not beat him up, he will instead take delight in watching her beat Satō up instead. Then there are other wolves, side characters, initial rivals, a group known as the "Dog" who gang up to scavenge the bento away from fights, or a character like Hair Dye, her most prominent aspect that she is another female fighter, also another with a big bust, but you never see the face of at all under her long brunette hair in one of the funnier jokes.

I will note that twice I have in one paragraph mentioned the figures of some of the female characters. That sounds crass, but Ben-To is also explicitly an ecchi fan service show too, clearly to be able to sell the show to a larger audience of male otaku, which says something that a fun fighting premise and even Sega merchandise was not enough already. The problem with it here is more, as we will get to, a premise being too distracted by padding than the material I wanted. Sex comedy and humour is in a lot of anime, and there is a side of this I think would have worked without everything else. Hana's gay erotica jokes are worth having, even the fact Ume is explicitly attracted to her.

Even that closeted masochist who thinks Satō is into being beaten up, and later tries to bond with him over material, like an "instructional" self defence video where a busty woman beats up men, or that Satō is a lewd person, which can be toe curling at times but can be put up with if just for the fact, to his horror, people start calling him "Hentai" ("Pervert") as his Wolf nickname, which makes his inherent horniness actually a character trait he will have to deal with, especially as with some of it, he is definately a high school student who has no bloody idea what to do if he actually had a girl propose any intimate with. Much of the series is just titillation for the sake of titillation, with all the female bathing scenes or the pool resort episode, all with no actual nudity mind, that sense of not actually being erotic and wasting time. Again, it amazes me Sega thought this was a great way to sell their history, where Satō has a Sonic the Hedgehog wallpaper on his phone and the characters play Virtual Fighter 2 (1994), planting their flag on something again where the fan service dominates.

That a real pharmaceutical companies were involves shows the blunt truth that anime is also a product, and that it needs to promote itself somehow, even if it means cute girls packed into bento boxes for eye catches in the middle of episodes. Truthfully, the bigger problem is that I had hoped Ben-To would be everything that premise had been, all the fighting story clichés in a world of stores and supermarkets, but does not follow it and is distracted by the likes of the fan services. You do have a boss attempt to control the West and East, angered over a fight in the past, and the pool resort episode gets away with existing as they have a bento brawl where the prizes are floated in the middle of the water, adding an entirely different series of physics to deal with. But you could have had secret supermarket fight techniques, events in other regions, even have plot points from other stories like something trying to destroy the bento brawling society for them harming them or a loved one in the past.

No, what we get is okay, but is beholden to all that fan service, and squandering its budget and time, it feels slight. Even the Sega product placement makes no sense - the only moment of note is when, where Sen decides to throw his Sega Saturn games console out a window because she kept losing, Satō nearly loses his life falling down with it to protect it, a joke which is funnier, even as a non-gamer, as I actually had a Sega Saturn as a kid, a console which failed completely but secretly loved by people especially if they could import the Japanese games.  The sense of the show spinning its wheels, clearly not going to take a risk when it has been okay, is felt when two episodes, eight and nine, are a waste of time. One is when Satō went out a window to protect that Saturn, ending up in hospital very injured and recuperation; it is meant to introduce the Sawagi sisters, the ultimate adversaries, but the episode feels padded with them pretending to be nurses, in cute pink uniforms, to scrutinise him for a punch line that takes too long. The one after is so oddly paced with nothing actually happening; it does have more about Ume in her romance with Hana, and that unfortunately her love is more interesting in muscular guys with other guys, but it feels so non-existent as an episode.

This show does improve a bit more for the final three episodes, but never was there a show like Ben-To where it felt disposable like this. Again, this premise, no matter how absurd, could have been amazing if it had been even more over-the-top or dramatic. What I get with Ben-To is a show which did not embrace this fact.