#241: Baoh - The Visitor (1989)

Studio: Pierrot

Director: Hiroyuki Yokoyama

Screenplay: Kenji Terada

Based on the manga by Hirohiko Araki

Voice Cast: Hideyuki Hori as Ikurō Hashizawa / Baoh; Ichirō Nagai as Dr. Kasuminome; Ikuya Sawaki as #22; Noriko Hidaka as Sumire; Shūichi Ikeda as Dordo; You Inoue as Sophine; Yūsaku Yara as Walken

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Before JoJo's Bizarre Adventure started in 1987, manga author Hirohiko Araki had an attempt beforehand at an action manga in 1984 for Weekly Shōnen Jump, one which was cancelled into 1985. This forty plus minute straight-to-video production retells this, made when JoJo's Bizarre Adventure had already had a good start to its legacy defining existence that lasts to the modern day. This story begins with a nine year old girl with psychic abilities named Sumire fleeing members of Doress, an evil scientific organisation, on their own personal train when she uncovers Baoh. Baoh, and his host Ikurō Hashizawa, is a biologically created parasite that, for the host, makes them supernaturally strong. Too strong, too powerful, too dangerous, and one that is said to eventually kill the host and find a new body to survive in, which like so many evil scientist plans involving super soldiers or weapons was exceptionally stupid with hindsight. Only its allergy to fire and shooting the host in the head offer any sense to the creation of this worm-like blue parasite.

Baoh: The Visitor is a lurid little shocker, one I am surprised we never got in the United Kingdom in the VHS days, one which was never even a Manga Entertainment release but AnimEigo, whose modus operandi was more for sci-fi titles like Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991), still to the modern day preserving and re-releasing titles in the United States, a real homemade company founded by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams III, but one whose titles rarely were the gory productions Baoh belongs too. Credit where it is due, Baoh at least comes without any slouch and enough style to make itself over-the-top, in which Doress want to stop Baoh getting away, some style to be found such as in ominous premonitions Sumire has which allow some dream-like artistic flourishes to stand out, one with a sketchpad she has suddenly conjuring a violent horror a stand out for animated invention. This is not a surprise considering this is a studio Pierrot production, a long standing and ongoing animation studio who have worked in multiple forms and would be adapt even to bring some style to this production.  

But you see why the manga likely did not catch on too. Baoh and Ikurō as the lead are broken in how unstoppable they are, with Baoh able to come up with new ways to escape events, but that is less of an issue next to how the personality is not there. Something significant with even the first JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga, christened Phantom Blood, and the second Battle Tendency is how he had figures out its most enticing aspect. Before Hirohiko Araki came up with the Stands, a concept for the whole franchise of spiritual entities hosted in characters who assist them in combat and in peculiar powers, he had already found the personality and eccentricities which would make the series legendary, not just his idiosyncratic habit (with Western copyright issues) of naming characters after bands and musicians. There is a lot of manga where the hero will always be powerful and able to overcome hazard, but Araki got everything right with JoJo's even down to how, to win a fight, the leads had to figure out their opponents like a chess game of how to overcome an unnatural ability. He ditched the tone Baoh suggests of having to be straight faced all the time, openly embraced being goofy as it was being serious, something you do not see in the stoicism of Ikurō here as his later acclaim came with protagonists who could be utter doofuses as they could be noble and heroic.

Baoh the anime, as a hyper-violent eighties anime for the video market, is more interesting than because of how ridiculous it is. It sets this up with the least competent assassin who guts a man yet lets him slowly wander off across the road and acquire a motorbike to escape, just standing there and letting him get away. In mind to this being at the time the Stardust Crusaders arc of JoJo's was being penned in manga, the high watermark for getting the series its legacy, creating the Stands, and some of the franchises' most iconic characters and aspects, Baoh: The Visitor was likely to be produced off the back of this, but I would not be surprised that this was made for the video market like many titles for its lurid pulpy content. It feels as much an excuse for the many heads here alone being melted or exploded in full animated detail, where one of Ikurō's opponents is a cyborg with a gun for a hand who yet can weld a gun in both before hand in his human skin. Its problems are entirely in mind that the world is not that interesting, beginning with Ikurō Hashizawa not being a distinct lead. His Baoh form is certainly memorable, a prototype one of the "Stands" introduced in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and certainly in terms of body horror, the concept of Baoh as a manga is sound in imagining, not matter how dumb an idea for evil scientists to have done. A biological weapon that transmogrifies a person or animal beyond their original form, and could multiply, is fascinating as a concept. It is however telling that the most interesting character for me is Walken, a Native American working for Doress' side, a giant who can re-boil a cup of coffee or melt faces off with his tremendous psychic powers.

Barring a female lead that has her alien squirrel-cat creature as a friend, there is not a lot among this cast unless Baoh was worked on greatly for more manga volumes in terms of idiosyncratic figures, most of them cliches with not enough time to stand out. JoJo's, which can be serious, found in having French bulldogs named Iggy as supporting heroes or naming a villain Vanilla Ice both added a deliciously strange personality to the work but also added so much more to engage with the material with. Even in the first arches of that manga, you see Hirohiko Araki had brought in likable protagonists, distinct and memorable figures even in the one-off enemies, and a sense that as his influences showed themselves, including his fascination with aesthetic be it ancient Greek art to fashion, clothing and the poses models make wearing such clothes, the sense of style was going to add to the personality as much. Araki's world that in which the goofier you are and ridiculous your clothing and/or personality is, the more you are allowed to get away with it because you could punch an actual hole through someone with your powers, the charisma onscreen and in person. Ikurō here has his knitwear sweater, even in Baoh form, but among generic soldiers, occasionally one robot and a psychic whose powers are regulated by a bandana, this is quite a generic roster from a creator who got how to make everyone stand out, literally and figuratively, after this perfectly. What this becomes is the prototype for that manga, where Baoh ended in 1985 and JoJo's began in 1987. Touches suggest where Araki was going, and they are funny in an absurd way here, such as overcoming a hazard by severing one's arm then reattaching it afterwards. There is the added humour in this anime, which befits the many of this time period full of gore and over-the-top action, where the villains, whilst generic scientists, are also professor exposition in literal form, which will mean more as the English dub AnimEigo produced for their release may help with appreciating the title more, far more over-the-top than the professional if subdued Japanese one.

It is credit to the fandom and legacy of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that Baoh was not forgotten, even if this OVA is a curiosity, for Ikurō Hashizawa found his way as a cameo playable character in a beat em up videogame for the JoJo's franchise, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle, both for the 2013 version and the 2022 remaster, where the developers CyberConnect2 added a respectful nod to Araki's past creation, who certainly sat nicely among the later heroes of the manga author visually. It is also with hindsight that, whilst having created other stories before and after, Araki's career has been JoJo's Bizarre Adventure since 1987, but with the huge advantage that each arch is its own period, with new characters, even having reset the timeline for the world with Steel Ball Run (2004–2011). Araki literally made his name on one title, but one which will never get stale because its world, originally set up around the continuing family tree of the Joestar family of the JoJo name, can go throughout history and place, from the 1920s to futuristic Florida in a women's prison. That in itself softens Baoh's flaws as an anime in itself as, alongside being too short and too entertaining to dismiss, this is the collection of all of one manga where Araki first made a try, and then afterwards got it right and became a cultural institution.