#281: Vampire Princess Miyu (1988-89)

 

Studio: AIC

Director: Toshiki Hirano

Screenplay: Shō Aikawa

Based on the manga by Toshiki Hirano and Narumi Kakinouchi

Voice Cast: Naoko Watanabe/Anne Marie Zola (Manga UK dub)/Pamela Weidner as Miyu; Mami Koyama/Stephanie Griffin as Himiko Se; Kaneto Shiozawa/Zach Hanner as Larva

Viewed in English Dub

 

If one wants a really moody late eighties anime, the original Vampire Princess Miyu stands out as one which neither gets into the gruesome ballpark of some of the more notorious from the straight-to-video era, instead a significantly more melancholic horror story. It is also a personal project for its director Toshiki Hirano, who was also the original manga author with the illustrations done by his wife Narumi Kakinouchi, prolific in both the animation industry, in manga and book illustrations. Credit to Hirano and the teams on both animated adaptations, they made sure to transfer her career designs and style to the moving image, Miyu beginning as a manga in 1988 and concluding in 2002, with additional spin-off titles. This franchise, beginning with four straight-to-video episodes, also marks as much a distinct part of Toshiki Hirano's career, an animation director who was as much one of the names part of that streak of more ghoulish and lurid anime from the eighties into the nineties, especially for the straight-to-video market, as much as for adapting giant robot stories. One adaptation which he had a firm hand in adapting all the entries for Iczer franchise, based on an hentai manga, but as an adapted in the first and most well known entry, Fight! Iczer One (1985-1987), is definitely one to cover at some point as a mecha story with explicit body horror, as a race known as the Cthulhu (in that spelling explicitly nodding to H.P. Lovecraft) are secretly invading Earth by sending down parasites which mutate human beings in horrifying body horror mutations, only for a female alien, teaming with a schoolgirl distraught from her family and friends being victims to synchronize with a giant mecha's ultimate power, to fight back with an explicit all-female yuri romance nodded to.  That is definitely as idiosyncratic as you can get for a title, though the sequels would move in their own directions, as Vampire Princess Miyu is in both forms, and as notorious his adaptation of Apocalypse Zero (1996) also was, which was not able beyond two episodes to really adapt a body horror post-apocalypse super hero with explicitly grotesque and Freudian monster designs. He has also had a remarkable comeback into consciousness with the 2021-2023 adaptation of Baki the Grappler, Keisuke Itagaki's martial arts series which was picked up for the streaming platform on Netflix and Toshiki Hirano has been a large part of the adaptation for.

The Miyu adaptations have their shared familial traits - Miyu herself is a dhampir, half-vampire and half-human, given temporary immortality and the ability to give this gift as a vampire to humans, in servitude to banishing the "Shinma", figures between the Japanese yōkai and general monsters who are terrorising the morals and not in the otherworld where they should be. After that however, there were notable revisions for the 1997-8 television series, felt with the first episode about a possible vampire stalking Kyoto, draining all the blood from female victims and terrorising the area. With the name of Shō Aikawa as the screenwriter as important to bring up, both notorious for many lurid anime straight-to-video titles from this era but also acclaimed for his later works in the decades after, you feel the pessimistic take on human beings throughout these four episodes even if there is a clear flaw to this adaptation, that at only four episodes it feels too short to stretch itself.

There is an exclusive character to this adaptation, a female spiritualist named Himiko who is introduced to a possible real possession of a girl asleep for days. Also noticeable is that, even if the English dub may complicate this, Miyu herself in this version is a very different character to the TV series, even if we learn of her tragic back-story in the last two episodes. She is more glib, happy (even gleeful) to feed off people, and has none of the melancholia of the version of her in the later series, instead a teen girl in attitude, the kind of macabre vampire who would frolic along the streets even if aware of the importance of her job, more so as she has all the advantages of being able to walk in sunlight and holy water being ineffective. The set up of the episode establishes the animosity of Himiko to her, in Himiko's own moral code seeing Miyu's glib attitude to the incidents. It also sets up this as a visually stylish work whilst also a pessimistic one about the Shinma fed by human incidents, Miyu's nonplussed way of disposing of them even if still with human causalities angering Himiko. Another prominent name, and a big get to have even if this was very early in his career, is Kenji Kawai, who would become a huge name in composing especially with his collaborations with director Mamoru Oshii, someone who would return for the 1997 Miyu series when he was a big name with a sense of respect for those involved for this production, one clearly made with love.

Episode two opens with a room of mannequins - some eyeless, some laid about like about like corpses - the result of a female Shinma who looks and dresses like a traditional Japanese doll if made flesh in her human disguise, one who at a high school turns people into said dolls as a literalisation of staying young forever, including the fact they can still bleed and are alive. This was my favourite episode as it plays with the mood and characterisation the adaptation was able to convey, in a work arguably too short to feel fully fleshed out able to have an episode here with the most complexity. Himiko is our assumed consciousness, believing Miyu (as a true anti-heroine here) is after the handsome male student the Shinma is after too just to take all his blood, only to complicate this further in that, as a teen girl, it reveals she was crushing on the mortal. He is entirely falling for a Shinma who does not realise her own love for him until the conflict hits it's fullest, and that one dynamic makes this really interesting especially with how the story ends. It is a really interesting one, [Spoiler] one where the Shinma wins but with the guy, even now as a doll as she is, finding true love dancing in the afterlife with her as sentient dolls [Spoilers End]. With a really distinct surreal style of these uncanny anatomically complex doll creatures involved and a romantic love triangle involved, this is the highlight for this adaptation.

Episode three is the team up story between Himiko and Miyu, if a begrudging one, with greater emphasis on the back story of Miyu and her friend/assistant Larva, who emphasises how, as vampires are not in Japanese folklore, many Japanese stories which have them reference their histories as foreign in origin, Larva a Western vampire part of explaining Miyu's bloodline origins, only to become her servant when she consumed his blood at a younger age, losing his voice and having to wear a mask as a result, details excised from the TV series. The last two episodes intertwine in dealing with Miyu's back-story, this surrounding Larva's brother trying to get to Miyu through a sentient suit of armour possessed by a dead soul, whilst episode four is set in Kamakura, around a story from Himiko's childhood in a strange house that turns out to be Miyu's old family home, explaining the tortured origins of Miyu becoming the Guardian whilst leaving the Himiko character, never to return, with the suggestion she may become like Miyu in a delayed reaction.

Then this version of the story was closed. The sense of this version of Vampire Princess Miyu ended abruptly cannot be ignored, still with a sumptuous mood and bittersweet attitude to humanity, but we would have to wait for the 1997 TV series to be able to try to flesh out this story. That was a reboot of this titular character in tone and details, losing the likes of Himiko as a character and replacing her with others, even a cute demonic Shinma rabbit, and using an episode tone to tell its story. My interest in both is for their ideas and their styles, something made with a distinct tone and attitude that is felt with one of its creators in the director's seat for both. Even in terms of a purely glib enjoyment, as horror anime, this wins me over for its tone, even in the fact that one of my favourite obsessions, a troupe of the straight-to-video and older anime of phantom worlds within reality characters kept ending up in which are surreal, are found in both because Miyu has her own pocket dimension she can enter on whim, which is a win on a petty level as a viewer.

Toshiki Hirano and Narumi Kakinouchi would continue, even after the end of the original manga series, to continue this franchise on in published comics to the 2020s, a beautiful collaborative life as a married couple who adored these characters and moods to these stories to continue them. Annoyingly most of this series in published form never got English translations, which is a shame as, especially with the success of Baki the Grappler under Hirano's directing hands, I would have thought a series he held so dear to him as his own creation would have caught interest. Especially in just this adaptation, its melancholic tone with a female protagonist that is noticeably in power, never sexualised in either of the adaptations in creepy ways, but in a series even known for yuri readings with certain character relationships, and this would be a franchise who would have won so many new fans in the modern era. It is a huge compliment to say that I could imagine a new Vampire Princess Miyu and, if Hirano was allowed to keep control of it, it would do gangbusters in popularity.

#227: Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma (1989)

 

Studio: J.C. Staff

Director: Takashi Anno

Screenplay: Shou Aikawa

Based on the manga by Kei Kusunoki

Voice Cast: Kenyuu Horiuchi as Hikage; Hiromi Tsuru as Aya #1; Kaneto Shiozawa as Marou; Miina Tominaga as Aya #2; Banjou Ginga as Brawny Koga; Eiji Maruyama as Old Bonze; Hideyuki Tanaka as Kazami; Jūrōta Kosugi as Majuumi no Miko / Shiranui; Kazumi Tanaka as Chain-Wielding Koga; Kōzō Shioya as Shiratsuyu

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Among many straight-to-video productions made in the eighties, Blood Reign is set in the 16th century, marked by the fact, as in real life, Oda Nobunaga, a legendary figure in Japanese history who would eventually be mythologized and demonised in pulp stories, is alive and trying to unify the country through bloody conflict. Set within this period, Blood Reign stands out with interest for me that its source material, a one shot manga, is penned and illustrated by a female author Kei Kusunoki, someone I am immediately interested in after this adaptation, if sadly with very little of her work translated into English. "Kei Kusunoki" her pen name, born Mayumi Ōhashi, her work varies between drama, comedy and horror, to which, prolific decades on, from Blood Reign's 1985-6 manga, this would not be the last time the later titles were adapted to anime, as Ogre Slayer (1994-5) now stands out with great interest. If this has any of the semblance of her touches in the adaption, than she is an interesting figure I wish was more readily available. As much of this is knowing Shou Aikawa is penning the scripts; unlike his more notorious work from this era, like Urotsukidôji, this whilst a very violence and ghoulish horror tale feels much more melancholic and moody in tone, given flaws in the plotting that will have to be brought up.

In context of its real historical setting, a ninja clan member Hikage has to kill his childhood friend and fellow ninja Marou on behest of the clan. Their master, in the midst of the bloody conflict, is killed and, wishing to hid this knowledge from the outside world for least three years, Marou has to be killed by their seniors, as he has fled and will be able to spread this knowledge if he so wishes. There are far bigger concerns though, as demons were involved with their master's death, and if the rival Iga clan ninja were already a problem for Hikage, worse is to be dealt with in that Marou is connected to monsters and demons lurking. Marou, it turns out, was "born of the ground", not specified if this meant he was born of a mother already buried in the grave, or literally from the underworld and the soil, but his form is of demonic origins, and he is being protected by monsters wishing to help his rebirth into a demon leader to lead an invasion of the human world.

Blood Reign's source manga was for Ribon Original, a shoujo manga magazine, which means it was targeted for adolescent girls and young woman. It very much undercuts any gender stereotyping as, if this anime production faithfully reproduced the source material, that manga was as sombre as this two part OVA was, alongside the fact for this J.C. Staff production, they embraced its phantasmagorical period horror aesthetic. It is insanely violent and morbid when it desires to be, if slanted in a moodiness contrasting other violent anime of any genre from the time period. The first episode sets this up, set around Hikage tracking Marou down to a strange inn, in the middle of nowhere, where lost souls gather to get drunk, a place where Aya will cross Hikage's life, one of two women with the same name he will encounter like fate. A woman with a facial disfigurement he comes close to, this chapter unfortunately comes to a doomed narrative as the place is a location  a spider demon was drawing the suicidal towards the area, those in that state for them suitable candidates, giving a little happiness, to feed on and feed to others.

Episode two escalates the danger as Marou, fully demonic and acquiring demon henchmen, intends to conquer the land. There is also Aya, a female ninja now without clan who starts to fall for Hikage as he now has to stop Marou for greater concerns. Blood Reign, almost feature long, does suffer from the fact the narrative feels slight even if by ten to twenty minutes, a work which could have had an additional episode, if was possible with the source material, and felt fully fleshed out. There is not enough here to stretch into a series, but this feels slighter here than needed to get the most from the content. What helps against it is being a good horror piece, one which contrasts its real nasty violence and body horror, such as a spider monster turning from human form or being able to dismember people with one leg, contrasted with its evocative supernatural aesthetic. This shows the virtue of anime in depicting a variety of genres in its inherently heightened form, horror's unnatural side found fully played even here. There are monstrous butterfly women, giant snake demons, talking tree faces, and processions of the dead wandering abandoned villages in the middle of the night.

There is also a demon thunder horse named Majuni, who rules the sea, talks and laps human blood of those who he tramples on, so Blood Reign also interests, without exoticising the content, as an inherently Japanese work in its setting context and the subjects of its narrative, adding something different. The drama feels the slightest of the work, which is why this could have done with a longer length, such as how the two Aya are slight, the second coming off mostly as a woman in peril, or that Marou and Hikage's relationship, clearly the tragedy it plays up to, should have been allowed to have been fleshed out. (A random female ghost, connected to Marou sacrificing his humanity earlier before the narrative, is so slight as a major plot thread to that is shows Blood Reign needed a little bit longer in terms of narrative to have told itself.) Everything else about the production however, barring that the rock guitar and synth are definitely not period appropriate in action scenes, is eerie even when a ninja action work at times, with a very distinct aesthetic style even in use of colour. It is one of the many fascinating obscurities of this era, released by ADV Films in the VHS and DVD era, but forgotten and lost since then. For its storytelling issues, this is shame considering the many virtues within the time it has.

#206: Genocyber (1994)

 

Director: Koichi Ohata

Screenplay: Emu Arii, Koichi Ohata and Shou Aikawa

Based on the manga¹ by Tony Takezaki

Voice Cast: Akiko Hiramatsu as Elaine Reed/Diana Reed; Kaoru Shimamura as Rat; Kazuyuki Sogabe as Grimson Rockwell; Kouji Tsujitani as Ryuu; Kumiko Nishihara as Mel; Masako Katsuki as Myra; Seizo Katou as Kenneth Reed; Shigeru Chiba as Radneck; Toshihiko Seki as Sakomizu

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Genocyber is a notorious anime, but this is a work, over five episodes, which is a bit more complicated as a viewing experience. To be honest, even saying it is an ultra violent sci-fi horror anime of notoriety is suspect, when arguably one of its five episodes is with lasting impact, and the gore itself is a slither a production which shifts content very erratically.

I was introduced to this by acquiring an old Manga Entertainment videotape of the first episode, watching it on my grandmother's VHS player by myself with shut curtains, all transpiring in my mid-twenties but, when there was a brief moment of finding obscure VHS tapes in British charity shops, having a lasting impact with titles which felt completely inappropriate to come from somewhere you buy second hand clothing from, alongside the two mid-era Godzilla films which proved more playfully memorable. And since this was the era of the internet, firmly, finding the other episodes of Genocyber online was not an issue, but it is the first episode then, and still now, which left a lasting mark. I will talk, for all this production's huge undefendable flaws, positively of this production least for the first episode. It is of its era and was a production clearly spat into existence with warts and all, which you can guess of knowing that Manga Entertainment, who only released this in VHS only in Britain, never released episodes four and five, and not because they were censored nor offensive but likely due to what was made in contrast to the previous three episodes.

This is a Koichi Ohata production, so this has an added infamy even with Shou Aikawa on the production as a screenwriter, the future author of some acclaimed anime narratives but also a writer on the likes of Urotsukidôji and Violence Jack. Koichi Ohata is more infamous, least for my guess, in the United States because M.D. Geist (1986), one of his most well known titles, became something of a lucky rabbit's foot and an obsession for Central Park Media, an American anime distributor, and its head John O'Donnell. Koichi Ohata, whose work in this era was released in the US by O'Donnell's company, had a moment in the OVA boom of the eighties and nineties to make lurid sci-fi orientated work with mechanical and monster designs, even if the production budgets and productions themselves could be a mess in the final results. Ohata is well regarded, to bear in mind, as a mecha and mechanical designer, on the likes of Gunbuster (1988) and Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (1988), but he has an infamy for the likes of M.D. Geist, which got even a "director's cut" helped by Central Park Media, and Genocyber, whilst anyone who has seen M.D. Geist II: Death Force (1996), also coming into existence with Central Park Media's help, can also attest to how erratic his work is even if I admit enjoying the accused thing more than the prequel.

Episode 1 of Genocyber, which is different from the other four in being over forty plus minutes long rather than less than thirty as the others, is a curious production by itself, already setting itself up as idiosyncratic with real photos being used in the opening credits. For all the flaws with this entire work, in plot and point, a trashy cyberpunk narrative initially in the first episode set in early 21st century Hong Kong, the first episode is memorable. It is surprising in the level of experimentation which transpires here, as much likely due to budgetary reasons but creative in inspired ways, alongside its nihilistic tone. The plot is over complicated, but can be boiled down to how, as a result of an experiment into what is the "vajra", a ritual weapon in the likes of Hindu and Buddhists faiths in reality, the psychic force all human beings could tap into in this anime, one scientist created a machine to fully access this and led to two sisters being born by his wife. One called Diana has a completely disabled body, able to move through a robotic one, who is kept with a sinister scientist, responsible for her father's death and working for the Kuryu Group, in his own world working on his own obsessions and with the Kuryu Group ultimately intending to take his project away from him. This project requires the other sister Elaine, effectively the protagonist, has a fully working body but a mind close between a little girl and a feral animal, who has escaped into Hong Kong who the group want to recapture, even if the Kuryu Group will send their own cybernetically enhanced mercenaries sent to get her alive. The Genocyber of the title, the intended goal of reuniting the sisters, is a form both sisters can fuse into, a horrifying humanoid capable of wiping out a whole country as an apocalyptic entity, the creation of humanity's worse tendencies as, linked to Elaine especially with pain and agony wakening it.

What stands out is that, for what was clearly made as much for the sake of gore, this first episode has the unpredictability I want from anime. Alongside the cool ethereal score, the production was clearly working against some huge budget restrictions, but found innovative ways to work around this. Early CGI is used, but also fine pencil still drawings for flashbacks. Live action is used for memories for characters, and sometimes the animated characters are animated over real images, such as Elaine and a boy she meets over a photo of a street, or the back-story of the machine to access the Vajra being an actual handmade model in the background. The most infamous aspect of the first episode, alongside its gore and body horror, is the use of clay, actual red clay, for certain scenes. A foetus sculpted in clay is one thing, but it is used to emphasis gore scenes too, including for a scene of a mercenary after Elaine, when psychically influenced to think there are insects inside his head crawling on his brain, cutting to fake insects on a clay sculpted brain.

The gore and the body horror is extreme if not constant, including episode 2 later on, where it is obvious despite the serious tone this is a work meant to reveal in the grotesque. A detective exists in the first episode, for considerable screen time, only to just be an excuse for an ultraviolent gore sequence. One where, with the scientist having a swarm of deranged masked surgeons out of Silent Hill on his side, they completely butcher the occupants of a hospital, intestines lovingly rendered stuck on the ceiling and, for a really obscure and grotesque reference, leaving someone alive to experience being a perverted version of a Dr. Guther von Hagens display². It is immature as an episode, but I find a work like this compelling for their tone. It is uniquely disturbing in presentation, including a brief moment of cybernetic body-horror, where the mercenaries distort and transmogrify into bio-mechanical monstrosities. That the episode takes no prisoners, with people killed off [Major Spoiler Warning] and Hong Kong being obliterated off the map entirely [Spoilers End], Genocyber for this episode does leave the screen with an impact I have to admire.

The episodes after is where Genocyber becomes complicated as, whilst the first episode could have been released by itself, the others do become less consistent. The art style of before, the experimentation, is entirely stripped away. The second episode, in its first minutes, is probably the most infamous moment of the OVA, where with Elaine in a warzone kids are graphically machine gunned down by a helicopter, still drawings but rendered in full graphic detail of organs that, traversing the taboo of killing children onscreen, can get away with mocking said taboo in animated form. It is after that, whilst with body horror content, a bog standard narrative from Koichi Ohata, where a cybernetic Vajra powered entity created to fly combat planes, as the United States is fighting the middle eastern country of "Karain", becomes more unstable and violent when Ellen is rescued and brought on the aircraft carrier it is housed on. Its creator wishes, corrupted, to further its powers, even if it means engulfing the whole ship and crew into a horrifying flesh-machine battleship, with the story becoming the third episode a kaiju monster versus monster narrative. It is of its time, still compelling for me but, even with the moments of gore, a narrative which feels like a side chapter, especially as it never gets into plot details brought up and disposed of in exposition, such as Karain having magnetic sand which makes it impossible to use modern weaponry, nor that war being of importance in the first place. Only the narrative of a female doctor on board, a figure who is connected traumatically to Genocyber's first apocalyptic attack, has a trajectory which is a little fleshed out, which can be best described as that of a Lovecraft protagonist for all that unfortunately entails.

It is a production which feels erratic, possessing aspects which made these OVA compelling for me over the years but feeling, especially as these were produced in relatively short time to each other, a work which feels abrupt in what narratives we got. As much as this is still compelling, it is a disjointed work where a lot of it is not as well thought out after the initial first episode. Even one of its virtues and a minor detail, a rocking end song, emphasises how this entire production is a mess, as the most inappropriate song to have in context, about "wishing you a rainbow" and called Fairy Dreamin', even if it is a hugely impactful song in mood to the production. This issue is more so with Episodes 4 and 5, which are the most contentious to deal with, with knowledge they were never released on the British VHS, and with only Central Park Media funding an English dub for them where they released the whole OVA series. They were episodes I was initially hesitant to revisit because, originally, these were an incredible low point to reach. Now I find virtues in them, and they connect to the entire narrative arch, what is there, with greater worth, but this is where the erratic nature of Genocyber is a huge aspect to deal with.

Because, far from being offensive, this is a huge tonal shift, a time and narrative shift with no ultra violence to speak of and feeling like an attempt at seriousness out of place. This is set in the post-apocalypse, when Genocyber finally destroyed civilisation after the Kuryu Group funded as much as it could to destroy the beast, a potentially fascinating turn of events for a larger series of narratives as a result truncated here. That at least a hundred years has passed afterwards, with humanity having rebuilt itself with a new city in the centre of the narrative called Ark de Grande. Run by a dictatorship under one politician who has secret police, it is obvious material but it has stuff of interest in this context. I have softened to these episodes for the few inspired aspects, such as the fact that there is a religious group, who is against the corrupt upper classes and with the rebels underground, who pray to Genocyber, believing them to have been a God that, if angered, will cleanse the corruption of the city, its form also petrified and kept in the further depths of their hideaway without them realising it is said God.

The issue with Episodes 4 and 5, and still is the problem, is how slow and conventional this arch is especially as this follows two new characters that are not that interesting. They are a young male knife thrower and his blind girlfriend, who he takes to the city to earn enough to help with her blindness and find themselves chewed up by the evil of the metropolis. They have no emotional investment over the two episodes to care for, and in plot terms their only real connection as is entirely how she, as a psychic, connects mind-to-mind with the Genocyber, specifically the reintroduced Diana, part of the consciousness with Elaine. Aside from this, this is very predictable and, with that lack of violence and gore, it is unnecessary. Even if I have been won over a bit more with its little lore for the whole narrative and melancholic happy ending, it feels a jarring tonal shift for a work which was already on shaky footing with what it wanted to do from the second episode. If Genocyber had lasted just its first OVA, it would have still gained an infamy even if, in the modern day, trying to sell a work only under an hour is less common in the market unless it is something very specific or a company like Media Blasters in the USA that can still release such title. It is strange to think, looking back, how this work ended up this way, and it cannot be ignored many people will find, for all this title's reputation, it becomes an anti-climax for the gorehound and is still a very erratic work in general quality.

I have a soft spot for Koichi Ohata, which is why this review even for a very nasty little work like this is still bizarrely whimsical. He is an example of a man fixated on his obsessions and an auteur in a way for anime, who got his way to produce his ideas for a brief window of time. He had an attempt at moving on in the 2000s, where I was actually introduced to Ohata as a director with Burst Angel (2004), an animated series I encountered at a formation stage as an anime fan when studio Gonzo were a thing. He works to the modern day, but bearing directing later seasons of the Ikki Tousen, a fighting show entirely fixated on softcore titillation despite its female cast being reincarnations of figures of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he is not commonly in the director's seat nowadays. His reputation outside of mechanical designs is not a well regarded one, truth be frank, but it is a sad tale to think that, as his career trajectory became obscurer, the type of anime made in later decades meant not even one Genocyber in a while alongside the good titles we could only get in the modern day. Again, Genocyber is a mess, but even something which kept this work's energy but avoided a lot of the mistakes would be appreciated once in a while.

 

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1) The original manga is worth bringing up as, a case of one that was cancelled barely into its run, but also getting English publication in the early nineties, its author Tony Takezaki comes from this older era of the likes of A.D. Police, which he wrote the manga of, among the many "adult" titles from this era.

2) Hagens, a German anatomist who invented the preserving technique of "plastination", is controversial for both the Body Works exhibits of persevered and dissected bodies, including human beings, and for how I know of him, that he had public autopsies including ones broadcast on the British channel Channel 4, terrestrial television and not satellite, one programme called Autopsy: Life and Death (2006) likely the one my patents watched and I remember. Hence, the obscure reference that felt appropriate for that one gory scene in Genocyber.

#202: Maryuu Senki (1987-89)

Director: Hiroaki Oogami

Screenplay: Hiroaki Oogami, Junichi Watanabe and Noboru Aikawa

Voice Cast: Tesshō Genda as Kyōichi Hiyū; Chikao Ohtsuka as Gendō; Katsuji Mori as Mukuri; Rumiko Ukai as Tamaki; Ryōsuke Kaizu as Ryōra; Sakiko Tamagawa as Shiho Murase; Shūichi Ikeda as Miki Chiyoe; Toshihiko Seki as Kinshū

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Another obscure anime OVA, in this case interesting from the get-go that the manga came afterwards rather than this title being adapted from a source text. From AIC (Anime International Company), the company was prolific even into the 2000s for the straight-to-video market alongside adapting the likes of Ah My Goddess in various formats, from the notorious Genocyber (1994) for video to Amagami SS (2010) for television, a visual novel adaptation where the various paths, depending on which girl the male lead dates, turns into an entirely different narrative in a quasi-form of interconnecting anthology. This is a very eclectic and prolific company, so naturally there would be obscure titles in their catalogue like Maryuu Senki. There is an added aspect, however, that this is also a Bandai Visual anime too, as AIC are credited to episode 1, whilst the defunct subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings, which dealt with animation and film, worked on episodes two and three. There is, ahead of time, a noticeable sense of the first episode could have ended as an abrupt (if conclusive) finale, but thankfully, the sense of a disjointed nature to the narrative is never felt between the episodes. Only the episode preview at the end of episode one for a version which never happened suggests anything happened. It does paint a much seedier and potentially questionable proposed sequel, with the female lead Shiho in a sexually threatened scene with the main villain, that thankfully never happened, stil a lurid anime in the end but one of a different taste and only that preview suggesting there was a lurch from what was planned.

With some very creepy music to start the first episode, traditional Japanese instruments used through the three episodes, it turns into something more compelling than grot. The opening sequence does set up this era of hyper-adult content in anime - two drunk women walk under an underpass only for one to be tempted to go through a secret door, led to become a sacrifice to a cult called the Spirit Isle. They intend to kill the other women with their group of ninja whilst the sacrifice encounters the first slice of ero-guro of the anime, where the shrine maiden-like figure the main villain Miki has with him turns into a sexually provocative body horror monstrosity. Thankfully, the other woman survives, introducing us to Gendō, an older Buddhist monk whose resourcefulness includes even beating an entire group of ninja through (actual) drunken martial arts. His protégée, and adoptive heir, found abandoned on his temple's doorstep in the back-story, is the main protagonist Kyōichi. He will become part of the four figures representing the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, a real piece of Chinese mythology of the four beings who guard the cardinal directions, the compass points of North, South, East and West.

Kyōichi is the "White Tiger" of the West, with Gendō the "Black Turtle" of the North. The main villain Miki is the "Green Dragon" of the East, wishing to acquire immortal power, in a war between him and Kyōichi that is longer than Kyōichi has presumed, by marrying and taking the soul of Shiho, the love interest of Kyōichi who represents the "Vermillion Bird" of the South. That even Chinese mythology and ideas enter anime and manga a lot, in mind to the influences Chinese culture have had in Japanese culture such as religion, it has always been impressive and compelling, even in these hyper violent and provocative titles, you have these idiosyncratic concepts be used. The OVA does not really delve into mythology, [Spoiler] though it is revealed to be a battle between the leads which has happened over lifetimes, emphasising Buddhism and Eastern religions' influence even in this type of anime [Spoilers], instead a horror-action narrative where in place of suspense there is a lot of blood spilt, a lot of combat scenes with ninjas, and a lot of horror and even body horror tropes, as Miki has a twisted habit of using the dead as mutated figures, such as what horrifically happens to Shiho mother in the first episode, or employing members of his group who transmogrify into tentacles and jawed monsters. This does even do something arguably progressive in even having female monsters, when even a more known and notorious title like Urotsukidôji is problematic for always victimising its female characters and never letting them being the monsters; you can argue admittedly, whilst transgressive, moments like a female ninja who turns into the tentacled grey skin creature, though her sensual and feminine monstrosity itself can be artistically provocative, was as much likely to try to sell sex to a target audience in really brazen ways, especially with the strategically torn off top.

The only real disappointment with anime like this is that the male leads, here the stoic adult lead, are the least interesting aspect, as is with anime in later decades with teenager male protagonists, and that Shiho is merely a damsel in distress, a shame as she is of the four constellation beings and has pyrokinetic abilities, something you could have exploited in a really interest way even if her plot still involves Miki wanting to literally take her body and soul in union. Beyond this, Maryuu Senki was entertaining, a surprise in that this more than likely never got a Western release in the old days on VHS in the United States let alone Manga Entertainment in the United Kingdom, the kind of title they would have licensed when selling anime as for grownups. Certainly, among these horror based anime of the era, the tropes are there. The obsession with colours like purple, reds and blues is here, the aesthetic in general fascinating and rewarding, an art style throughout that occasionally breaks out into something beautiful. Episode three, for example, opens with a scene with Miki and his new lead ninja, the scene clearly done with mostly a black base, with the characters and parts of the darkened interior environment depicted, among the really artistically minded moments in even this pulpy genre work.

Some of this show could have been fleshed out further, even if you had left it in the ninety minute narrative film it effectively is, less in terms of how the production abruptly changed over time between switching animation studios, more taking advantage of what transpires. Such as, in the abrupt change of animation studio for the second episode, Kyōichi when presumed dead but is instead found almost more animal than man, his ability literally a supernatural super tiger who, when not punching people with ghostly tiger heads, becomes a superhuman monster man who can rip heads off, dangerous to anyone regardless of moral compass. Even the trope, which was clearly used to sell these titles, of sexual occultism is a fascinating idea in that, with anime happily tackling the erotic as much as the grotesque, it would be fascinating to see more ero-guro depicted in pop culture.

The luridness here thankfully stays closer to a distinct artistry than other titles from this era, especially with the talents of the production, and in terms of pure pulp entertainment, you have a lot to work with. The narrative in episode two arguably takes a generic first episode, even if it has interesting body horror already, and bring into it more narrative tropes for the better, which is notable because Noboru "Shō" Aikawa wrote the second episode, a veteran who is acclaimed in the modern for anime screenwriting but in this era was cutting his teeth on notorious but memorable transgressive anime of the time. Whatever the case, Maryuu Senki plays up its action orientated and playful nature much more, even introducing two, even dorky, younger monks, best friends, who are just as capable of taking on monstrosities and even outright zombies on the heroes' side and, in their little screen time, become characters to care for even if they talk too much for their own good.

In mind to the use of mythology, it is cool to see that in a pulp anime like this, between them and Gendō, Buddhist monks are able to be capable and powerful figures that are also affable. That the lead is so conventional, to the point he even starts to rock black shades and tank top, is a shame, but a sense of playfulness is to be found throughout to compensate for the tropes which are generic from this era of anime. Even to the point that, because of the supernatural logic, you can have a scene I have rarely seen, someone passing the hero his severed arm back when they are introduced into a scene, stands out because eventually this particular example of anime horror of the time, whilst still violent and lurid, had people on staff enjoying themselves with a sense of playfulness.

This turns out to be a surprise, with a sense the staff wanted to take some risks too as, without spoiling Maryuu Senki without warning, this does have a bleak and bittersweet ending. [Major Spoiler] Literally everyone dies, which is haunting in how, for a pulpy story which is more entertaining than horrifying, it ends with the endless reincarnations of these characters likely to continue when Shiho, finally showing more than being a victim, steps in when already losing her soul to self immolate the villain, a gut punch end credits scene to finish. [Major Spoilers End] Again, it is surprising how obscure this is when, even with a cheesy Manga Entertainment dub, this would have easily sold in the heyday of titles being imported to the West initially. The only reason why this likely is obscure is simply that so many OVA titles were being made at the time this was missed - whilst it is not perfect, Maryuu Senki was definitely a surprise in a positive way that could have appreciated that early era audience.  

#199: Demon of Steel - Battle of the Great Demon Beasts (1987)

 

a.k.a. Daimajū Gekitō: Hagane no Oni

Director: Toshihiro Hirano

Screenplay: Noboru Aikawa

Voice Cast: Toshio Furukawa as Takuya Gloose; Kazuhiko Inoue as Haruka Alford; Mayumi Shō as Lyse Morn; Osamu Saka as Galun Hayetz; Sakiko Tamagawa as Rui; Shūsei Nakamura as Kim/Narration; Toshio Furukawa as Takuya Gorozu

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Demon of Steel is an okay work, an obscure straight-to-video animation which is surprising in regards to who worked on this. An AIC (Anime International Company) production, the studio behind the likes of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, directed by Toshihiro Hirano, who would be known in earlier decades for the likes of Vampire Princess Miyu (the 1988-89 OVA or the 1997-8 television series) or Fight! Iczer One (1985-7), a director I have liked for idiosyncratic work, even for the notorious Apocalypse Zero (1996). A nice turn has come in his career in the 2010s when, an older veteran, he directed the newest original net animation adaptation of Baki (2018-2020), a Keisuke Itagaki manga adaptation which streamed to success on Netflix. The screenplay is by Noboru 'Shō' Aikawa, who around this time was behind notorious work like Urotsukidôji: The Legend of the Overfiend (1987-9), but decades later would become an admired writer for the likes of Full Metal Alchemist (2003-4).

This is fascinating then, even as a dry production which could have gotten to its plot quicker and with more bombast, that Demon of Steel is a work clearly with a bit of production behind it. With names of weight, it is however forgotten and was obscure even for myself. The economic bubble Japan had in the eighties, and the animation industry benefited from, allowed the industry to produce the likes of this, this for everyone involved just part of their full filmographies. Nearly an hour long, Demon of Steel is categorised as horror, but for me really is not. Here, an experiment with a mysterious energy, the "Quark of Malhuder", leads to an incident three years prior to the main plot when, using a weaponized version for a satellite in a test in destroying a battleship, a giant form suddenly falls out of the sky into the ocean.

In the present, a former member of an island research base Takuya reluctantly returns to it when a male colleague still working there, Haruka, has sent him a letter in a desperate plea of help. The problem with Demon of Steel is simply that it takes too long in exposition to set up a very obvious plot trajectory. That, feeling like a bromance with Takuya throughout despite there being a female love interest working at the base, Haruka has been working with the strange discoveries found as a result of the Malhuder energy experiment which is altering him. All based on a theory that the Malhuder can open alternative dimensions and that strange entities were summoned by accident. The horror aspect is that Haruka is changing, acting weird, and eventually reveal with superhuman strength and a violent temper as the entity he is working with has influenced him. In truth, this is just sci-fi, specifically that this is actually a mecha narrative, as the entities that fell into our world are sentient bio-mechanical figures of monstrous height you can pilot. They in themselves are only really horror, especially because of Haruka's, due to mecha design possibly indebted to H.R. Giger.

It is an entertainment piece, and if this review seems dismissive in its slightness, that is only because the story takes too long to explain the obvious, and loses the chance to expand its denouement. It feels idiosyncratic to another time, a very serious sci-fi with adult characters, and is still a solidly made production with reward in just that. Even without the absurd rock song montage near the end, this is a pulpy genre work. The score by Masahiro Kawasaki is a snappy soundtrack full of moody synth, and nothing in the OVA is bad, just okay. Again, many titles were being created back at this point, of an hour or less, so this is one of many you could find from back then. It is still, among them, a fascinating curiosity to have found.

#77a: Violence Jack - Evil Town (1988)

From https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/
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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.

From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/X7sDQnTIiJ0/hqdefault.jpg

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.

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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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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