#167: The Vision of Escaflowne (1996)

 

Director: Kazuki Akane

Screenplay: Akihiko Inari, Hiroaki Kitajima, Ryota Yamaguchi and Shoji Kawamori

Voice Cast: Maaya Sakamoto as Hitomi Kanzaki, Tomokazu Seki as Van Fanel, Ikue Ōtani as Merle, Jouji Nakata as Folken, Jūrōta Kosugi as Dryden Fassa, Kouji Tsujitani as Jajuka, Mayumi Iizuka as Millerna Aston, Minami Takayama as Dilandau Albatau, Narumi Hidaka as Eriya, Shinichiro Miki as Allen Schezar, Toru Ohkawa as Gaddess, Yuri Amano as Naria

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

For a good example of how anime defies genres in general, Escaflowne is that title to name check, from Sunrise (the handlers of the Gundam franchise), who decided to step into something different. Namely what would be a future masterpiece for many, and what predated what would be coined in the 2010s the isekai genre, where a person (sometimes by a truck-kun and dying, sometimes in less harmfully ways) would enter or be transported to an alternative world. Here, high school student Hitomi, whilst in a moment with a male Senpai she likes on the school running track, is accidentally taken to the world of Gaea when a young man named Van, heir of a kingdom, and a dragon abruptly blip into her world. Add to this Sunrise's bread and butter of mech robots as, whilst a high fantasy world based on European aesthetics, it has giant robots, powered by magical properties and gears, in capes and swords, among other tech like floating air ships. It has romance and melodrama, as between Van and Allen, a knight who seems a nobler soul, Hitomi is torn between both of them as much as having to contend of a world where one militarised nation, Zaibach, is conquering and destroying others. That their plans lead to a goal where she is of interest to literally alter fate is as much a concern.

It is a tale full of plot twists, a lot of cliff hangers to episodes, and all built around an emotional drama which is ultimate sweet and beautiful, even if the show does not hold back on death and is surprisingly bloody, even at one point envisioning a metaphor for a nuclear bomb in one of the final two episodes which, not made by Zaibach but one of the allies meant to stop them, evaporates everything on the battlefield to every side's horror in a blink of white light. Even with these serious aspects within itself, Escaflowne is a story with an emotional edge. It was geared for a "shōjo" audience of young women, which is frankly simplistic and patronising to try to target a gendered audience, but adds many new factors for this show to include in this narrative. These include an optimistic female protagonist, and the romance and melodramatic plot points, alongside the mystical and fantastical edge which are all as much part of why this television series, popular in the West, has become of great reputation in the passing decades.

It is also full of quirks, which is not surprising as it originates from when Shoji Kawamori, an important figure in anime just as a mech designer, came back from Nepal and suggested to Sunrise a giant robot show about the ideas of fate and mysticism to try something different. Fully committed to high fantasy, it is even in that genre with idiosyncrasies of its own. It is helped so much by how fleshed out the world feels even if we only have twenty six episodes to go with, a microcosm of various empires and regions here before you consider this world even has human beings but also beast people of all shapes and sizes, why we have a side character Merle, a cat girl who grew up with Van as a child and is close to him, or that later on Van himself is revealed a heir of the race known as the Draconian, originally the rulers of Atlantis who sported angel's wings and could fly. Yes, Atlantis, the Fortean favourite, is involved alongside the fact this narrative story will encompass both fate and divination too, as Hitomi was already gifted with using tarot cards, and an inheritor of a pendant with unknown origins, whose gift is amplified and becoming a curse the moment she enters Gaea. It is a world where, the titular title of the legendary giant robot Van has inherited, he will eventually not only learn divination abilities to known where he will be attack, but literally become one with the machine to the point any wounds it has will mark him. It is a world where the leader of Zaibach has experimented with fate altering machinery and with his sorcerers even dabbled into weird touches like blood, from the luckiest people ever, that gives soldiers ultra-lucky properties (i.e. causing enemies to miss or their machinery to malfunction) at the risk of drastic aging. Escaflowne is held in high regard as a sumptuous, elegant fantasy epic but thankfully upon returning to it, it is also a deeply idiosyncratic and eccentric series too, which as someone who has found Western high fantasy as bland as white bread is a godsend.

It helps that, in this little we get, the world and its cast are interesting. Baring a few characters, no one is simple or just villainous. Van is unlikable in his goal for vengeance at first, but he is headstrong and lost everything to Zaibach, capable of nobility eventually. Allen, as the show grows, is as noble as Lancelot in Arthurian legend but, like that figure, has an unfortunate real issue with attracting the opposite gender, particularly as Princess Millerna, a figure of the nation he is from, is in love with him too despite Hitomi and a previous relationship with her sister in his closet. From the villains, the calm figure of Folken, revealed to be Van's older brother, is a figure brought to Zaibach for reasons he felt were right, and even his sociopathic henchman Dilandau, as vain and sadistic figure, is revealed to have been as such due to a tangled web of issues. Even a minor gag character, a Mr. Mole, despite not having any real contributions to the plot is a figure in the little we see that he stands out, a figure first looking like a creepy thief in the woods, looking like a mole with spectacles, only to become a fun side character in the background.

It is, forgotten in its high production value and the iconic Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi score, distinct in its many touches. The mix of fantasy and robots is actually not new at this point in the mid-nineties - Yoshiyuki Tomino helmed Aura Battler Dunbine (1983-4), based off his Byston Well narrative but with the robots added, a decade before - but this show has both an utmost poignant tone of romance and high emotion which is entirely distinct. It hits a level of absurdity that anime is blessed with even if ridiculous, next to both cat sisters on Zaibach's side being injected with that luck filled blood, but never is felt that way, but instead touching. The sides mingle which helps, Hitomi's romantic triangle even being a huge part of the narrative, as Zaibach and their leader realise that her connection to Van is to their downfall, even going as far as manipulate her towards Allen in one episode.

[Major Plot Spoiler]

One plot aspect to this day is still curious to untangle when Dilandau is revealed to be Allen's younger sister, who vanished and was transformed by Zaibach;'s sorcerers. It is never explicitly that the character is transgender, as Dilandau is masculine but is Allen's sister in truth, but decades and viewing this in the time that has passed does make it something to pause over with no real answer. It is not something to raise suspicion on, as it is instead a weird twist that to alter her fate, you do not get a psychopath character after your experiments as you might find in another story, but a complete drastic alteration, including body transformation in one shot, likely considered without thought or a yin-yang scenario of a dualism between the innocent beneath the monster. It helps, whilst Dilandau is the one truly evil character, sadistic in the truest sense, that throughout they build this character. That he is a damaged character, that he holds his personal soldiers close to the point he enters a mental breakdown when they are slaughtered, and the show does not punish but has it depicted as a psychological figure of experimentation that is reunited with Allen. Time has made it merely an odd creative choice.

[Spoilers Ends]

There is an inherent danger of just turning a review like this into a puff piece that Escaflowne is a great anime series that everyone should watch, which could put people off if the review itself is bland and copies everyone else's. So instead, the best way to describe why that is what you should do, go out and watch the series if you have not or rewatch it, is to think of how Escaflowne would have been inferior, even if it had turned out still well, if all the little creative decisions were subtracted. The show would have been different if targeted to a male audience - again, that target audience stereotype is reductive, but the divisive retelling Escaflowne The Movie (2000), for feature length, is meant as that alternative version for a male audience for a fascinating contrast. How different would the show be if Hitomi had been designed differently, as a stereotypical heroine when here she is an athletic track runner with very short hair who helps considerable throughout, or written differently, an optimistic and determined person in drastic contrast, again, to the later film version which inverted this. Or that the show never cut back to her own world at times, which adds a distinct emotional touch in seeing the world and friends she had left by accident with her absence. How different would the show had been if Kawamori had not been, at first, inclined to make the series with all the esoteric content for a robot show. How different would the show been just without its score and music, which is iconic in itself as it is from Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi. That score, including the opening theme sung by Hitomi's voice actor in her debut acting role, is as much a weight baring load that adds as much to the show as all its other virtues and achievements.

Its overall value, and why to watch Escaflowne, is that it is a show not of any genre but all of them. The fantasy is unique; the mech design and animation is a high bar and set in a distinct context where it can stand out, and the melodrama leads to this having a tremendous heart, its real achievement in the final scenes. Any of these, done wrong, would have failed the series but none of them did, which is why it deserved its reputation especially among Western fans, including in Britain, where the show gained a love. It is orchestrated and done with sincerity perfectly, and know as well this show was originally of a different length, and tone with an entirely different director originally on board before Kazuki Akane took the seat, adding a lot of changes when he didincluding Hitomi's characterisation and targeting a female audience more, adds to the real sense of hard work that went into the show and how the production team managed to knock this project out of the park with completely success.

#166: Electromagnetic Girlfriend (2009)

 

a.k.a. Denpa Teki na Kanojo

Director: Mamoru Kanbe

Screenplay: Hiroyuki Yoshino

Based on a light novel series by Kentarō Katayama and Yamato Yamamoto

Voice Cast: Ryou Hirohashi as Ame Ochibana; Yoshimasa Hosoya as Jū Jūzawa; Akemi Satō as Kanako Fujishima; Ami Koshimizu as Ichiko Ayase; Eri Kitamura as Nao Hirose; Kana Ueda as Kaori Shiraishi; Kozue Yoshizumi as Hikaru Ochibana; Mai Nakahara as Yukihime Kirishima; Mitsuki Saiga as Madoka Endō; Yu Kobayashi as Miya Satsuki; Hideki Tasaka as Kiyoshi Kakura

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Some Major Spoilers onwards

Whilst it can be found, hence why this review even exists, here we have a real obscurity, a two part OVA in itself is distinct as that format that became a rarity by the late 2000s, in terms of original content rather than tie-ins to pre-existing work being what was released straight-to-video than a series or theatrical production. Also because, based on a three novel series, its rarity comes from being only available with copies of Kure-nai, a manga adaptation of the work by the original light novel creators behind Electromagnetic Girlfriend's source text. This has meant the show is very likely to be unheard of; a shame as with its flaws to consider, Electromagnetic Girlfriend is a fascinating piece.

This also has a personal weight for me as its director, for both forty plus minute episodes, was Mamoru Kanbe, an obscure name I know of for Elfen Lied (2004), a popular but vary divisive series from studio Arms, original a hentai studio who made a break into the mainstream and had that show as a huge dividing line between this transition. Ultraviolent and with material which is of issue, I will nonetheless defend that show, for all its flaws, for what it did well and as a result I have always been fascinated by the man in the directorial chair and wonder if his other projects showed the same inspiration. Kanbe to my surprise, in a career of only a few directorial project and other roles, has however gained an unexpected jewel in his cap of universal claim, as the director of the first season of The Promised Neverland (2019-), a dark fantasy tale which was of acclaim which is a good thing.

Before then there was Electromagnetic Girlfriend, and whilst not necessarily because it is original, it is fascinating because it feels like The Garden of Sinners (2007-2011), an ambitious multi part work including feature length chapters which in the late 2000s was an elaborate and dark tale mixing the supernatural with very adult, even uncomfortable, subject matter. Electromagnetic Girlfriend has differences, including the fact only three novels were released and this is based on the first and third of them. But alongside the edgier attitude, this comes off as the more quirky (if still messed up) cousin. The oddness is from its initial premise- school loner Juu Juuzawa finds himself messaged to meet up with a female student named Ame Ochibana under a tree, claiming that he is a reincarnation of a lord and her once his servant, wishing to follow from this by being there under his command as his "knight". It is asked by many in the story whether this is real or her own delusions, her younger sister Hikaru when introduced thinking Juu is taking advantage of her mental faculties, whilst a choice line talks of her sister and mother preventing her from cooking in the kitchen, adding more ominous detail or that, if a harmless comment, Ame observing she is treated with kid gloves even by her younger sister. Whatever the case, she definitely has an uncanny psychic link to Juu, where the "denpa" of the original Japanese title comes in. A term which translated to "electromagnetic wave", it has (alongside creating a niche music genre around this phenomenon) become a term to denote people who feel disconnected from their environment or act oddly, originating from the idea of hearing voices or instruction from electromagnetic radiation; in this case, she can tell whenever Juu is in danger, and does come to his aid throughout, so there is more to her then being with a mental illness.

The darkness comes, wrapped in a presentation which obscures, immediately before our leads are introduced in the first episode onwards as Electromagnetic Girlfriend tackles very heavy subject matter. The first episode more so, the first scene of this OVA work is a woman being raped, even punched, by a male assailant with both faces obscured for plot reasons, with mind to warn the viewer about how the show goes about in terms of mature content whilst mentioning it is tastefully done without any context, just shown as something awful that transpires with future context in the episode. It is extreme to begin with, and if anything Electromagnetic Girlfriend's biggest issue in its entirety, alongside some unintentionally ill advised plotting choices, is that its tone is jarring and not appropriate for tackling this type of material all the time. It has a lot of humour and comedy, which definitely for the first episode, where a killer is attacking people with a baseball ball and using wire to finish them, is inappropriate at times in tone.

And yet, in the midst of this, it is still compelling. One foot in the unnatural, the other in the nature, this has the right ideas in terms of tone, style and plotting that would have been a great story for me personally, and it is definitely fascinating. It does rush through the plot of the first OVA, but it does also have a clear style which is distinct. The show wants to be existential, and whilst it does not succeed completely, its attempts are admirable including cutting to text which has an unseen voice ruminating existence, particularly as the art style includes different fonts including as if the letters were cut from different materials. It never gets pretentious either, because whilst the show's darker tone proves its undoing, I also like the contrast in the humour when it does work.

And that the leads are actually interesting is a huge virtue, adamant to an idea, whether you like his work or not, of the late manga writer Kazuo Koike that characters were always more important to his stories then the plots, to which this two part OVA has two main characters (and side ones) who are worth having more stories on. The male lead Juu is not invulnerable in the slightest and is actually more than a bland stock protagonist, whilst Ame as an eccentric character with an insane case of uncombed hair is fascinating too, someone with her head basked in fantasy but also between a form of possible mental vulnerability and a wisdom beyond her years which means she is still a vital figure to have to keep you protected. When they are properly introduced in the second episode, more exaggerated and fantastical than appropriate for the tone, her female co-workers at a maid cafe, one a shorter girl who asks obstinate questions and is a bit too happy to hurt people, the other significantly taller and (in an odd joke) hates both men and broccoli, they are immediately interesting and worthy of more stories which were more appropriate to their character types.

If anything, even with the absurd touches, this show has moments of interest and even unexpected intelligence which I have to admire. Even if it is with faults, even the premises for both narratives have ambition. The first is a murder who, believing they are killing aliens disguised as people, includes twists such as a disturbing case of Stockholm syndrome that, whilst potentially offensive in how it was actually executed, is a complex puzzle which could have been of worth if pulled off in a better context. The second is surprisingly relevant still, more so now and a better episode, in which a game is being played by classmates of Juu and Ame's school to cause awful things to others to collect "happiness stars", which is hauntingly more relevant as the internet is both a place of trying to gain similar tokens online and of "awful" behaviour, putting probably too lightly how bad people can be online without identity. The aesthetic as is has sparks of creativity, in-between some awkward designs of faces and obvious CGI, particularly a habit of intercutting two moments in a scene together in the same shot. One example proves the best moment: in a moment of horror, where someone is trying to force another to mutilate herself, it has Ame in a moment of emotional shock being comforted by Juu which is abruptly emotional.

And the stories have clever touches. Some of it is coated in dumb touches, such as Ame having a bad tendency to pick up evidence in an immediate crime scene, and others have to be understood later on when more is known, such as how photos just before murders and during appear on the internet, but there is also a surprising amount of mature moments. Dealing with a villain by rationally picking apart their ideals, even if ridiculous, is creative, as is Juu, when he accidentally causes Hikaru, an eccentric martial artist, to lose a potential boyfriend acts in a kind way to her, even finding a way to patch them up by having a fight with the guy off-camera just to let him beat him up.  

The two episodes do however have an issue, if accidental, of touching problematic subjects without real care made, making it an issue with Electromagnetic Girlfriend that has to be considered. The first episode, as mentioned, involved Stockholm syndrome, actually the female rape victim and a fellow classmate who joined the killer in his work in the episode's main twist. It is a lot more carefully done than that sounds, but it is not sufficiently depicted (alongside being rushed) to tackle a troubling subject, the idea of a female character who is psychologically damaged to the point she joins in the work of her victimiser requiring a lot more care if even an acceptable subject for some to tackle at all.

The second episode is not helped by the initial set-up being that Juu is falsely accused of groping a woman on a subway train as part of the Happiness Game. False accusations of molestation and rape are a plot trope in fiction are problematic, in whether there are actually any real cases of this or a sufficient amount at all, whether you can tackle them at all as a concept and with care, and that unfortunately it is something that in its nature does fall into the web of how women in real life have not had their cases of real rape and molestation taken seriously. That last point is why this plot idea will always have the stigma to it, and bear in mind that after the #MeToo movement, where men were being ousted finally for committing such acts or even misogynistic behaviour over the internet by their female victims, these type of plot points will be much more difficult to digest regardless of the artistic virtue or lack thereof. It is not helped as this plot point is one which is not a one-off here never seen anywhere else, one that has existed in other forms, whether the number that exist was merely slim.

It neither helped that both stories involve women are the antagonists or psychologically damaged; I am not accusing the production or its creators for anything from that, like accusations of misogyny, just pure bad coincidence considering that, whilst I am someone who will defend these two episodes for good ideas and content, they do represent the inevitable danger of trying to make your pulp narrative tackle edgier content to come off more adult, especially when its gendered in the archetypes or plots you used, rather than a gender-neutral attitude even for deliberately offensive and transgressive horror. Nevertheless, that slither of ambition does also pay with some reward. As much of this review is going to be that, if you are comfortable sitting through its mistakes and can even find the two OVAs, Electromagnetic Girlfriend was a curiosity worth seeing. One I have had an interest in for a while; it suits my general fascination with flaws curiosities worthy of more notice just for their mere existence, and it also fits perfectly into that category of premises which I wished had lasted longer, in tighter written and more tonally appropriate work to let interesting characters as here breathe and be developed.

Bonus #13: Gonad the Barbarian & Search for Uranus (1986)

 

"Director": Arthur King

"Screenplay": Arthur King

Viewed in English Dub

 

What's an agent of A.S.S. doing on my toilet?

We would have to face the situation eventually - that of reviewing uncensored hentai (porn) anime - but to just add an odd layer to the proceedings, let us begin with a very curious release. This will require a couple of contexts first. 1) When OVAs started as a format in 1983-4, straight to video anime alongside the videotape industry in general, naturally erotic anime would appear. 2) Called ero anime in Japan, "hentai" is the term we coined for the genre in the West despite being the Japanese term for "pervert". 3) As I have seen with the censored titles they tried to sell in the British Isles, it is a a prolific genre but also one that you could barely see in the United Kingdom, simply because of the type of content that would be allowed to be passed even in the modern day, but also because we still have a lot of restrictions of where you can purchase pornography still; the internet has become freed a lot of restrictions, deliberately or people going against our country's rules, but continually with laws trying to be passed in our country in regards of this, the internet as a medium for erotica of all types is one of debate still.

In terms of anime itself, one of the most iconic hentai series, not connected to today's subjects, is the Cream Lemon series, which in its original run started in 1984. That series helped, over its many sequel series, had great animators cutting their teeth, and even help lead to the term "lemon" be used for erotic fan fiction in the West. But naturally, there would be other titles, and other brands, and these are such titles. And in a curious decision, predating when Akira (1988) really began anime's relationship in the West, we ended up with members of the adult film industry licensing hentai and redubbing it with porn actors.

Gonad the Barbarian was the title, though only under thirty minutes to my surprise, I was intrigued to see, appropriated by Arthur King, a writer on titles like Ten Little Maidens (1985) with Harry Reems and Ginger Lynn. Hence, this cannot count as a regular review, as the American script and dub is its own creation which drastically changed the material, taking liberties to an extreme. In a sci-fi future, the villainous group G.A.S., led by the "slimy twit" Gonad the Barbarian, looking more like a bald moustached man with half an android's visor on, is behind the nefarious kidnapping of women. "So begins this tale of erotic valour and evil decadence", and yes, the narrator is the MVP just for the quotes. G.A.S have kidnapped Pussy La'Mour, forcing the people behind A.S.S., with members like Dr. Jerkoff, to ask Princess Layme to come back into their fold to help. Alongside its name changes (her friend and possible lover Dick for example), and some really peculiar touches like this Earth having submarine races at the beach, the due is also "special". Actually, the animation already is not great either. It is definitely a Japanese production, as there is kanji visible in scenes, but it however looks like a poorly animated children's show if you added in porn, with the added touch that the English dub is ridiculous.

This show presents a curious meeting of cultures as a result, very American porn attitudes with Japanese niche content. For starts, it is amazing to think, considering how most Japanese media is still expensive to buy even decades later in that country, that you would have to pay so much just to have a thirty minute animation like this, not well made and only having a few scenes, really more of a sci-fi show that a promised cavalcade of erotica even if from the early days of the medium. Princess Layme is also clearly a schoolgirl, which is definitely uncomfortable, the actress voicing her clearly sounding like a star from an eighties porn film, but definitely someone befittign the role; Pussy La'Mour's actress in contrast definitely sounds older than her character design. Some of the content in terms of plot does translate - I can see a Star Wars parody having a Dildo Sword, the Weapon Research Department, in a legitimately funny joke for this version, creating it either as perverts or that they outsourced their work to a sex toy designer.

To be honest, whilst I would be morbidly curious to see this with the original Japanese language track, this is probably superior in this form. Since we are talking about actually sex being depicted too, the one thing you have in hentai as a genre as its main point, it is crudely depicted. This is the equivalent of shrugging my shoulders as, regardless of its plot, or it being definitely of the eighties due to the Casio keyboard track or the heroine wearing a red headband, this is still aesthetically unpleasing regardless of your sexuality. This is something to bear in mind as, alongside problematic content, hentai anime's other big issue is the lack of quality animation. It neither helps that, to be blunt, the sex here is non-consensual and thus the title is also problematic too. This will be a worse issue with Search for Uranus, but for all the comedic porn noises and characters named "Anus Andy", this from its shots of bound and captured women is deeply problematic even if terribly drawn, entirely built around the female characters being put through erotic Stockholm Syndrome by sexual torture.

It would not pass still in the United Kingdom, where especially from the 2010s on, our film classificators have still a concern with sexual violent and non-consensual material even in fictional form, even rating regular films higher than in years pass if suggested or depicted. Thankfully as well, whilst also gross, they never have Gonad's friend Scotty involved; Scotty also happens to be a dog, if you were curious, and it is ugly that they tease that as a kink, even if it just means menacing, crude close ups to the dog and nothing else. The only real consolation prize in the original visual content, uncomfortable if merely absurd, is that, having designed the pervy equipment fostered on Princess Layme (even a device to track her using her underwear), Dr. Jerkoff is forced into being the first one to wear her skimpy work costume, giving us middle aged hairy legs as a result. As a result, whilst tacky and the adult actors not really voice performers, the work done by Arthur King, who is credited with producer/director/writer, probably saved Gonad the Barbarian from its poor quality and the discomfort around its content. Due to its humour and the participants turning it into a farce, it can be entertaining in the right context. It milks moments in the anime - those damn spaceship technicians handling the Dildo Sword and leaving it on the runway floor than putting it back in the ship - but adds so much silliness to soften the blow.

 

*****

Sadly that cannot be said for Search for Uranus, which in spite of its title is not actually science fiction, but a curious slice of ancient Greek iconography, including a lesbian Medusa, another trope that emphasises its era of origin in psychic powers, which were a craze for plots at the time, and a poor man's Urotsukidôji: Legend of the Overfiend (1989). With no context for this, not even realising Gonad the Barbarian was only under thirty minutes and Search for Uranus was not a subtitle, I thought I was in for more absurdity. Staring Princess Orgasma and Mark Starkiller, the narrator again won me over with lines like "we are specs of copulating dust..." or "...a fading rectal breeze", before leaving never to be heard again. If this had just been a Greek myth tinged tale of Espers (psychics) with added porn, it might have been compelling especially as the animation is a little better. The music, bouncy, vastly contrasts the actual material badly, and alongside mispronouncing "Medusa", in a female-female scene with music strangely reminiscent to a Sega Saturn game, there is something truly peculiar to porn actors trying to have elaborating anime exposition. But, the first scene involves a villain named Lord Uranus, a monstrosity who has more bound women around him and has tentacles. I had considered not writing about this anime, wishing to ignore it, as much due to whether anyone I knew or of importance would read this, thinking ill of me as a result when I could have just turned it off, but I decided to  still this part of the review.

All because I am a believer in freedom of art and speech, and whilst I would not say I was traumatised, it is probably better for me to write how, by pure accident, I witnessed my first uncensored scenes of tentacles in an anime and how uncomfortable it was even as crude doodles. Not because of the tentacles, which if a kink for someone, they have the right to have. Obviously, it is the non-consensual nature that is the issue, and this title would again not be allowed to be released in the United Kingdom unless butchered to barely a few minutes. Its cheese helps soften the blow, alongside the padding out of scenes by the end, but I cannot help but think of the apparent target audience for this title. Both because the porn scenes again feel crow barred in, and why this would have appear in the first place. It makes Call Me Tonight (1986) actually more poignant then I gave it credit for, another obscure OVA of only thirty or so minutes which parodied this material in the era, about a man who turned into a tentacle monster when he was aroused, making it more relevant and meaningful now with context of the material it was criticising.

And honestly, whilst I am even more wary about ever watching the uncut version of Urotsukidôji now as a result, that feels for more morally sound in comparison as the notion of transgressive and taboo subject matter similar to this was less the issue, even if it will be deemed offensive for most viewers, because it had an elaborate Lovecraftian horror narrative which was compelling even if grotesque. The gender discrepancy was always the issue with Urotsukidôji, where the women were always the victims of sexual violence, which understandably led to people calling it misogynistic. Something like Searching for Uranus in comparison however cannot be defended at all, because this is for someone's titillation let alone scraping the bottom of the barrel only. The Arthur King dialogue cannot hide this. It ends the review on a sour note, though we have the fascinating detail that this was not the last time Arthur King got the rights to anime erotica however: he was also involved with the titles Offenders of the Universe & Star Trap (1987), and Pandora... An Erotic Trilogy: The Dark Forest, the Black Widow and Living Shadows (1988), the later consisting of three titles together the most intriguing, though hopefully he chose wiser than this.

#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.