#241: Baoh - The Visitor (1989)

Studio: Pierrot

Director: Hiroyuki Yokoyama

Screenplay: Kenji Terada

Based on the manga by Hirohiko Araki

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

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

#240: Starship Troopers (1988)

Studio: Sunrise

Director: Tetsurō Amino

Screenplay: Tsunehisa Ito and Shō Aikawa

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Voice Cast: Yasunori Matsumoto as Juan "Johnnie" Rico; Akira Kamiya as Sgt. Charles Zim; Hirotaka Suzuoki as Greg Patterson; Kazuhiko Inoue as Alphard "Kitten" Smith; Masahiro Anzai as Cherenkov; Mika Doi as Captain Yvette Deladrier; Rei Sakuma as Carmencita Ibañez; Saeko Shimazu as Claire; Shingo Hiromori as Sgt. Dunn

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I think you can sum up why few may know of the first adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 sci-fi novel, a six part animated straight-to-video production from the legendary Japanese studio Sunrise no less, from watching what is in some episodes the opening credits animation or the end credits one. It is of Carmencita, the lead female character and love interest for Johnnie Rico, the good old son from New Buenos Aries joining the Mobile Infantry, frolicking on the beach contrasted by a song sung in English called WE CAN MAKE IT by Tsunoda☆Hiro, with her even turning into a seagull at some point between constantly cutting to the avian figure multiple times flying. Nothing perfectly encapsulates Heinlein's tale of Earth protecting itself in the far future from giant insects than an inspiration eighties Japanese lounge song of believing yourself and jump cut transmogrification into another species.

Starship Troopers is a work I really know from Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film adaptation, which you need to take with a pinch of salt as it is the result of the transgressive Dutch filmmaker attempting to read the novel itself, hating it and giving up part of the way through, and the final film reflecting an unfaithful adaptation and a deliberate sabotage of the source's ideals¹. It is an epic which I was allowed to get away with seeing at a much more early age than one probably should, appreciated then as a sci-fi fiction spectacle from the time, and still admired as an adult. When I became an adult too, it was also so visible that a layer of satire, and even loading in fascist readings of the human characters, was there all alone adding to the fun of the film. For me, you cannot hate a film with the line "I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill them all!", but neither is this a faithful Starship Troopers adaptation, though the straight-to-video sequels attempted to move past the humour. More appropriate for a teenager was Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles (1999-2000), a CGI animated series which, just going from hazy memory, was an ambitious and admirable attempt at a serious sci-fi work, with a continuing narrative and even legitimately dangerous stakes for its cast, one I was glad to also see at this time and I have always wished to return to. Sunrise's adaptation though, even next to Verhoeven's, is weird in that until the sixth episode, you never get a proper moment of Rico, our lead, in the battlefield, whilst most of the show is a science fiction tale of learning to adapt to being in the army, not Starship Troopers' main story.

This is weirder as Starship Troopers presents an important influence on anime. Only seen in the third film in the live action adaptations, 2008's Marauder, the novel includes personal combat suits, giant robots for individuals to pilots, arguably among the earliest in science fiction. Those suits, and how publications of the source novel in Japan had illustrations of them designed, have a legitimate claim to having influenced a certain section of anime science fiction when it came to designs for personal combat suits², which makes Sunrise's decision to adapt the book at this time for them enticing to consider how it could have gone differently. Starship Troopers the anime (not to be confused with Shinji Aramaki's Starship Troopers: Invasion (2012) and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars (2017)) is a surprise in how the power suits and combat with the extraterrestrial threat in this adaptation is kept to about a minimum in favour of a story of Rico's progression through the Mobile Infantry to being combat ready, which is an acquired taste for taking up most of this three hour narrative altogether.

It is compelling, mostly because I have had such a low bar of expectation to this mini-series when I first heard of it. It is fascinating as this mix of almost light hearted drama, in which Rico and his band of miscreant fellow soldiers, from one with headphones always on to another obsessed with a nude photo of his older girlfriend he keeps with him, try to survive through the gruelling training with the Mobile Infrantry and try their hardest, only to cut to how Buenos Aires is attacked by the alien menace, leading to loss in Rico's family, or when cast die. The opening and ending songs, also one called BELIEVE by Tsunoda☆Hiro, also include animation set to Rico against the cosmos like a space exploration yearning towards the deep space, which does not suggest the peril of war which the source was about. Even Paul Verhoeven's piss take was, on the surface, an epic science fiction action film full of action that could still be appreciated for that. Able to get away with the gore it had alongside his interest in sexuality and brazen vulgarity, the bug menace in that film could decimate and render a human being into pieces, and the spectacle even with nineties CGI needing to be used is still impressive decades on.

The one sense of threat is in how, deciding against the bug aliens of the novel, these aliens are freakish in a credible way in their anime interpretation. Like crustacean, or something from the bottom of the sea, mixed with living pink bacterium, they are freakish and compelling as a truly alien form, which to travel in space (and even create their "bases" of operations) form together into mass of pink entity and can split off, including latch pieces onto human ships to than attack innocents on Earth. There is, as a result, enough here even as a lower budgeted production to have made this more of an action or intergalactic work, but instead emphasis was placed on the drama. This feels less like a compromise, or that this show was cancelled before it could progress, but a deliberate choice. This choice is going to make the show off-putting for some, simply because most of the 1988 Starship Troopers is a military training drama which, in context of its world and source, is a mistake for only three hours of a work, even if the scenes of contemplation or Rico being back on Earth, even fighting with local ruffians at a bar, were entertaining for me at least if for no one else.

I found it interesting in spite of this, even if details of the show do show a foot forward was not always the best in other areas as well, such as how, whilst the figure who keeps Rico strong, Carmencita was unfortunately drawn with eyes that can burn holes into people even when she is relaxed. Without the dramatic tension this animated work eventually brought in with the vast number of aerial combat scenes still within it too, what this feels like was Sunrise were taking a page from what Area 88 (1985-6) did perfectly, in terms of emphasising the human drama first, but here with the scene that it takes too much of the adaptation, even if I respect what this is as a strange curiosity. This is stranger knowing that half this series, arguably at some of the more interesting moments, is written by Shō Aikawa; infamous at one point for being the man penning the likes of Urotsukidôji to Violence Jack at this point, he became a well regarded screenwriter in the decades after, and he would have been the sort of person who would have cut to the chase and made this a more pulpy and dynamic work, alongside the virtues he showed as a writer in his career, with the sense here that was a choice left off the table.

The turnover between episodes, from October to December 1988³, also sadly suggests that the production was under the gun, undercutting the potential for the elaborate spectacle this adaptation could have provided. But this did not hurt anyone. This was just a script co-written by Shō Aikawa, who was working with Tsunehisa Ito, a prolific writer from anime before this adaptation as well such as Sherlock Hound (1984-5). Director Tetsurō Amino is prolific and would go on to his biggest work with Macross 7 as a franchise; starting with the 1994 TV series, this franchise entry, where music is literally the weapon in its take on the science-fiction and music from the Macross franchise, is one of the largest in quantity of material and did well. Sunrise is, well, Sunrise, prolific and making Gundam and non-Gundam shows and animation to the current day, and Robert A. Heinlein's source text, beyond the Paul Verhoven film, has had other adaptations even into video games. (There are the Shinji Aramaki anime films too, but that is for another day.) Suffice to say, no one lost any sleep about this barring the lost promise of an eighties hand drawn and lavish Starship Troopers adaptation from Sunrise, who were big even then, which is a disappointment. It is not going to cause me to lose sleep when, knowing this was the warning about this show, I came with nothing expectations and found joy here in spite of the creative decisions.

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1) Triple Dutch: Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trilogy, written Adam Smith and Owen Williams for Empire Online, published on February 12th 2014.

2) In Pursuit of the Powered Suit: The Class of '83, written by Sean O'Mara for Zimmerit, published on July 14th 2022.

3) Anime New Network's Episode listings for Starship Troopers.

#239: Pop Team Epic Season One (2018)

Studio: Kamikaze Douga

Directors: Aoi Umeki and Jun Aoki

Screenplay: Jun Aoki

Based on the manga by Bkub Okawa

Voice Actors for Pipimi and Popuko:

As Pipimi: Akiko Yajima, Akira Ishida, Akira Kamiya, Asami Imai, Atsuko Tanaka, Ayana Taketatsu, Azusa Tadokoro, Banjou Ginga, Bin Shimada, Chisa Yokoyama, Daisuke Namikawa, Haruka Tomatsu, Houchu Ohtsuka, Jouji Nakata as Pipimi, Jun Fukuyama, Kaito Ishikawa, Kaori Fukuhara, Kaori Nazuka, Kenichi Ogata, Kensho Ono, Kikuko Inoue, Koji Yusa, Kotono Mitsuishi, Kousuke Toriumi, Mamiko Noto, Nao Tōyama, Noriko Hidaka, Norio Wakamoto, Rei Sakuma, Satomi Satou, Shigeru Chiba, Sumire Uesaka, Suzuko Mimori, Takehito Koyasu, Yousuke Akimoto, Tomokazu Sugita, Wataru Takagi, Yū Kobayashi, Yui Horie and Yuuki Kaji

As Popuko: Aoi Yūki, Emiri Katō, Eriko Nakamura, Etsuko Kozakura, Hikaru Midorikawa, Hiro Shimono, Hozumi Gōda, Junko Takeuchi, Kana Hanazawa, Kappei Yamaguchi, Mami Koyama, Mariko Kouda, Masashi Ebara, Masaya Onosaka, Mikako Komatsu, Nana Mizuki, Nobuo Tobita, Rikiya Koyama, Ryusei Nakao, Sakiko Tamagawa, Satomi Koorogi, Sho Hayami, Showtaro Morikubo, Sōichiro Hoshi, Sōma Saitō, Sora Tokui, Sumire Morohoshi, Takahiro Sakurai, Tesshō Genda, Tomokazu Seki, Tomoko Kaneda, Toshihiko Seki, Toshio Furukawa, Yōko Hikasa, Yūichi Nakamura, Yuji Mitsuya, Yukari Tamura, Yūki Ono, Yuko Sanpei and Yumiri Hanamori

For Bob Epic Team: Toru Adachi as Pipimi; Shunsuke Itakura as Popuko

For Japon Mignon: Christine Bellier as Pipimi; Fanny Bloc as Popuko

Viewed in Japanese and French with English Subtitles

 

If I am to be truthful, Pop Team Epic is as scattershot as a musket round exploding from a gun, but that comment itself even feels absurd knowing the creators of this made the series with this intention, and that the work based on a manga mocks itself as being “shit” throughout the first animated season multiple times. Already as time has passed, until 2022 when the second series was unleashed, references this has cracked have become more obscure or less current to that moment the show was released, and the amount of censorship just of certain images, due to how Japanese parody laws work, means there are some curious insights to be gleamed as a time capsule, such as how in the first episode (for the Crunchyroll version) the Pokemon parody stays intact but they felt blurring the My Neighbour Totoro (1988) one was wiser in fear Hayao Miyazaki might frown at them. By now the parody in the first episode of Your Name (2016), Makoto Shinkai's blockbuster success of an anime film, is now a canonical hit rather than the sudden shock surprise, and yet at the same time, even as a show with a lot of parodies, it makes a joke about a viewer writing a disgruntled letter to Pipimi and Popuko, our leads, about them relaying too much on parodies for the jokes. This show always had the sense of being deliberately irrelevant, knowing the jokes could be cheap, and this also, especially for the video game parodies, gets really esoteric. How else do you explain a parody of Death Crimson (1996), one of the most notorious video game productions for the Sega Saturn console, a perfect example of the labour this show puts in for what is, to be blunt, a thirteen episode shit post disguising itself as a sketch anime comedy like gdgd Fairies (2011-13).

Pop Team Epic, and its school girl leads Pipimi and Popuko, closer to goblin personifications of ids than teenagers, were birthed into the world in 2014 by Bkub Okawa, creating the 4koma manga for Takeshobo. Pipimi (taller and more sedate) and Popuko (shorter, more prone to violence and flipping the bird) are less characters in a sitcom than forces of misanthropy in a series of strange and even nonsensical gags. Openly preferring surreal jokes or moments which are weird without an apparent punch line, imaging these two with more "conventional" designs is actually one of the jokes the series keeps coming back too. There is even a joke that, set up in the first and last episode as the closest to a plot, the evil cabal behind the show (parodying Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)) regret their moe schoolgirl show with more cute designs for the pair turned into the equivalent of taking a dump on viewers’ television. In fact one of the funniest jokes, one I admire, is that the next episode previews are not for Pop Team Epic in season one but for Hoshiiro Girldrop, a show which does not exist which is parodying a stereotypical one, about a schoolgirl who is also an idol singer in her other life and has a crush on her male senpai. [Spoilers] The joke is funnier for the abrupt punch line, that this even has the abrupt tonal shift out of nowhere for the final preview that our heroine died and the male love interest resurrected her afterwards, as abrupt to what is a cute idol programme as what may actually happen in an actual thirteen episode show or two. [Spoilers End]

The first series was divisive for me when I had first seen the episodes, and even now, it is a show of what does not land, what does and what hits with complete success, completely unpredictable in where it is in either of these categories even in just one episode. The first episode, still, is weak, more of a series of parodies which does not fully get to the weirdness the others from the second get to quickly. One of its best virtues, which grow returning to the series, is how to even depict the dumbest of jokes, this brings a murderer's row of talented and imaginative creators and animators in a variety of formats, even crafts with sewn felt dolls, to depict them. To mock itself as merely shit again for a joke is not enough when this can parody Isao Takahata's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013), his last film and an incredible animated production which used incredibly lavish digital animation to depict watercolour-like images. Not merely to pastiche it is enough for a joke but, knowing even for a minute or two it would take a lot of resources, copy the exact animation style from that film's lavish production.

The collaborative nature is a huge virtue of Pop Team Epic. Barring the first and last episode having a story, the episodes baring one prominent segment, usually a parody, is a series of small skits of a variety of different art styles and tones. There is also only fifteen minutes of them including opening and ending credits, as one of the strangest touches, which I was first pushed away back but watched properly finally, is how this replicates the same episode to make up the full twenty plus minute length. There are differences between them - usually tiny touches, some major one offs which are different to the same scenes, and subtitles for the Japon Mignon segments about French culture - but the biggest differences are is that different voice actors in Version 1 and 2 are used for Pipimi and Popuko. And they can be male and female, over the two versions of the same episode and allowing a huge variety of prominent figures in voice acting to try even ad libbing, not even taking into consideration the English dub took the same attitude. For a great example, if you wished for the titular Madoka, of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), to play Popuko, then Aoi Yūki is one such figure here, in a parody of a high fantasy anime which has not even been finished where Popuko/ Yūki is forcing the voice actors in character to perform impersonations upon threat of grievous implied harm.

There are reoccurring segments, and one of the season's best aspects is that, even if jokes do not land, this let anyone create idiosyncratic segments in their own ways. The most infamous is the "Bob Epic Team" segments by AC-bu. The creators Toru Adachi and Shunsuke Itakura, who also do the voice performances, created these garish and surreal splatters of visuals with carte blanche, and these works for all their notoriety in their ugliness were intentional aesthetically. A duo who was working in commercials and music videos since the late 1990s, they came to this production knowing what to do, and getting some of the strangest and funniest moments as a result even if also replicating material from the original manga. (Such as finding an alien in the cat bed, posing as one, and having none of it.) The parodies of numerous obscure video games (and some big hitters like Undertale (2015)) in exact pixel styles, were done by an amateur pixel artist Makoto Yamashita who was still a student at the time of the production¹, and UchuPeople, who use a variety of different multi-craft tools, are stop motion specialistis responsible for the felt and knitted versions of one collaborator provided coquetted versions of Pipimi and Popuko, used for music numbers (including a Earth, Wind and Fire parody) that usually are sweet sounding songs about wanting to kill the subject being sung to. This becomes the best aspect of this deliberately scattershot production, which embraces a variety of figures and allows them to be creative, something attesting to how one entire reoccurring segment Japon Mignon, was handed to French born 3D animator Thibault Tresca², living in Japan, who was allowed to create (mostly) wholesome 3D animated stories with fluent French speaking voice actresses about the clichés of French culture.

Its scattershot nature is its biggest vice, as surreal comedy in anime is something that is bountiful and in a variety, meaning that there are many others in this format including with more elaborate stories to embrace and compare to. Its scattershot nature however too, when it lands, leads to some brilliant moments. “Hellshake Yano”, a talented guitarist and originally a joke character from the manga itself, is probably the thing that will be brought up for Pop Team Epic’s first season, enough that in 2022, Stephen Lee "Thundercat" Bruner, a Grammy Award winning bass guitarist/singer/producer/musician, is proclaiming his love for the show and him by rocking out on a paper craft guitar designed like Yano’s on social media³. AC-bu were tasked in season one to use kamishibai, a form of street theatre and storytelling from between Japan in the 1920s/1930s to the time television became popular, even as far back as 9th-century emaki (picture teller) scrolls⁴. Telling stories with paper images, with a storyteller voicing the characters, this format even past the growth of television in the 1950s found its way to continue. (Ujicha, the cult film maker of the likes of Violence Voyager (2018), is effectively doing paper theatre himself with his cult and sometimes shocking work). AC-bu, when approaching this tradition in their own way made an utter epic by itself which could even outlast the rest of the show, the duo operating a painstaking put together, drawn and cut sketchpad depicting Hellshake Yano having to appease the crowd at a concert as they voice the performance onscreen. It was an incredible production which won me over back even when I was cold to the series, and it stands out still but as a gem in a show which had a lot of inspired moments. Even then, I have to also credit that, returning to the series, countless other jokes are just as funny: the ghost story parody where a group of young adults rent a cabin which suspiciously have a pair of guns and axes mounted onto the walls, and end up killing each other; the second version of this with a seemingly random man doing audio commentary that, whilst not fully successful as a joke, is bold and does have the hilarious moment where he finds them having a watermelon out of season suspicious; that sudden attempt at a sad ending, using the repeated episode format on purpose, which is resolved by Shōta Aoi, voice actor and singer, looking like a cosmic pixie as he puts everything right again through his dapper dress sense and ability to travel back in time; that one random time, whilst acting out orgasm, one of the actresses uses “Marilyn Monroe” over and over, or the abrupt shout out by a male actor to neoclassical metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen; and way too many else to count.

There is one which fully encapsulates the show and its entire attitude, which is that aforementioned parody of Death Crimson, faithfully recreating its entire opening full motion video even with a fuzzy image of a red door. A game never released outside its home country, though the sequel did, Death Crimson was an attempt by the company Ecole Software as part of their transition into video game software as outsiders. A light gun game, it is held as one of the worse games ever released for the Sega Saturn, but instead of destroying the company it was loved by those who played it, sold very well when eventually the notoriety started to be passed on, and developed a cult around them. Proclaimed “Emperor of Kusogē”⁵, and something those who made the game are proud of in spite of its notorious low production qualities, bear in mind “kusogē” does mean “shit game”, even if the term is for notorious Japanese productions in the medium which are loved even without irony; that in itself makes the perfect encapsulation, for good and for moments which do not work, of Pop Team Epic itself, proudly calling itself shit, made with complete love of the art form of anime through the talented people in various positions on the production, and spending its resources, including a large portion of the climatic episode, parodying a notorious Sega Saturn light gun game.

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1) The Alternative Faces of Pop Team Epic, or How a Shitposting Cartoon Became an Experimental Animation Stronghold, written by KViN for Sakuga Blog, published on December 20th 2022

2) The About page for Thibault Tresca's personal site.

3) Thundercat Won't Let You Stop Thinking About Hellshake Yano, written by Kim Morrissy and published on Anime News Network on January 5th 2023.

4) Kamishibai - A Brief History, written by Tara McGowan and published on Kamishibai.com.

5) The (loving) article on Death Crimson's production history and legacy, including the Pop Team Epic parody, from Bad Game Hall of Fame.

#238: Patlabor 2 – The Movie (1993)

 

Studio: Production I.G.

Director: Mamoru Oshii

Screenplay: Kazunori Itō

Voice Cast: Jinpachi Nezu as Yukihito Tsuge; Ryunosuke Ohbayashi as Kiichi Gotoh; Yoshiko Sakakibara as Shinobu Nagumo; Daisuke Gouri as Hiromi Yamazaki; Issei Futamata as Mikiyasu Shinshi; Michihiro Ikemizu as Isao Ohta; Miina Tominaga as Noa Izumi; Naoto Takenaka as Shigeki Arakawa; Osamu Saka as Seitaro Sakaki; Shigeru Chiba as Shigeo Shiba; Tomomichi Nishimura as Detective Matsui; Toshio Furukawa as Asuma Shinohara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Moving on from the first 1989 Patlabor film, a great deal changed even in terms of character designs, the original character designs of Akemi Takada from the first film (with Masami Yūki contributing here) moving to a notably more realistic tone alongside the mood of this sequel. That is not to say all has changed – humour is still here, as this franchise follows Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicle Section 2, Division 2, consisting of a large lovable nitwits kept together by Kiichi Gotoh.

This film’s story however feels like a proper start to director Mamoru Oshii’s serious era as a director, in mind to the likes of Angel’s Egg (1985) in-between his comedies beforehand, with a huge emphasis needed to for how screenwriter Kazunori Itō is an integral part to the film’s virtues and deserves his credit greatly. The tonal shift is noticeable though, in mind that over the three films for this franchise, let alone the OVA series and the other entries, the Patlabor project created by Headgear - a group consisting of manga artist Masami Yūki, director Mamoru Oshii, screenwriter Kazunori Itō, mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi, and character designer Akemi Takada - the franchise has juggled multiple tones over the multi-media formats it has been adapted into. There has been an emphasis on different characters in Division 2 over these different tiles. Noa Izumi, the plucky female member who loves her Patlabor manga, was central to other entries, whilst over the three films you have Asuma Shinohara central to the first 1989 film's action mystery, and WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 (2001) focusing on police detectives Kusumi and Hata in what becomes a monster film. Patlabor 2 follows Kiichi Gotoh himself with Shinobu Nagumo, the female captain of Division 1, as the central leads in a political thriller.

A cerebral political thriller, which just exists in a future 2002, this begins in a prologue set in South America for a military skirmish, where a man named Yukihito Tsuge as the last survivor of his squad who intends his revenge a long time later on his homeland of Japan. This revenge is a terror campaign on Tokyo which, in its many stages, exploits all the flaws in the bureaucracy. How this is show is startling and where the themes come in, dealing with a post World War II Japan which has lived in peace, Goto representing this and Tsuge becoming a figure who wishes to bring the terror of war to the Japanese public. Tsuge's plan uses something as seemingly simplistic as exploding a car on a bridge, without casualties, to start the domino effect where everything starts to collapse to his advantage. There is a heightened piece of melodrama as, disgracing her early in her career and undercutting her ability to progress, Nagumo had a romantic affair Tsuge when he was married and teaching her in the early stages of her career, causing a drama in how she will have to be the one to catch Tsuge when possible, the emotions hanging over her head.

The Japanese Self-Defense Force is a target of the film, the film created in the aftermath, in 1992, when the National Diet, the legislative branch of Japan’s government, passed the U.N. Peacekeeping Cooperation Law that permits the JSDF to participate in U.N. operations under strictly limited conditions, which led to the JSDF participating in U.N. peacekeeping and monitoring operations in Cambodia and Mozambique¹. Oshii and Kazunori Itō's film clearly viewed this in a very negative light, as the prologue is set in such a peacekeeping operation where, not allowed to directly attack the enemy, former JSDF member Yukihito Tsuge as a captain found his entire squad wiped out, and his revenge involves using the resulting power struggle he creates between the Tokyo Metropolitan PD and the JSDF to his advantage. This story, and how it becomes part of the discussions on war as a concept against peace in Patlabor 2, is more meaningful when one is aware of this history footnote.

How the plan Tsuge has goes is fascinating, including the film still tapping into salient details of how organizations can make huge mistakes, all timeless in spite of this film being set into the 2000s. Hubris and a terrorist group able to exploit this come into mind here, such as deliberately bringing suspicions to the military for the car explosion, or having the police and military at each other’s throats in a misguided power flex from the police’s leaders. Other tactics, like blowing up bridges or finding a way to take out military vehicles with ease, i.e. causing martial law to have to be brought into place so they are on the streets like sitting ducks, are uncomfortable realistic as tactics if there were enough resources for someone to use. Even more overtly tropes from action films, like blimps which fake out mock chemical gas attacks when shot down, come with the theme in this of Tsuge to cause terror on a public who have never seen conflict. This is obvious but prescient in mind to how, when in a war back in the 30s and 40s, Japan was utterly destroyed and required to be rebuilt from the ground up decades, leaving lasting scars anime like this have tackled as a theme decades later.

It is an Oshii film as an auteur, his focus on contemplative scenes and dialogue exchanges fully here. Even the one playful touch of including a Bassett hound in a cameo throughout his career at this point onwards, a breed of dog he is obsessed with, appears here near the end. This is however a team effort and screenwriter Kazunori Itō just with this film would have won currency from fans of the medium for how well done this is. Production I.G. is on top form here, and whilst there is a noticeable change in the character designs, it is not as drastic as presumed. The characters are far more realistic in appearance, but it is credit to the film, alongside some of the intricate mechanical animation here, that it feels not as abrupt a change between two films. Again as well, there were three films, and the third film, not involving Mamoru Oshii nor Itō, looks just as different as a film into the 2000s where the switch to digitally animation techniques is noticeable on productions, so the franchise has always had an edge of letting each of the stories, least for these films, be different. The music by Kenji Kawai, as with the first film, shows as well why he was as integral to the image of Mamoru Oshii films, or more aptly also how they sound, adding an additional depth to what has gained significance as one of the best anime films from the nineties with considerable reason.

This is more so as, in another team’s hands, it would be still a good film if done well, an action anime which could still tell this story but in a more overtly comedic and over-the-top fashion. This could work as a more pulpy narrative, and still could have been a great anime, and it says a lot that when the humour is here, such as the sudden mission to buy everything edible in a store from Division 2 members, it still matches Patlabor 1 because the characters were established as a team of miscreants who just happened to be a police force. The decision, even with these characters, to take this cerebral tone which Oshii himself would run with from Ghost in the Shell (1995), the lengthy contemplative visual scenes, the extended philosophical discussions between characters, and match it with action scenes, when they happen, which was distinct and effective at its best. Together both films are admirable in their virtues, and it is not a surprise as well how greatly regarded the sequel is just by itself.  

 

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1) Patlabor: The Movie 2 (1993) Movie Review, written by Erick Kown for Beyond Hollywood, published on October 11th 2004.

#237: Patlabor - The Movie (1989)

 

Director: Mamoru Oshii

Screenplay: Kazunori Itō

Voice Cast: Miina Tominaga as Noa Izumi; Daisuke Gouri as Hiromi Yamazaki; Issei Futamata as Mikiyasu Shinshi; Kouji Tsujitani as Kataoka; Michihiro Ikemizu as Isao Ohta; Osamu Saka as Seitaro Sakaki; Ryunosuke Ohbayashi as Kiichi Goto; Shigeru Chiba as Shiba Shigeo; Tomomichi Nishimura as Detective Matsui; Toshio Furukawa as Asuma Shinohara; Yoshiko Sakakibara as Shinobu Nagumo; You Inoue as Kanuka Clancy

Based on the manga by Masami Yuki

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I feel like I’m playing computer games against God.

Patlabor gets the time frame wrong – the film is set in 1999, and we have yet to get to “Patlabor” work mechs even knee deep into the Millennium – but this follow up to the 1988-9 straight to video series is still very relevant in its themes. Getting very good distribution back in the day through Manga Entertainment with its 1993 sequel, this Mamoru Oshii helmed work, with screenplay by Kazunori Itō, still comes with a lot of salient points decades on with the context and exposition raising many ideas. In futuristic Tokyo, the Babylon Project has been set up to reclaim land in Tokyo Bay, to overcome lack of land in the country and overcrowding, alongside the goal to turn the capital into a cosmopolis. In this world, as mentioned, it has giant bipedal robots but, even if there are some combat machines and a division of the police force, this is a reality where the “labor” is seen as the equivalent of farming and construction machines, the advancement of a bulldozer for a new age.

The film does presume you have seen the straight-to-video series before, but that never becomes an issue here, and as the Manga Entertainment release in the United Kingdom came for VHS and DVD, this was a rare case of a title where the lack of context was never going to be an issue. The film presents the world in a way anyone can quickly catch up on its set-up, in that, after establishing this context of a Japan which uses giant robots for practical use, there is the issue that they can malfunction, and that the police naturally also needed their own, and even divisions to deal with issues involving them, whether abused or out of control. Division 2, our lead team, are unfortunately the cartoonish group in their police force, and it shows their status when they strike fear into a construction worker they are trying to save from his labor going out of control. The recent spate of labor rampages, opening the film, is alarming for them especially Asuma Shinohara, the hot headed young police member, and his seniors, leading them to dig up the cause. It is Patlabor 2, the sequel, which is held the highest, as it became a far more serious political thriller, but this even as a lighter toned work has its pointed moments of relevance. Mamoru Oshii and his screenwriter Kazunori Itō here also have passages of introspection which would be seen in Oshii’s work before and especially grow in the time after Ghost in the Shell (1995) caught peoples’ attentions. Itō was not a stranger for the unconventional and the cerebral, future screenwriter for both Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor 2, as well as live action films such as one of the last of Seijun Suzuki's films, Pistol Opera (2001), an unsung and bizarre crime pastiche, to the late nineties Gamera reboots, and his name deserves to be nodded to for his talents with the narrative too.

This is also however a comedy too, which may surprise some, as until Vlad Love (2021), Oshii’s return to television anime, a large period of time in his directorial career in live action and animation, in mind to many titles of his never leaving his home land, focused more on cerebral and somber existential tones post Ghost in the Shell. The humour here from the previous stories in this franchise, following the misfits of Division 2, including female lead Noa Izumi and her beloved police mecha, does help this film greatly, especially as when the introspection does appear. It means a lot more when brought in when we can also appreciate these characters being ordinary police and even doofuses, especially in mind to the Division 2 leader Captain Kiichi Gotō, held in high regard as talented officer who ended up there for being too good, someone who turned this band of misfits into a family who fish in their off time outside and grow tomatoes on sight when not dealing with the labor rampages.

Central to its main plot, as more labors are going berserk, is the connection to new hardware software for them, its creator a mysterious man we never see a clear image of and is already dead in the first scene, having committed suicide, but we learn so much of regardless of this. He is the Harry Lime figure that Gotō has detectives from other police sections learn of, his tale emphasizing so much philosophy and existentialism Oshii and Kazunori Itō get into. Even spiritual ideas are there as explicit Old Testament references are rife throughout, including the Tower of Babylon, the building which God was said to struck down when humans dared to make a tower reach Him, re-contextualized in an existential debate here of Japan losing its consciousness as industrialization and capitalist grow progresses into the future. I dare not claim any true knowledge of Japanese culture, but even as far back as a film like Stray Dog (1949) by Akira Kurosawa, made just after Japan lost World War II, destroyed and forced to have to build back up over the fifties and sixties, that film touched on these ideas found here a long time after. Existential concerns beyond the film itself are found of the old Japan being lost as more metropolises and advancement leads to more of their consciousness being lost, something anime has covered greatly, and Oshii would get into the nineties further with even the consciousness of human beings. The sites the mystery man at the center of lived in, creator of a diabolical plant for countrywide labor rampages, turn out to be old buildings which are being demolished when the detectives reach them, emphasizing for the characters as much as the audience these grave concerns of old districts and communities disappearing without trace in the march for progression.

The reveal, full spoilers, also is uncomfortably realistic, that this is all due to software from a major business and tied to the government which has been coded with a deliberate hack to cause these rampages, which the government would happily like to deal with without hassle. Actually, and it says how more positive Oshii and Kazunori Itō especially were, or a drastically different attitude from Japanese business culture, that Patlabor could be seen as less realistic, all because of how quickly this is dealt with. No one pretends this has not been revealed, wishing to still have their boatload of cash from the deals, and deny malfunctioning hardware that could cause deaths ever came up, but that could be me merely being cynical.

There is a lighter touch to the first Patlabor film, especially as Patlabor 2 was a drastic change in tone even in terms of the character designs, but there is a lot to juggle which is a huge credit to the production. This is still an action film and a comedy, but one which has a mind to it, and even with the humour, you see the creativity Oshii had and could be neglected. The introspective scenes, including the symbolism of empty birdcages and abandoned old derelicts, are shown with incredible cinematic style through the animators of Studio Deen and Production I.G., and there are unexpected production choices here which caught me off-guard returning to this film. One of them, one of the best of the film, is the unexpected and inspired use of a fisheye lens for a comedy scene. A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image, and for obvious reasons, this would be something you had to animate, and back in this hand drawn era, it makes this an incredibly ambitious visual choice, especially as it is for a moment when a character snaps and gets into an argument with his senior officer, which makes the scene funnier.

Patlabor 2, as mentioned, is the big one of the films, the third film WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 (2002) not connected to the Oshii films with different collaborators, but the first film does deserve considerable praise.  It has to juggle the comedy and the moments of contemplative philosophy, really pertinent ideas of Japan’s technological advances, which is an ambitious task in itself within a film that is beautifully cinematic. This is before the personality is shown in how the film is made, let alone with its idiosyncratic visual touches, including a hair-raising moment evoking Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), and action scenes with elaborate mechanical animation, including the finale involving storming a heavily guarded location. The resulting film, all beautifully put together, is exceptional, and whilst this is absolutely a case of a film where multiple figures who are important to its virtues, this in context for Mamoru Oshii is also a good film to return to bring a perspective to him. As a person who I view as an auteur who brings his own voice to the work, Patlabor is fascinating to return back to in showing his flexibility.

#236: Lament of the Lamb (2003-4)

 

Studio: Madhouse

Director: Gisaburō Sugii

Screenplay: Gisaburō Sugii

Based on the manga by Kei Toume

Voice Cast: Megumi Hayashibara as Chizuna Takashiro; Tomokazu Seki as Kazuna Takashiro; Jūrōta Kosugi as Akira Eda; Kenichi Suzumura as Kinoshita; Kikuko Inoue as Momoko Takashiro; Miki Nagasawa as Emi; Satsuki Yukino as Shou Yaegashi; Shinichiro Miki as Minase; Yoko Sasaki as Natsuko Eda

Viewed in Japanese with English subtitles

 

In terms of an obscure title, Lament of the Lamb sticks out as a fascinating melodrama enclosed in a horror premise, which most will only know as the source manga was released by the manga publisher Tokyopop in the West. The anime however entices as it is produced by Madhouse, its female lead is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara, a mega star in the industry, and it is, whilst a more obscurer figure in comparison, directed by Gisaburō Sugii, who also wrote the scripts for all four episodes and worked on the storyboards. His career is marked with helming the theatrical film Night of the Galactic Railroad (1985), a highly regarded animated film attempting to adapt Kenji Miyazawa's post humorous novel, a challenge to adapt the un-filmable and unfinished book dealing with mortality and life for a young audience that is hugely well received, and a masterpiece of eighties theatrical anime. He also directed Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994), a huge curveball in tones to these two other titles, but to consider important in showing his talents as it is one of the only well regarded fighting game anime in existence. It was a staple in the West from Manga Entertainment even if Alice in Chains and KMFDM had to be added to the soundtrack, which shows that Sugii was no slouch in terms of a director.

Kei Toume is also another case of a prolific manga artist whose work, and knowledge of her, is sadly limited in terms of English language access, Lament of the Lamb by itself having been released in the west, but also having a radio drama and a 2001 live action film to its name. Her story begins with Kazuna, who is a teenager left with his aunt and uncle by his father as a child, a famous doctor who disappeared from his life soon afterwards. Fate conspires to weave him back to his family as, whilst his father to his shock is dead, his older sister Chizuna who lived with him returns into Kazuna’s life. It is very obvious from the beginning, when the illness of the family is brought up, it is clearly a form of vampirism, a craving for the taste of blood, but this is instead a story whose horror is a psychodrama, as Kazuna, who was to be spared from the family to have a normal life, is starting to suffer the cravings for blood, as he is drawn to his sister.

With a moody electronic score, intercut with drum and bass freak outs by Ken Miyazawa, more prolific for his contributions to Detective Conan films, Lament of the Lamb stands out with interest as a macabre melodrama that enticed me with its tone and telling of this drama. The bloodlines is cursed with a craving for blood which is depicted differently to many vampire stories, including how instead of being undead or supernatural abilities, there is a greater danger of physical and/or mental damage to the family itself, something Kazuna can attest to in her memories of their late mother. The concern, especially for Kazuna is worse as it includes desiring his female student friend’s neck. Said friend, Yaegashi, is a student in love with him but feeling pushed away, as dynamic a character in her own emotional turmoil, as there is also an explicit sense of incest to the story between Kazuna and his older student. Unlike the titillation of other anime, this feels here a more potent edge to the proceedings, grave and platonic barring the neck biting sequence, which fully embraces the taboo and emphasizes how vampirism became symbolic of sexuality centuries before and is embraced here.

Even in mind of how more obscurer this is, i.e. you will likely see this as a rip, Lament also has a deliberately washed out aesthetic, of pale faces and even certain character designs (especially with Yaegashi) having a wider span between the eyes, almost more cartoonish but adding to the tone. It feels disconcerting, especially as whilst a slow burn drama, even in episode 1 blood is spilt and it is depicted in deep red. The resulting production is gothic melodrama in the modern day, especially as there is also the character of Minase, a young male doctor who is in love with Chizuna and himself has a great angst in regards to her growing platonic relationship to her younger brother, especially as despite the initial appearance she shows, she is physically being damaged by her illness, even in terms of the medication needed to control it having physical harm to her heart. The take on vampirism here, a psychological and physical craving which causes dizzy spells, physically wrecking spells and mental collapse is distinct here in terms of imaging the literalisation of this. The slower tone is a change of pace for a horror anime, and telling a whole story to its bleak end, without feeling morose in the slightest, the only real reason this likely never got picked up for the West is considering the state of anime releases at the time. The original video anime format was still viable but decreasing in number, and for everyone still released at the time, you find as many titles from the time which never came to the West as you fall over them from the eighties. It is a weird missed opportinity in terms of selling it from the back of Madhouse, who were highly regarded at the time, and on Megumi Hayashibara, a huge name to those who watched the original subbed versions of the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The only thing close, in terms of further adaptations of the manga to the West, was at the Tokyo Project Gathering on the 22nd October 2006, a segment of TIFFCOM, where Mr. Stuart Levy, CEO of Tokyopop, presented the Lament of the Lamb live-action movie project as a future plan. It was meant to begin production in 2007, and be shot in Romania¹, which does emphasize how Tokyopop's reputation started to slip in the mid-2000s and hubris as well, the closest thing to a live action film from them being Van Von Hunter (2010), a low budget adaptation of a Western parody of manga, by Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch, Levy helped co-write. By 2008, Tokyopop after their success had to restructure their business due to changes in the manga industry, and neither helping was that the significant licenses they made their name from - Kodansha published titles, manga created by CLAMP - were being taken away from them. Lament of the Lamb's review should focus on the material, this adaptation a little gem whose absence is sad as, in terms of a horror anime, this is very different from many as a very compelling gothic drama.

 

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1) Tokyo Project Gathering Anime Related Projects, written by Christopher Macdonald and published by Anime News Network on 23rd October 2006.

#235: Hantsu x Trash (2015-16)

 

Studio: Hoods Entertainment

Director: Hisashi Saito

Screenwriter: Keiichirō Ōchi

Based on the manga by Hiyoko Kobayashi

Voice Cast: Maaya Uchida as Chisato Hagiwara; Yūma Uchida as Yōhei Hamaji; Kenta Matsumoto as Nakajima; Saki Yamakita as Maki Hayami; Shizuka Itou as Manami Miyoshi; Yurika Kubo as Mai Shinozaki

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Hantsu X Trash is not really defendable. It is neither a full work, as these are three episodes (two over twelve minutes, the third over fourteen) are part of a trend of creating tie-in anime that comes with the manga, the first bundled with the 8^th volume of the manga on October 6^th 2015¹, the second bundled with the 10^th volume of the manga in June 6^th 2016², and the third and final one bundled with the 11^th volume of the manga on November 4^th 2016³. Together, they are not politically correct a sex comedy about the high school male water polo team who is more interested in the female water team, though maybe it is my cynical nature, but considering some of the far more tasteless and sexist content I have unfortunately come across, the less of two evils argument is here. It is still indefensible, as jokes include spying on the female team bathing, which is sexual harassment in real life, but somehow pales next to worse content.

It feels like a throwback, the source manga published originally in Weekly Young Magazine, a young men’s publication which published the likes of the original Akira magazine, but also in the 2010s with this published titles with names like Does a Hot Elf Live Next Door to You? (2019–2021) by Meguru Ueno, sex still something which sells as in the past and still now, only with this one feeling like it has inherited clichés that came from decades earlier. Episode One introduces Yōhei Hamaji, a poor guy doomed like many male protagonists in these sex comedies to have constant head trauma, a young man who has one clear love, his senpai Chisato Hagiwara⁴, one of the committed members of her team, even if like the other men in his team, he is also one with a fixation on breasts, as those making these shorts clearly were. Hoods Entertainment made their bread and butter on titles like this, whether explicit in content or implied. From them are the likes of The Qwaser of Stigmata (2010), infamously the animated show about breast milk powering one’s super abilities, or Mysterious Girlfriend X (2012), a truly bizarre series for me to experience in that, for all its sex comedy, it is actually a sweet romance between a guy and an unconventional introvert of a girl, which however involves her saliva having addictive qualities to it. They are an animation studio who has no qualms in the slightest to even unconventional fetishes let alone lewdness, this in comparison tame even if it does not help defend the content either.

These are part of the modern OVA movement, the straight-to-video era into the 2010s involving for more tie-in extra episodes or specials for existing shows, or tie-ins to manga we never get over in the West, rather than adaptations or unique titles we were still getting into the 2000s but have dwindled out. A lot, as here, are also entirely for the sake of animating nudity, these three episodes not even lewd ecchi, neither hentai, but devoted entirely to bared animated breasts. TV series are censored for television, they sell their physical releases for this content being uncensored, in this case only the sense this was a far obscure work which someone felt was not able to sell for a full television series. What is also is, even if of a different culture, is the equivalent of the American high school sex comedy into the 2000s, like Road Trip (2000), tame works baring their brief scenes of nudity, and with all the potential issues of sexism and their tones to consider upon actually watching them.

Episode One warns of this in the content, though as I will get to, this is following the trope that, whilst still objectifying the women, the men are punished painfully for comedic effect, which has always been a curious side to Japanese anime and manga in their sex comedy in that they constantly undercut their male characters, in work targeting men in their gazes, in being completely immature figures. Even what could be seen as a gay panic running gag undercuts itself in presentation, where Yōhei keeps imagining erotic fantasies of Hagi-chan, whilst recuperating in the nurse’s room, only to keep envisioning Nakajima, a team member looks in his late thirties with sunglasses permanently on, because of the strange tone to it. The main joke for that first episode, whilst Hagi-Chan is the woman he loves, Yōhei is someone clearly who has both an obsession with large breasts, and that due to the tone of this joke, far from homophobic it comes off like he is denying his bisexuality. If not latent desire to buff his team leader’s nipples, his super ego denying his sexual desire is a really unconventional, a mind which envisions Chisato being seduced by one of her teammates Shinozaki, someone who is very physical with her friends, and in a more complex show than the fragments we got would have been compelling, even if tasteless, for imagining the sexual id of a guy who is confused in a lot of ways about his sexuality even if there is one girl he loves dearly. That is as much trying to stretch out a sex gag which most would roll their eyes by excusing it through a layer of amateur interpretation, but that becomes the most interesting thing, even if by accident, how much of this does become a curious gag anime about the strangeness of the male libido, even if the work is not great.

This is still an anime about the male water polo team being perverts, even with episode three having them trying to spy on the female team so Yōhei learn the nipple colour of the woman he loves, words I cannot believe (or defend) recording as dialogue. This follows however clichés common in anime, including that this always leads to the men being punished as already mentioned, one going too far in his delirium seeing one girl naked he even gets a baseball bat up a painful area. It is a strange paradox of getting away with behavior in real life with these fictional characters which would not be (rightly) justifiable, more problematic by the time these episodes were being released, with explicit nudity here shown to the viewer, only to punish the male characters for their libido. The female teacher for both teams is neither helping in breaking teaching ethics too. In Episode Two, she even made a promise to let the male team touch her breasts if they won a match, three seconds only each, and has a desire for Yōhei beyond the boundaries of teacher-student relationships, only with the issue that he loves Chisato and wants to keep his virginity except for her undercutting this.

None of this has aged well as, least in the English speaking world, content like this is considered more and more taboo even if this title is from the 2010s and was an obscure title which is not commonly available. Most would rightly not want to watch this, which comes up just past the thirty minute mark only, but it is here too though, so I do not come off as a hypocrite, where I admit I did laugh. Every time it was entirely when a clear theme was up front as the joke, of how every male character here is as thick as a brick, even Yōhei, whose obsession entirely to breasts is to the point they all believe touching them is enough for an orgasm for a woman, which is comical and in an actual relationship would been the most embarrassing reality check they all could have. It is the kind of premise which, for all the content here with is clichés from previous anime and not aging well, still hits close to home as a joke at mocking the male heterosexual libido. More so, as I have seen titles which have casual edged into sexual violence and far more misogynistic content, this feels more antiquated and with this Super Ego slant to how the joke always punished the male characters, even if the plots here are not defendable and yet reward with their explicitly topless nudity, Here there is a scene of all the swim team on the floor just from touching their teacher’s breasts, or that she has beaten them all up for not following the three second rule, the exaggeration here of these male character coming off as something itself ridiculous to laugh at, that image in itself the encapsulation of what is clearly the joke but also unintentionally the theme, even a neurosis, running through this.

It is sexist? Yes, though this crude OVA accidentally nods to this paradoxical tug of war between titillation and punishment which is interesting if perverted. A story is also here if there ever was a sense of trying to tell one out of this, the romance between a sex fixated Yōhei who yet wishes to be a good person for Chisato, a romantic triangle set up in the finale episode with another girl on the water polo team with a crush on him. Not many of the cast are set up beyond this, though the premise of a sap like Yōhei trying to balance between water polo and his libido is a premise that could be good, as most could, is focused and were trying for more than clearly here. That this is not really a water polo genre story, and likely is not in the source manga, is itself disappointing because, as a genre hybrid, a sports show combined with absurd sex comedy and romance would work, or least be something really original.  

What you get here, just over thirty minutes, could have been a pilot if released separately into three parts. Its content, even if I found aspects funny, does come with my own guilt that, absolutely, and that episode two does at times look rough. It is fascinating though, as a lot of shows still had this tone of sex comedy, even the badly aged content, over the decades before into the modern day, this one fixated as much on the stupidity of its male leads as much as clearly exist to sell its titillation. I cannot help but contrast this too, back to the concern of the lesser of two evils argument, in mind to other anime I have seen which have more problematic content, where this is still not the place I wish sex comedies were in, but with far worse out there. I think of the first season of High School DxD (2012), which I once watched to cover for a cult film blog I wrote for anime rated for eighteen year olds in the British Isles, where alongside one of the female characters (at least one) being uncomfortably young looking, there was an extensive Pokemon parody within one episode with tentacles that I could have done without. I think of the shock of an obscure series like Sakura Diaries (1997) when I returned to it; for the most part a sweet natured toned sex comedy even if about cousins, it abruptly (including its ADV Films English dub) enters some horrifying misogyny and the male lead nearly considering raping his cousin, only to brush that aside for the rest of the premise. No, the gag of spying on the female water polo team bathing is not justifiable as a joke, but it is antiquated like an American Pie film inexplicably appearing in the cinemas in the 2020s, rather than just uncomfortable to sit through.

Instead this evokes Colorful (1999), a micro-series anime. Whilst the question of whether its content is defendable means revisiting it, its humour was less sex humour, vignettes about men trying to see women in their underwear, or the garments under their clothes, but the jokes entirely about how ridiculous these men were, and the punch lines making them look like egits. Whether that has aged well or not is to debate, but you look to these works which are as much the joke is a guilt reflex of the creators, and they are fascinating even if Hantsu x Trash is very conventional even in the genre. In the perfect world, these types of sex comedies would not involve this type of sexual harassment humour – where even Hood Entertainment with Mysterious Girlfriend X, with its fetish some will find off-putting, managing to have at its center a pair who really liked each other and embraced this quirk of the relationship. Yet that is the only sin of Hantsu x Trash, a slight production, one which will likely be forgotten as an actual anime production, but managing to produce far more here on paper than what these thirty plus minutes should have produced because there is stuff here of note it accidentally spells out. That, and because one wishes there was an erotic water polo sex comedy out there which was more wholesome and progressive with this tone even if still breast fixated.

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1) Hantsu x Trash Manga Bundles Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime News Network on August 23^rd 2015.

2) Hantsu x Trash Risque Water Polo Manga Bundles 2nd Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and published by Anime New Network on April 24^th 2016.

3) Risque Water Polo Manga Hantsu x Trash Bundles 3rd Original Anime DVD, written by Rafael Antonio Pineda and published by Anime News Network on September 9th 2016.

4) Maaya Uchida and Yūma Uchida, the voice actors for these lead characters, are siblings, which is somewhat an odd casting choice as romantic leads. That is not a slight against either of them, Maaya the older sister, both prolific in their careers, just an odd choice which I hope they found funny in hindsight to what happens in the show.