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It took several years to get to the second in the trinity of the Holy Manga Video Trinity of Suck (the first being Angel Cop and the third being Mad Bull 34 by Kazuo Koike). But that’s because Violence Jack is the least clip-worthy of the three, cut or uncut. After roughly two years of putting it off, Daryl finally reviews this behemoth, the shonen work that established modern-era post-apocalyptic fiction as we know it.
May as well start another thread for this post. The previous thread was a little large and partially carried over from the old site, and if we ever stop manually updating the RSS feed via text editor then it’ll help if we have one blog post per podcast enclosure.
Other news: Daryl has a new article up on the Otaku USA website. As a supplemental piece to the print magazine’s Halo: Legends feature, he’s written a brief overview of anime anthologies. We’ll also be doing panels at Megacon 2010 as well as Anime Boston 2010. There will assuredly be more conventions where you can see us this year, but so far those two are confirmed. But if anyone wants to provide us free plane tickets and lodging for Fanimecon, we’re all ears!
In the original Violence Jack run from the early 70s he’s the monosyllabic friend of the children that he is in the Slum King OAV (though that’s really amped up in nastiness from the manga). Those two chapters are probably the best of the Violence Jack series as Nagai’s at his peak there (plus I suspect later chapters aren’t all his work). Some great cartooning.
Then in the late 70s return he starts to really show the magical powers related to that magic bird he turns into. Earthquakes, bringing people back to life and the like. The Hell’s Wind OAV is adapting a tale from that era, and the OAV amps up the nastiness from what’s in the manga. The heroine (Jun Hono from Great Mazinger) in the manga version doesn’t get raped and mutilated like she does in the anime (she gets tied up and whipped instead), and she’s a badass from the start after Tetsuya Tsurugi is killed by a gang in the prologue.
Then in the 80s seinen return, Jack turns into a right chatty bastard, frequently busting out monologues and that’s where Evil Town comes from. And if anything the OAV is toned down from the original manga in this case.
Oh and Gerald, that woman in the manga who tears the man trying to rape her in half?
She’s also Violence Jack.
Wakamoto is credited as “Noriaki” Wakamoto in a lot of his earlier roles (like Odin!).
I would absolutely love to come to your panels in Florida and the States but like many people is an entirely unpossible affair (I live in Australia). Is there any chance that you can get recordings of the panels then upload them as SIDE dish Episodes? Even if it is just Audio.??????? hope upon hope)
Many thanks for another great episode!
Listening to the review again (Daryl’s rape jokes keep making me queasy), it seems to add to my personal view that Go Nagai isn’t extreme when it comes to rape and coercive sex, and his attitudes towards that are pretty damned. [wait, those weren’t jokes; all that stuff ACTUALLY HAPPENS in this cartoon! — Daryl]
For instance, Kekko Kamen always manages to save the girls from the sexual tortures of the Spartan High School staff, while in the original manga story, the rape is shown abstract and as an ugly thing.
And then take Hanappe Bazooka, where the hero rapes a whole gang of girls at a gym, and also note the manga was written by Kazuo Koike. One web site basically says that Nagai didn’t like the sexual side of the manga that Koike wrote, though he went ahead and did it anyway. Considering Koike’s other works, I’m not surprised…
So, yeah. Go Nagai’s more of a sex-positive person than I thought…
Except of course for all the vagina with teeth monsters.
Steve, Sister Jill having a leopard for a vagina is progressive and empowering.
If they’re used as weapons, sure. Aphordite A’s Breast Missiles are definitely empowering, because they can use their secondary sexual characteristics as weapons.
I have Shuten Doji on DVD (got it when I bought Mazinkaiser). I wonder if that’s as crazy as Violence Jack was?
First volume of VJ came out in the UK in July 96, Adventure Duo was out in the UK in 94/95.
Shuten Doji is a classic example of Nagai getting bored of his own premise, possibly more than once in this case (he’s being doing this all through his career). Not seen the OAVs though so I don’t know if the same twists and swerves survive as well in the anime. But the manga is certainly crazy, but in a “where is he going with this?” way rather than “I can’t believe he wrote/drew that” you get with Violence Jack.
Shuten Doji is less crazy than Violence Jack. If you want more crazy on your anime, what Genocyber!
Some points composed while listening to the Violence Jack review:
1. I actually think the Violence Jack review showed a softer, less nihilistic Daryl than usual.
2. I think ‘Fifteening’ was a response to a couple of early anime dubs that had adult content in them but were released as PG rated videos due to the BBFC (allegedly) not watching them and assuming they were kids cartoons; the swearng was added to push the impression of adultness – there was a PG version of Locke the Superman (iirc) that had tits and blood in it –
3. Was Adventure Kids a big deal around this time? The BBFC had it renamed Adventure Duo since the use of the term ‘kids’ suggested uncomfortable levels of pedo (it was a Urotsukidoji tentacle sex romp set in OMGvirtualreality I think); this made the papers in the wake of Overfiend.
4. At Anime UK Con about a thousand years ago I asked the main Manga Video guy whether they would consider *not* releasing a title if the amount of cuts destroyed the storyline completely. He was all ‘oh hells no, we’d release the shit out of it’.
5. Isn’t Go Nagai without reprehensible violence but with pervy weirdness Cutey Honey? As an aside, the live action Cutey Honey TV show was really good – can the assembled AWO hordes thing of any other quality anime/manga to TV adaptations?
“the Violence Jack review showed a softer, less nihilistic Daryl than usual”. That may be because like the crew said in there first hentai episode (Show# 46 – Animated Snuff Film Misogynist Crap) a good amounts of Japanese horror is not just blood and gore, but blood and gore in a sexuality tore, and Daryl doesn’t watch hentai.
But it would be fair to say that, though not hentai in the true sense, a lot of anime that Daryl likes are somewhat “rape heavy.” It’s a common problem that if you like manly cool fights and violence anime (which we all know is an ailing breed) then you often have to weather a heaping spoonful of misogyny, and it was nice to see that something was beyond the pale even for our gracious hosts; also, I like that we got the reason (the “mean spirited” thing) rather than a unqualified “eeeuw” or “too much” like you might have found in a lesser podcast.
Brief Adjunct: Anime UK Con was in 1994 … 16 years ago 🙁
True, but the difference between Violence Jack and the type of action Daryl watch is the protagonist. In Demon City Shinjuku the girl almost get rape, but the (reluctant or not) hero stop it in time. Violence Jack doesn’t stop the rape to happen ever if he already there, he doesn’t ever care if there die or not. The only reason why people would call him a hero because he killing bad guys.
The reason why this is late because I was out of town.
Not regarding with the review of Violence Jack(might try looking at it in the future,for I like Nagai Go’s stuff), I’d like to know the opinion of the fine gentlemen and lady towards anime review shows,especially towards AnimeTV (currently hosted on Revision3). After watching 5 episodes directly, I’d like to hear of your reactions to it,and whether you are “superior” to them.
Besides that,have any of you ever watched Shin Hakkenden? I would really like to know who has ever seen this…
We said our piece on video review shows, such as AnimeTV and the now-defunct Track-Shun years ago. Nothing has changed. See that search box at the top of the site? Try it out. It actually works!
Oh,thanks Daryl.Besides that,are you playing No More Heroes 2?If you are,how does it compare to its predescessor?
I actually beat No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle the day it came out. As I noted on Twitter, it is the most authentic media depiction of the otaku expiration date ever crafted. I wish there were more absurd pre-fight speeches/cinematics and I miss the rank announcer, but as a side effect of this I learned how to mostly (but not quite perfectly) simulate the effect myself!
Next item: figuring out what the Killer7 vocoder settings are!
Sorry for the double post,but since the M.A.H.Q. guys are going to Megacon as well,can you guys have a meeting with them and discuss about Gundam,perhaps on a special podcast session?I’m very intrigued by what will happen if you guys do meet…….
Well, I just couldn’t resist seeing this, and I just got done doing so.
I must say, I happened to like Hell’s Wind more, which made Jack more heroic than the other 2 (and hey, I like Rambo woman too). In the one where he’s underground (I forget the name), he… did save people, but kinda went “overboard”. Slum King was Incredible Hulk without a soul. I laughed when Keichi was like “No don’t save him” and his dumb girlfriend was like “Oh Jack, grab the rope, its ok”, but she had no concept of what weight is and seeing how Jack is like 40000000 tons of muscle/burly/awesome, not only weighs down the copter, but says F’ it and chucks it at Harlem Bomber, KILLING Keichi, then breaks off the copter blade like its some toothpick to finish off Harlem Bomber. Then of course the girl is all happy for whatever reason, and Jack is a phoenix and “fly’s away”.
So my thought was, this must have been Fallout 3 before Fallout 3…