超人ロック / Locke the Superman / El Superman de las Galaxias

The ultimate Animé superhero.

Background.

Locke the Superman (超人ロック, Chōjin Rokku) is a manga series created by Yuki Hijiri, which was later adapted into a movie and three OVA releases. The movie was given an obscure video release in the United States by Celebrity Home Entertainment as Locke the Superpower, which was rather heavily edited to 92 minutes, removing violence, nudity and any adult bits. Both it and the OVAs were later licensed and released by Central Park Media under the original name.

As of 2012, Discotek has licensed the original Locke the Superman film from 1984 and it was released on November 6. In November 2020, the original Locke the Superman film from 1984 was released on Blu-ray by Sentai Filmworks, and today's review will be about this wonderful 1980s animated movie.

 

The Japanese Blu-Ray set.

The Blu-Ray cover art.

Synopsis.

A quiet, polite, lonely immortal esper about which little is known, he is called "Locke the Superman", but often denies being so. It is not known where or when he was born, and if asked, Locke will say he does not remember. It is entirely possible this is true. However, when asked by Cornelia Prim in "Millennium of the Witch" which star he was from, Locke replied "Toa."

He has appeared at various times throughout the history of the galaxy, either as a direct influence, an indirect influence, or a simple observer. Using his esper abilities, Locke can learn and do most things more quickly than a normal human. His power also allows him to remain eternally young, or even turn himself into a child again to be adopted by kind-hearted families. It is speculated he remains youthful as an excuse not to take responsibility for whatever cause he is approached for, since no one expects youths to have such responsibilities. 

Masked men.

Innocent women.

Review.

Locke The Superman is an excellent  OVA. Regardless of the animation style that may upset newcomers, there's a solid story, great characters, lots of action and some early state-of-the-art 3D animation to show Japanese artists weren't fucking around when implementing this then new technology.

Produced by Nippon Animation, and directed by Fukutomi Hiroshi, who's known for his work on Captain Tsubasa, Doraemon, Fatal Fury,Gunnm & Lupin III, Locke The Superman is a movie that withstands time and could easily be seen as a "Superhero film" the likes we've seen in recent years. In a nutshell, Locke is an immortal super powered combination of Superman, Charles Xavier & a few other X-Men. Age wise, he's been around for centuries seeing how mankind has fallen for the vice of war time and time again. Obviously, the universe is on the brink of a new brutal war, only this time humanity won't stand a chance against it. Lady Kahn (the antagonist) has set out to train every Esper in the universe. Espers are humans with superhuman abilities. Most of them do what they do with their extremely developed mind powers, so if no regular John could stand a chance against one, imagine what it would be like standing against an army of enhanced superhumans. Ryu Yamaki (our heroes soon-to-be friend) knows this and starts a search for the legendary man that could turn the tables: Locke. 

Animation wise, the film is flawless. Key animation, layout, character design and mecha design look amazingly good, and that's because the movie animation department was in charge of the late Kigami Yoshiji, who's known for his work in Cat's Eye, Crayon Shin-Chan, Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Space Adventure  Cobra, among others. 

I'm not into warfare, not interested.

Love can be a deadly weapon.

While the super-powered being subject is frequently visited by the science fiction industry, the Espers (ESP as in extrasensory perception) are nothing like Gundam's Newtypes or comic book superheroes. Each Esper has a single special skill, and most of them were either brainwashed or fooled by Lady Kahn to join her school for the gifted. The only Esper that escapes that rule of one superpower only is Locke, which makes him virtually impossible to defeat, unless there's an Esper whose superpower is to disable other Espers skills. Enter Jessica Orin AKA Amelia. Her past is a bit blurry, but all she can remember comes in the form of nightmares depicting the murder of her parents by an unknown group of armed terrorists whose leader looks exactly like Locke. But did this really happen? 

Plot wise, I think writers were quite clever to allow more on screen time to the secondary characters rather than focusing only on Locke's vision throughout the two hours the film runs. An overpowered being like our protagonist may feel linear, and too far to reach, too distant to care about his destiny. Ryu and Jessica are obviously there to provide our hero with a sense of responsibility over the weak, but Locke doesn't just stop there, that's why I think his nickname fits perfectly. Like Superman, Locke understands the responsibility of his special skills. He knows he's unique and that many would love to see him fight alongside their cause. Locke's humanity is precisely what makes him a character worth rooting for. An example of this can be when he encounters Cornelia Prim and her teams of expert Espers ready to fight him to death. Instead of dealing with them permanently, he prefers to disable them temporarily so that they can see he means no harm, and that is them who've been fooled into leading a senseless war. He wants them to be set free.

Cornelia Prim and her team.

Esper training.

As for the main villain, Lady Khan is quite a mysterious character, and it's only until the very end of the movie that her true intentions are revealed. Is she an Esper? Has anyone seen her before? Is she even real? Who's the real villain anyway? Even Locke wonders if helping Earth's Federation is the right thing to do. Obviously, everything will be revealed by the end of the film. 

As above mentioned briefly, Locke The Superman was originally released in the USA as "Locke The Superpower" by Celebrity Home Entertainment. This version was heavily edited, and ran for 92 removing all scenes depicting graphic violence, nudity and adult themes. While we all like seeing films as they were originally intended, all the removed scenes from the original OVA, don't necessarily alter the overall feel of the story since there are very few violent scenes and only three mild nudity scenes that are not sex related at all. Fortunately, the reissued DVD and recently released Blu-Ray feature the entire film (2 hours) with the original Japanese audio track.

 

Amelia thinking about his parents murder.

Shower scenes are a classic Anime trope.

 

For being such and old OVA, the film presents some ambitious themes including a strident anti-war message. The main hero is drawn as a tragic figure, dedicated to peace but doomed to a lonely life mistrusted by enemies and allies alike. The engaging central theme stems from Locke's steadfast belief that the psychics' innate humanity can transcend their programming as war machines. To that end his emotional journey is repeatedly paralleled with that of Jessica/Amelia who also grows to despise life as a psychic killing machine.

 

The film also devotes a lot of screen time to Jessica/Amelia whose subplot incorporates elements like covert government testing, a psychic schoolgirl, dreamlike flashbacks where a protagonist misinterprets a key plot point, and slow-motion chase sequences in the Brian De Palma style. While Locke the Superman keeps curtailing promising subplots with strange left turns it still weaves an intricate story that leads to a satisfying pay-off. On a surface level the production oozes class all the way showcasing impeccable visuals, innovative editing, lavish futuristic design and a lush score by Goro Omi. All hallmarks of anime's golden age. The psychic action sequences where Locke does his thing prove suitably trippy and mind-blowing but the subtext is endearingly humane as Locke defuses Millennium's crypto-fascist pursuit of martyrdom and rekindles their humanity yet in a poignant coda finds no solace for himself. 

The future has no pubes.

Battle worn boobs.

While this is a movie based on manga from the 1970s, it feels like there was an effort made here to update the art style a little bit. To an extent the character design is trying to bridge the gap between the 70s and the 80s, and it looks pretty good. Meanwhile, there is some very dynamic camera work going on in this movie. Fast, sweeping pans were quite popular, as well as a chase scene from the eyes of one of the people running. It was interesting to see such experimentation, and some of it looked good, while other parts were quite jarring.

It’s also worth taking a moment to mention this film's soundtrack, as it is fairly enjoyable. The music is a blend of orchestral pieces, rock guitar, outer space electronic bits, and the occasional funky track. The varying types of music are vaguely reminiscent of series like Space Battleship Yamato that had a similar feel to its soundtrack. People probably won’t find themselves humming the melodies to songs here but the music is still quite enjoyable nonetheless.

 

Can there be love in space?

War is not the answer, and Locke knows it.

In a nutshell, Much of the story involves traveling from planet to planet, trying to find the bad guys, sometimes resulting in a psychic fight between Locke and one of Lady Khan's trained pets. The action and plot are pretty straight forward and the two hour runtime feels shorter. One funny thing, is how the fanservice is delivered here. There's that obvious shower scene where Jessica reflects on her past and future, and that seems quite normal. People do take showers and think about their lives. However, some of the action scenes are just hilarious! Whenever female Espers take a beating, their "battle worn" clothes tear off just in their boobs area. This doesn't happen with Esper men. Perhaps their suits were made of lasting fabric or something. Now, this isn't a complaint of any kind, I just find it hilarious. In the future, shows like Aika would exploit this trope to the max while building a genre around panties and T&A. In Locke these scenes are brief and not overly used, because the writers wanted to provide you with that "dark and gritty" feature a lot of people used when talking about Anime in the late 80s and early 90s.

Espers have been done to death in this day and age. We’ve had 40 or so years of these stories developing. As such, more recent anime with this sort of theme tends to have a much more interesting story. However, as a piece of history Locke the Superman is worth a look to see how these stories were told in the 70s and 80s, while enjoying the aesthetics that were prominent at the time.

 

 

Locke & Ryu.

Leave me alone!

Now, speaking of the Blu Ray set, Locke The Superman is presented in 1080p High Definition and the film was no doubt remastered as the series is vibrant and colorful, no scratches and while it retains its original cel drawn animation and beautiful backgrounds, the 3D scenes make it look like a more recent production.

The film is presented in Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0. The soundtrack is front speaker driven and dialogue and action are crystal clear.  Subtitles are in English.No lame dubs are included. Enjoy the voices of the original seiyuu.

The Blu-ray features the original Japanese promo for special features.

I must say, seeing old school Anime remastered in high definition is an incredible experience, it feels like you're watching these stories for the first time in your life. And for those old enough to have been around in the VHS tapes decade, you know what I'm talking about. Not even syndicated TV looked as pristine as HD remasters do.

Space travel safely.

Solid designs.

The film was also nostalgic in the sense of how cel animation was used and the beauty of the painted backgrounds. But also the focus on storyline which I enjoyed.

This film has it all, action, romance, betrayal, violence, and also the common ’80s shower nudity that was prevalent in anime back in the day.

“Locke the Superman” is one of those titles that may have had a long run as a manga series, but unfortunately never had a long running anime series to go along with it.

 

Locke in action.

The bad guys in action.

When the film was released, many fans were thrilled, while those in the US who watched it on video for the first time were a bit dismayed of the censorship which removed all the nudity and violence from the film.

What you get with the Sentai Filmworks version of the “Locke the Superman” release is the best version of the animated film to date which is on Blu-ray, uncut, remastered and for those clamoring for old school anime, it’s a title that I highly recommend!

 Here's the US edition for movie trailer:

Here's the French trailer:

ガンスミス キャッツ / Gunsmith Cats

The original DVD artwork.

 Background.

Gunsmith Cats (ガンスミス キャッツ) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kenichi Sonoda. It was published in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from 1991 to 1997 and was followed between 2004 and 2008 by a sequel series Gunsmith Cats Burst which included the same characters and situations. The series describes the adventures of young women fighting crime in Chicago.  

Nineteen-year-old Irene "Rally" Vincent operates the titular "Gunsmith Cats" gun shop but also works as a bounty hunter, which is the impetus behind many of the stories. She is assisted in both activities by her housemate, former prostitute "Minnie" May Hopkins. Rally is an expert combat shooter and marksman with just about every firearm in existence, as well as a brilliant driver. May is an explosives expert, knowing the inner workings of and many uses of all manner of explosive devices. Teenage ex-burglar and lock-picker Misty Brown later joins the team and there is also Becky Farrah, a top, if expensive, source of information on underworld activity.

Bounty hunting has of course led Rally to make many enemies, most notably Gray, the leader of gangsters whose use of armaments, including bombs, have likened them to terrorists; and Goldie Musou, a leading figure in the Mafia who uses drugs to manipulate people to the point that they can be brainwashed into killing their nearest and dearest. Bean Bandit, a man who specializes in delivering illegal goods, often features as an alternate ally or enemy—depending on the behavior of his clients, most of whom are being hunted by Rally. 

 

 

Attention to detail.

Shelby Mustang GT500 just because.

OVAs.

A three-part anime adaptation was created. This adaptation is an original story for the characters but includes several references to the manga storyline. The character of Becky is given an increased role compared to the manga.

Produced by OLM and directed by Takeshi Mori and Kazuya Murata in 1995. The anime was based on the homonym manga series written and illustrated by the above mentioned Kenichi Sonoda. After leaving anime production company Artmic to work as a comic artist, Sonoda presented some of his story concepts and illustrations to Kodansha. These did not impress the editors but an illustration of two girls caught the attention of one of them, who suggested Sonoda develop a concept for it. Sonoda stated in an interview that the drawing was the genesis for the series. At the time Sonoda did not have any plans for the illustration but decided to expand his Riding Bean concept into a developed story. Due to licensing issues, Sonoda was originally unable to use the Riding Bean concept or character around the time he was creating Gunsmith Cats. However, during the run of the series the rights were returned to him and he added Bean Bandit into the series. 

Although Sonoda was a fan of the Japanese police drama series Taiyo ni Hoero!, he decided the show did not fit his preferred Western style. The story is influenced by American gun-action movies such as The French Connection and The Blues Brothers. Sonoda chose the Shelby Cobra GT500 as Rally's car after realizing that the cars in driving movies from the 70s were often Ford Mustangs. He researched the various models and selected the GT500 because it was the most powerful rather than any attraction to the car itself. When drawing guns, Sonoda would use a combination of magazines and his own replicas. Character names were taken from American TV shows such as Bewitched and The Fugitive. The character of Minnie-May was the result of a compromise between Sonoda and the publisher. 

Ladies with guns.

Product placement.

Review.

 

Gunsmith Cats almost entirely revolves around 3 very American clichés: the fascination for guns, Muscle cars (1967 Mustang GT), and big breasted women. While it's true the Japanese have been somehow infatuated with American pop culture, this OVAs serve as the ultimate example of that. They really tried as hard as they could to pay homage to all these things they love from the USA.Now, whether that is a good or a bad thing, I'll leave it up to you.

 

Our heroes are 2 chicks that illegally sell guns in "gun free" Chicago in order to combat oppressive gun control laws. They are also bounty hunters, because hired guns are better than a police force. The depiction of Chicago is as accurate and realistic as it gets. However, you can't skip the fact everyone now speaks perfect Japanese. Maybe this story takes place in a different timeline where either Americans speak Japanese as their native language, or they finally started learning different languages to get a wider view of the world's rich cultures. Selecting the English audio track in your DVD/Blu-Ray will obviously render this comment worthless.

GTFO Mustang!

Driving skills.

Pursuing that "we love America in Japan" the OVAs put our ladies against stereotypical enemies America would have.  For instance, Natasha Radinov, a Russian spy that seems modeled after a Soviet Union communist extremist. Moreover "her" surname should be "Radinova" suggesting she's a Lesbian stereotype that may seem of poor taste today. What happens next are plenty of ridiculous car chases and shootouts. Continuing with the Japanese fascination with American pop culture,these OVAs may or may not remind you of The Dukes of Hazzard, car chase wise only because, there are no Daisy Dukes or Dodge Chargers. Neither will you find any of the nudity, and sexual innuendo from the original Manga. Another weak point in my book.

 

Music wise it comes as no surprise the soundtrack is made to emulate all those 70s action TV shows and films with cars, detectives and spies. Jazz, funk, disco, R&B are all there to get Cowboy Bebop as jealous as fuck.

This as far as Fanservice will get here.

Pages from the limited edition book included in the blu ray set.

 

Overall, Gunsmith Cats could have been a much more faithful to the source adaptation but instead producers chose to make it a standard made for TV show.Not having every original character, and all the spice they added to the Manga, makes this 3 part OVA a forgettable experience. Even though, the show does have its fans (the Blu Ray box set in different editions proves it) I think Aika, and Shin Cutie Honey, are more faithful to the source material and not afraid of showing a little T&A and sexual innuendo here and there.

And there you have it fellow connoisseurs, Gunsmith Cats! Make sure you read the Manga to get the missing potential the OVA didn't have.

  Here's the original 1995 trailer:

 

 

Here's the opening in full HD as taken from the Blu Ray:

 

 

クラッシャージョウ/ Crusher Joe (The Movie)

This poster has all the feels.

Hello there fellow readers! We're not dead! (at least not yet) After some months of adulting and of course, watching vintage Anime and movies we return to celebrate the big news: Macross will be legally available outside Japan! And in order to celebrate we'll review one of Shoji Kawamori's coolest 80s works because, we've already reviewed every Macross available to date, so second to none!

クラッシャージョウ(Crusher Joe) is a series of science fiction novels written by Haruka Takachiho and published by Asahi Sonorama from 1977 to 2005 (an additional trilogy was published between 2013 and 2016). During the late 1970s one of the founding fathers of Studio Nue, Takachiho decided that besides being a designer he would try his hand at penning novels. The result was Crusher Joe, a group of anti-heroes who were not the typical self-sacrificing types but noble in their own right nonetheless. Obviously, these characters casually became the archetype of what a group of anime heroes would be during the 80s.

Crusher Joe was made into an animated film in 1983, and a pair of OVAs in 1989. The film version won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1983.

The movie and the OVA series are currently licensed for English language release by Discotek Media. Go get them while they're hot!

 

The original VHS some of us got to rent long ago.

The definitive 80s hero team.

The movie adaptation was produced by studio Sunrise and directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko who's not really done much in terms of directing, but more in terms of animation direction and character designs on series such as Mobile Suit Gundam.

In this movie we follow a team of Crushers comprised of Joe (voiced by Takemura Hiroshi), Alfin (voiced by Sasaki Run), Ricky (voiced by Ohara Noriko) and Talos (voiced by Kobayashi Kiyoshi). Crushers are intergalactic jacks-of-all-trades who will take on any task for the right price. Joe and his team are tasked with helping escort a cryogenically frozen heiress to a medical facility. However, something happens during warp and they end up nowhere near where they were supposed to go, and the heiress and the people who hired them are nowhere to be found. The pirates have been playing them for fools in order to escape, but Joe doesn't like being fooled and goes to track the pirates down to get his revenge and to rescue the human cargo.

Crusher Joe isn’t a deep or mind expanding film, instead it’s a fun action packed, often funny and beautifully animated sci-fi adventure with great characters. However the world of the crushers is incredibly well realised with insane attention to detail like many anime features of the 1980’s. No doubt the novels helped fill in a lot of background detail to give it that Star Wars-like “lived in universe” feel.

Incredible mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori.

This machinery looks important.

 

The film’s plot is cleverly linked to set pieces and characters, so you never feel like "hey, whatever happened to watchamacallit?, or "Why did they show that if it didn't add up to the story?".
Everything you could want from an action adventure is in this movie somewhere. Beautiful women (more nudity would have been nicer), archetypal heroes, bad guys that are both scary evil and comedic enough, awesome mechanical design (what else can you expect with Shoji Kawamori, Sunrise and Studio Nue all involved) and an incredibly fun scene where during some downtime our heroes inadvertently end up wrecking an entire disco after a fight breaks out that culminates in riot police being dispatched.

Our heroes are such interesting protagonists that it's impossible not to root for them in every challenge they face. Mainstream movies need more slightly gray anti-heroes these days which is probably one of the reasons why the big screen adaptations of Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy have proven so popular despite being based upon rusty stereotypes from the past decades.

 

80s Hero hair.

A toast to heroes!

If you like the look of old school Animé the likes of Space Battleship Yamato, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and especially Mobile Suit Gundam you’ll love the movie’s character design and furthermore if you like the work of Sunrise and Studio Nue you’ll really dig the general world and technology aesthetic present in Crusher Joe. A lot of Sunrise staff who worked on the original Gundam shared duties on this film including the director/character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Also in a little nod to Gundam there are several blink and you’ll miss em cameos of the character that would become Sunrise’s mascot, Haro the little tennis ball-like bouncing robot from Sunrise’s original Mobile Suit Gundam and later seen in Gundam Zeta. If you're familiar with it, you may find it three or four times during in the movie. There is also a scene featuring a drive-in movie that features Kei and Yuri the two protagonists of Crusher Joe creator Haruka Takachiho’s other most famous work The Dirty Pair.

 

Looking back across 20 years of anime history, the Crusher Joe movie had a lot going for it. The 1983 feature was the first theatrical production of Sunrise, the studio that was poised to dominate much of the anime scene for the next two decades. Shoji Kawamori, gave an early demonstration of his amazing talent for Mecha Designs. It featured the first-ever animated appearance of the Dirty Pair. Star Wars was taking the world by storm, and Crusher Joe was a galactic space opera in the best George Lucas tradition.

 

Cool mecha.

Beautiful aircrafts.

Plot wise things are unpretentious and straight forward. One is able to glean from the dialogue that Alfin used to be a princess of some sort before joining the Crushers, and that Talos was a former associate of Joe's father, but that's all the history given on these characters. Reading other reviews, I noticed some people saying the main characters lack personal identities beyond cliched archetypes. Things like Joe's the badass leader, Talos is the heavy, Alfin's just "the girl" and Ricky's just "the kid", and that's probably an opinion from younger Anime enthusiasts. At the time this movie was made not a lot of characters had these features in common, and while it's true these personality traits became overused during the decade,  I wouldn't see this as negative aspect of the movie and subsequent OVAs.

Roughly five years went by before Joe and his team returned to anime, this time in the form of two 1-hour OVA episodes. Once again we find intelligent stories with a down to earth perspective.  Nothing's pretentious. Just the right amount of character development to remind the viewer he's here for the adventure. The shorter running time and more polished look of these installments make them more watchable for newer connoisseurs that dislike handmade animation and praise boring CGI as an actual artistic feature. 

 

Disco music made a comeback in the future.

Psychedelic future.

 
Crusher Joe's one definite strength is its musical score. To their credit both the movie and the OVAs feature full orchestral arrangements at a time when synthesizers were the preferred scoring method. Crusher Joe sounds every bit as grand as Star Wars, Buck Rogers and the other outer space epics it tries to imitate. Obviously, this is my opinion. Like I've said above, to enjoy this anime at its fullest, you may need to be older in order to understand the technical limitations of the time. A lot of reviews criticize the soundtrack as a no standout generic soundtrack you could be playing in the background while reading, cleaning or doing whatever you do, save for paying attention to the music. To each his own but bare in mind, this soundtrack was actually written and played by real musicians. It wasn't made in a computer app.

 

Overall I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie. I had been told before hand that I was probably gonna to like it, but I did not think I was going to like it as much as I did. The action in this movie was really good. They did a nice job making it so that our main characters felt strong and good at what they are doing, but at the same time they managed to keep them from being so overly strong and cool that no one would ever be a threat to them. This was shown especially during a fight at the disco where they would both beat people and get swarmed and overpowered. Other things I thought the movie did really well was the animation. The way they portrayed expression in the characters using more cartoonish animation techniques really did wonders for this movie. I also really liked that instead of having what the characters were thinking and feeling show through inner monologue, they used the animation and expressions of the characters to get that through to the viewers.

 

Blink and you'll miss all the action.

Wear a mask and keep the distance.

Now I have a lot of praise for the show, but I also have a minor thing to say. I think they could have explored a bit more, such as the whole Crushers organization and some more villain motivations and how they were connected to the events that took place, but I think they did an OK job at that anyway. I would really recommend people give this movie a watch. I don't understand why it's got such a low rating on sites like MyAnimeList , let's not forget this movie won
the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1983. 

 

Haruka Takahisho said "...While observing this developing trend, thanks to "Star Wars" and all, I began to think that maybe my own stories could finally get published! So I pulled all my scrapbooks from my high-school days out of the storage, and began "novelizing." It took me two whole weeks to complete, and the end result was basically the first printing of "Crusher Joe." Now, this sold rather well, made many people happy, and I was requested to write sequels to it. And thus, it began its life as a series!"

 

Bad guys and fast cars.

Somebody's gotta clean this mess!

About the making of the Crusher Joe movie he recalls "...When I finished writing the first "Crusher Joe", the editors were asking me who I wanted as illustrators for my novel. Without hesitation, I recommended Yasuhiko Yoshikazu, who worked as the character designer for "Raideen."

But Mr.Yasuhiko insisted, "Look, I'm an animator, not an illustrator," so he steadfastly refused to do any illustrations for me. But, after three days and nights of constant begging, he finally said, "Oh, what the hell!" You see, one of the troubles was that Mr.Yasuhiko had this belief: "Real animators draw using pencils only, because real animators don't use ink!" But I told him, "It's no problem - You just go ahead and draw with pencil, then I'll Xerox them and send the copies to the publisher." He was, at last, convinced. Since that day, Mr.Yasuhiko worked prolifically not only as an animator, but also as an illustrator, and even as a manga author.

Because this combination --- Takachiho & Yasuhiko --- had produced a hit, Sunrise wanted to release "Crusher Joe" as their first original theatrical anime production. This led to the theatrical version of "Crusher Joe."

 

You can read the full interview at Animeigo.

 

Here's the original Animeigo movie/OVAs trailer:

 

Here's the Blu-ray box Japanese trailer:

Here's every Japanese TV ad for the Blu-ray box set release:

Call Me Tonight / コール・ミー・トゥナイト

The 80s and its crazy OVAs.

The 80s were a unique decade for the world of Animé, and those who were lucky enough to be there know this to be true. However, "to be there" meant to be in Japan, or have some contacts that would send overseas VHS tapes with the latest the industry had to offer. In the Western world 80s Anime actually happened mostly in the early 90s. Although there were some notable exceptions, the vast majority of Anime and OVAs made in the 80s made their way into the outside world almost a decade later. Such is the case of Call Me Tonight, a 30 minute OVA made in 1986 by studios AIC.

Written and directed by Tatsuya Okamoto (known for his work on Captain Tsubasa, and Fight! Iczer One)  based on a story by Toshimichi Suzuki (A.D. Police, Bubblegum Crash, Hades Project Zeorymer) with character designs by Kumiko Takahashi (City Hunter, Card Captor Sakura, Crusher Joe, Dirty Pair, Full Metal Alchemist, Ninja Scroll and a whole lot more!), Call Me Tonight is comedy, horror, romance and a tad of ecchi at the same time. 

 

Buy sex!

Call me tonight!

Like what you see?

While the Urotsukidoji Manga was still half a year away from release in Japan (December 1st 1986) , and seven months away for the OVAs (January 21st 1987), Call Me Tonight was released on July 28th, 1986 in Japan. 

Now, I'm not saying Urotsukidoji was inspired by this OVA in any way. As a matter of fact, Call Me Tonight is a very light hearted take on a story that could have been full on hentai madness. Call Me Tonight makes fun of the form while using some of its tactics. It also wisely steers clear of showing too much--though the show revolves around sexual situations and includes a small amount of fan service, it uses restraint often unseen in anime, particularly in this genre. It may still offend some by its subject matter alone, but it's tasteful in comparison to much that's out there.

Stickers included in the vinyl soundtrack.

Hardworking sex workers.

Plot

A highschool girl working by night as a hotline owner, Rumi "Suuko" Natsumi, receives the call for help of a young man, Ryo Sugiura, who claims to transform into a destructive monster every time he masturbates. Amused and attracted by Ryo, a shy yet good-looking pulp horror aficionado, Rumi seduces him during their date on a diner, which proves him right when he transforms right there. Rumi runs away with him and, upon observing that he turns into a monster whenever sexually aroused, yet is capable to contain it by force of will, decides to try to cure him by habituating him to sexuality. They continue their date into the city's red light district following this plan. 

Unbeknowst to them, they are being followed by yakuza woman Maki Nohara, who witnessed Ryo's transformation (and is also a pulp horror fan herself). Maki's twisted sukeban sister Oyuki, who happens to be a classmate of Rumi, gets interested in Ryo by a picture, so she tries to blackmail Rumi into bringing Ryo to her. When Rumi refuses and ignores her in favor of another romantic date with Ryo, Oyuki orders her yakuza gang to kidnap them. Taking the captured couple to an abandoned building, Oyuki leaves Rumi to be ravished by her men while she has her way with Ryo. Meanwhile, mistrustful of Ryo's nature and her sister's intentions, Maki sets out for the place after being warned by her henchman Hayata... 

 

Laserdisc cover art.

VHS cover art.

Review

As above mentioned, a call girl is set to help a man that turns into a monster whenever he's horny. As odd as it may sound, Rumi (the company owner) decides to take the job, and somehow fall in love with the guy. Very romantic, isn't it? The whole sex tone isn’t a whole lot considering its only half an hour, but its still very much there for an 80’s title! Which is what this OVA is really all about, erotic sexual behavior topped off with a bit of Sci-fi style themes for good measure. Its not really bad in that regards, they just never really focused on much else regarding the overall story or character chemistry. As everything pertaining to who the characters really are, and the love scenes in general...feel very much rushed and not believable. However I think that’s almost to be expected, because  this genre its not really suppose to be about a good story.


The Animation and character design are very nice to look at, very reminiscent of the time it was made. The art design with both the character creations as well as monster style art, all scream out 80’s! For me, watching this title brought back fond memories of when this type of anime (disregard the erotic parts) was all over the televisions in Japan. The characters move with good fluidity during some of the action scenes, even if they are pretty sparse in general. Backgrounds as a whole were pretty nice to look at, even if some where not quite as nice as others. And the monster that the main guy changes into...while not exactly creepy, is pretty cool!

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen Ryu!

Sex is a monster.

Moving on to the soundtrack, and if you're a fan of what's now been dubbed as "City Pop", "Synthwave" and/or "Retrowave", I'm sure you'll find Call Me Tonight's soundtrack the best part of the OVA.  The few background music tracks and the main title song are really good, if you're OK with 80s synth pop music. "Please Call Me Tonight", performed by Emi Natsumi it's really a catchy song worth searching for that long out of print vinyl record.

Character development wise, there is no character chemistry or any depth to them whatsoever, as many of the characters seem to be tossed into the picture just for the sake of doing it. Even the whole love attraction of the two main leads is very much rushed as I had said earlier. Could you really fall in love with someone you have only known for less than 24 hours? Especially considering that this guy masturbates to pin-up posters and changes into a monster? I don’t know about most people, but I certainly would at least ask for a second date before coming to that conclusion. However, for a one-off story each one dimensional character serve their purpose well. There's Ryu, the troubled victim, Rumi, the strong woman willing to go beyond the call of duty, and then, a bad girl, her gang, a helping sister with a bazooka, and that's pretty much it.

Willing to try some monster sex.

Monsters last longer?

Even though "Call Me Tonight," doesn't really feel well planned out as a whole, it's also not really all that bad either. And you may find some decent enjoyment from this, especially for those who like this sort of erotic style of play, which I have to admit was kind of amusing. Its main concept actually feels more along the lines of an experimental title to see if it would catch on in Japan. (perhaps in order to see if this would make it as a series) So as far as its content appeal goes, it ends up being a mixed baggage. Some will like it...while others won't. I personally felt it was worth a viewing of, since it is only one episode long. 

 

Here's an excellent fan-made trailer by RB Comics Group Production:

 

 

Here's the "Please Call Me Tonight" theme song:

 The 15 minute soundtrack: