Manly man with literally explosive karate skills? Check. Three schoolgirl lesbians and aliens? Check. Bloody and gory violence? Check. At least one scene with naked boobies? Check. Awesomeness? SUPER Check!
I've been adding some anime shows and movies to my DVD/Blu-Ray collection, and two new additions that I'm especially glad that I bought are a couple of anime movies from the 80's that were beautifully remastered and rereleased on DVD by Discotek Media. These two awesome movies, both released in the same year of 1986, are known as Fist of the North Star: The Movie, and Project A-Ko, both of which I'll be covering in this review.
===Fist of the North Star: The Movie===
Oh! Oh! Standing in the heart of darkness!
Oh! Oh! Give me my life, give me my energy!
Oh! Oh! Fighting in the heart of madness!
Oh! Oh! Ease my pain, ease my loneliness!
Oh! Oh! Standing in the heart of darkness!
Oh! Oh! Give me my life, give me my energy!
Oh! Oh! Fighting in the heart of madness!
Oh! Oh! Ease my pain, ease my loneliness!
Fist of the North Star: The Movie is a 1986 action animated movie based off of the original manga. It was produced by Toei Animation, the same company behind the cartoon adaptation of the manga that was airing at the time (also released by Discotek Media), with much of the same cast and crew behind the wheels. Contrary to what you might be thinking, no, the movie isn't a part of the Fist of the North Star cartoon, nor is it a non-manga/non-canon sidestory that can be placed anywhere in the story, like with the Dragon Ball Z movies. Instead, it's a completely separate adaptation of the manga.
The movie adapts the story up to the point where Kenshiro duels against his older brother Raoh. Many liberties were supposedly taken with how the story unfolds in this movie (I haven't read the original Fist of the North Star manga or watched the show, so I can't be entirely certain). However, probably due to it being a movie and not a cartoon airing on television, the movie is able to show off the violent and gorier side that the series is known for, showing heads and bodies exploding in explicit detail, brains, guts, and gallons of blood included, something that the cartoon lacked.
-Story: 8/10-
As I just said, the story is an adaptation of the manga straight from the beginning all the way to the battle between Kenshiro and Raoh. If you've read the original manga, you'll probably already know how this starts out. The world has gone to shit and turned post-apocalyptic, ravaged by a nuclear war of epic proportions. Bruce Le- err, I mean, Kenshiro and his girlfriend Yuria (or Julia, if you want to stick with the english dub) are minding their own business when, suddenly, Shin, the Fist of the South Star and Kenshiro's friend, and his gang of thugs decide to attack them both. Shin, who wants Yuria for himself, threatens to turn Ken into swiss cheese by poking holes in his chest unless Yuria admits that she belongs to Shin now.
Of course, after Shin has jabbed a total of 7 holes into Ken (which resemble the Big Dipper, A.K.A. the North Star), Yuria finally yields herself to him. When Shin leaves with Kenshiro's girlfriend, a masked man who seems to know Kenshiro takes our hero's unconscious body and throws him over a cliff down into an abyss, supposedly killing.
Some time later, a boy and a mute girl are getting chased by a bunch of biker bandits. When the bandits finally get their hands on the kids, good ole' Kenny, still alive and having grown a manly beard and mustache, comes to their rescue at the last possible moment. The kids take him back to their place of residence, where another group of bandits attacks, and Kenshiro displays another gory display of kickass-ery, rescuing both the kids and the group they live with. Afterwards, Ken leaves them, going off to search for his fiancee Yuria.
That's all I'm covering for the story. If you want to know more, go look it up on Wikipedia... or better yet, go watch the movie. It's an awesome story with likable characters and badass feats of karate awesomeness.
-Animation: 9/10-
Due to being produced by the same company, the animation of Fist of the North Star: The Movie is similar to that of the cartoon series, albeit much more fluid and impressive, especially for an animated movie made in the 80's. In scenes like the early chase scene with Bat, Lin, and the bandits, the animation flows like a river, and the characters move around with similar quality. It's almost as if they rotoscoped the characters Max Fleischer style.
Also, the backgrounds are gorgeously drawn and absolutely beautiful... especially considering that this takes place in a world where the apocalypse pretty much happened, resulting in a crapsack world with barren wastelands and destroyed buildings. Never in my life did I ever think that a post-apocalyptic wasteland would be beautiful.
Also, here's something I'd like to point out that has less to do with the animation and more with the actual DVD that I watched it on, which is the remastered rerelease by Discotek Media. On Discotek's rerelease, the animation is cleaned up and restored, resulting in crisp and clear picture that makes the already gorgeous animation look even better. However, not everything was restored. You'll notice that some scenes, particularly the ones with gore and guts and exploding heads, are left with incredibly soft quality, and it can get a little irritating when the movie flip-flops between sharp and soft pictures. However, this is really only a minor problem at best, and it detracts very little from Discotek's rerelease.
-Audio: 8/10-
When it comes to music, we have a fairly decent soundtrack. It becomes ominous and creepy at times, and when the action starts to rev up, so does the music, helping the adrenaline pump through your body.
Unfortunately, this movie contains no trace of the cartoon's epic theme song, "Ai o Torimodose!!", so no explosive shout of "YOU WA SHOCK!!!" for you. However, to make up for it, we have another song that can be easily considered the movie's theme, "Heart of Darkness", and it's just as awesome as "Ai o Torimodose!!". The movie also has "Purple Eyes" as the ending theme song that plays over the credits.
Now for the voice acting. It's worth noting that this movie actually has an english dub that was released in the US, unlike the cartoon (unless you count the incomplete english dub by Manga Entertainment that only lasted 36 episodes). The dub, produced in 1991 by Streamline Pictures, is as good as what you'd expect from an early english dub in the 90's. The voice actors all turn in average performances, and there aren't any really good or bad ones.
Ken - John Vickery
Julia - Melodee Spevack
Bat - Tony Oliver
Lin - Holly Sidell
Raoh - Wally Burr
Shin - Michael McConnohie
Jagi - Dan Woren
Alei - Barbara Goodson
While this doesn't affect their performances at all, the voice actors themselves are rather obscure, unfortunately, unlike many of the big name voice actors like Steven Blum and Vic Mignogna. However, special mentions go to Tony Oliver (who voices Rick Hunter in Robotech, Seina Yamada in Tenchi Muyo! GXP, and both Hideaki Kobayakawa and Naoe Kanetsugu in Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes), Wally Burr (the voice director for various 80's cartoons like G.I. Joe, The Transformers, and Jem), and Barbara Goodson (fans of Power Rangers and Tenchi Muyo! might recognize her as the voices of Rita Repulsa and Ryoko Balta).
-Overall: 8.5/10-
Fist of the North Star: The Movie is an awesome, gory, action-packed, gut-busting (literally), mind-blowing (again, literally) experience that no self-respecting anime fan should miss. While I can't compare it to the cartoon or the manga, I can still recommend it to anyone who loves martial arts movies and shows like Dragon Ball Z, gory and violent movies and anime like When They Cry and Riki-Oh, or just action movies in general.
Now that Fist of the North Star: The Movie is out of the way, let's move on to the next feature...
===Project A-Ko===
I remember I saw you shine like a diamond in the sky.
I knew that you had a dream,
A dream that would never die!
Follow your dream! You've got to follow it!
Follow your dream! No, don't you ever forget your dream,
and you will never regret it!
The world's waiting in front of you!
Follow your dream! You've got to follow it!
Follow your dream! No, don't you ever forget your dream,
and you will never regret it!
You'll find all of your dreams come true!
Before Hetalia took a shit on WWII with wimpy, pussy-fied anamorphic countries... before Excel Saga graced the anime world with its almost unbeatable wit, charm, and humor...
... there was Project A-Ko.
Project A-Ko wasn't originally going to be the Project A-Ko we all know and love. Instead, the movie started out life as an installment in the pornographic series of OVAs known as Cream Lemon. However, during production, that plan was tossed in the dumpster, and it was instead decided that this "installment" would go through the more mainstream route as a theatrical movie. Although there a few bits here and there that hint that Project A-Ko was meant to be something completely different and NSFW, the result is ultimately nothing like a Cream Lemon OVA (... not that I'd entirely know, since I haven't seen any of the Cream Lemon OVAs).
As Anime News Network states on the front of Discotek's rerelease cover, Project A-Ko is "a hilarious sendup of all things Anime". While it doesn't go out of its way to parody each and every single thing like Excel Saga does, especially considering that it was made in the 80's, it does affectionately parody some of the more famous anime shows at the time, such as Macross (Robotech in the USA), Fist of the North Star, and Captain Harlock.
-Story: 7/10-
The story isn't anything to write home about, but for what it's worth, the story isn't too bad. A meteor from outer space wipes out the fictional city of Graviton. 16 years later, Graviton City is miraculously rebuilt, almost unchanged from its past self.
A-Ko, a red-haired school girl with super speed and super strength, wakes up late on her first day going to the all-girl school of Graviton High. She runs superhumanly fast to school with her ditzy friend C-Ko hanging on for dear life. On the first day, C-Ko manages to catch the attention of B-Ko, the daughter of an industrial tycoon and a rival of A-Ko's from kindergarten. Wanting C-Ko all for herself and revenge for A-Ko "stealing" C-Ko away from her, B-Ko devises plan after plan after plan to get C-Ko.
Meanwhile, a race of all-female aliens arrives on Earth. After searching 16 years for their lost princess and a bunch of accidental injuries inflicted on Operative DC138621-S113 by A-Ko, they finally manage to identify C-Ko as their lost princess and attempt to kidna- err, I mean, rescue her.
So, yeah... the story is nonsensical, but it still manages to be enjoyable. It's kinda like FLCL, except it actually attempts to be understandable and make sense to the general anime audience. Also, on the topic of this movie originally being a Cream Lemon installment, one of its scenes from its Cream Lemon production days is left in, that scene being the private bath scene with B-Ko... and yes, you get to see some boobage in this scene (along with at the beginning, when A-Ko is preparing on her first day of school).
-Animation: 9/10-
As with Fist of the North Star: The Movie, the animation in Project A-Ko is astoundingly fluid. I know I'm just repeating what I said earlier about Fist of the North Star: The Movie, but the characters (as well as various objects that move around) move fluidly like a river, as if they were rotoscoped. Not only that, but the cities, the Earth, and every other background is drawn impressively well. Considering that this was originally meant to be a pornographic hentai OVA, which is usually low in animation quality, that is saying quite a lot.
The only thing that keeps me from giving the animation a perfect score is the fact that, sometimes, when the characters are talking, the mouths don't move. Granted, it's only during very quick and minor shots, and it could just be a small case of what TV Tropes.com refers to as Lip Lock (since I did watch this movie english dubbed), but it can get irritating. Again, though, it's only a minor problem.
-Audio: 7/10-
The interesting thing about the music is that it was outsourced from the US, credited to Joey Carbone and Richie Zito. Anyways, the music, a rock mixture of synthesizer and guitars, is catchy and awesome, and it helps the action scenes a lot. The "theme song" for the movie, "Follow Your Dreams", is beautiful and catchy, and perfect for this movie, fitting the light-hearted nonsense and fun.
As for voice acting, Project A-Ko was given an english dub by Manga Entertainment when it was released for the second time by Central Park Media in 1992. As with Fist of the North Star: The Movie (yes, I'm aware I'm just repeating things I already said about Fist of the North Star: The Movie for this one), it's pretty good for an early dub, and the voice actors do a generally decent job.
A-Ko - Stacey Gregg
C-Ko - Julia Brahms
B-Ko - Denica Fairman
Operative DC138621-S113 - Marc Smith
Captain Napolipolita - Jay Benedict
-Overall: 8/10-
Project A-Ko is a hilarious and awesome affectionate parody of everything involving anime in the 80's. While general audiences and modern-day anime fans (i.e. fans of Naruto, Bleach, Toriko, and other shows made in the 2000s) won't get the jokes, old school anime fans will instantly recognize the parodies of Captain Harlock and Fist of the North Star and get a kick out of it. If you love comedic parodies like Excel Saga and nonsensical anime like FLCL, you'll love Project A-Ko.
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So, that's my review for both Fist of the North Star: The Movie and Project A-Ko, two classic animated films from the 80's that were dubbed into english in the 90's and rereleased, remastered and restored, in the 2000s. If you were to ask me which of these two movies I prefer... it's a tough choice, but as you can tell by the overall scores I gave them, Fist of the North Star: The Movie (8.5) just barely wins out over Project A-Ko (8). However, both films are spectacular in their own rights, and I cannot recommend buying these on DVD enough.
Again, I'd like to give a shout out to Discotek Media, the distribution company that rereleased both movies in this review on DVD, remastered and restored. As I said in the beginning of this dual review, they specialize in releasing old school anime shows and movies, as well as short OVAs, such as...
-Blue Submarine #6
-Casshern: Robot Hunter
-Cutie Honey
-D.N. Angel
-Fist of the North Star (cartoon series)
-Galaxy Express 999 (movie version and its sequels)
-Golden Boy
-Golgo 13: The Professional
-Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
-Locke the Superman
-Lupin III (Green Jacket)
-Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy
-Lupin III: Green Vs. Red
-Mad Bull 34
-Mazinger Z
-Samurai Pizza Cats
-Shin Getter Robo Vs. Neo Getter Robo
-Space Adventure Cobra
-Space Pirate Captain Harlock
-Tenjho Tenge
Discotek isn't exactly a dubbing company, and they usually release shows with just subtitles (as is the case with Fist of the North Star and Lupin III). However, if there is an english dub available, they will include it in the release (like with Fist of the North Star: The Movie and Project A-Ko, both of which contain their respective english dubs in their releases). If you have the time and money and want to watch some classic old school anime and movies, then go to either Amazon or link and check them out. They're awesome.
