Devilman/ Boah

Devil Man /Boah (1987/1989) Directed by Umanosuke lida and Yokoyama Hiroyuki

There are a bunch of Anime titles in the DR catalog that I've sort of avoided, but lately i've been watching a lot of dopey shit from Japan like Johnny Sokko (look for my article in an upcoming issue of Tim Paxton's Monster!) and some Gatchaman and digging it like a madman, so the time is right for me to evaluate an Asian cartoon.

Bunnies and bikechains, not a good mix

Devilman starts off with a bunch of dick head gangsters who pummel Fudoh Akira, a softhearted kid for crying over the death of his adorable rabbits. They whip him with bike chains as he protects his pet (the one that didn't get killed) from harm. His sister Miki-Chan bails him out and they walk around the park. Ryou, Akira's sexist blonde friend pulls a knife on the girl then drives him around in his beat up car. He's not only hates women but he seems to be transgendered. In a flashback they show how Ryou's father was a mad scientist (or archeologist) who chopped off his dog's head and almost stabbed him to death in his sleep. They discover a giant devil mask and once it's on Fudoh's dome, he is transported to the demonic spirit world and it's super fucking trippy, we're talking naked butterflies that spew ectoplasm on dinosaurs and all types of ill shit (to coin a phrase from Don't Be A Menace To Society, While Drinking your Juice in the Hood).

Trip out on this, Boobs with teeth!

They reference Dante's Divine comedy and the myth of Satan trapped under ice, waiting to break out and re-emerge again. Ryou believes his father entered the world of the demons and learned their ways. Next octopus and spider demons show up and attach themselves to his car as snazzy jazz plays (the music is wildly inappropriate-- it sort of reminded me of Woody Allen's Sleeper). In order to fight demons Akira must turn into one, makes sense right? 

They both seem ecstatic about the harsh decision to leave their humanity to rot and then hit a disco to try and possess humans, above all a demon's motto is "abandon all reason, act only on instinct".

A fake Ratt band plays as both humans shred their inhibitions and give into ultra-violence by slicing faces open with a broken bottle (for some reason tons of girls are topless) and toward the end they all burst into giant monsters, ejecting spittle everywhere. One girl's breasts sprout fangs and do the air chomp! Akira transforms into DEMON MAN, which means he had wings on his head and a tail. Even Ryou is nervous that he's created a monster as the Devil creature saws through opposing monsters like wet tissue paper. In the catalog these came without sub titles, which I'd imagine would've been boring as fuck and it's unclear whether more than one episode or if the original cartoon from the 70's was included instead, Danzig is apparently a big fan of the original show (who cares).

Monsters love coke and Disco it's a fact!

This 87 version is a more hardcore violent remake of a 70s Manga, I watched the first original episode and it's very demented for children, but certainly not Deep Red fare. On the tape it comes with the Anime Boah, which I've included in keeping with the spirit of the original intent of the videotape.

Selsun Blue, gives you laser beam hair follicles 

BOAH, 1989 Directed by Yokoyama Hiroyuki

This one starts off like Akira crossbred with Plague Dogs (which sounds better than it is). An adorable girl with a creature perched on her shoulder has telekinetic powers and is stuck on an experimental train.I cant tell what kind of pet she has, it looks like a rabbit/squirrel. Boah is a giant dude with flowing hair in S&M gear similar to Lord Humungous from The Road Warrior. Next he's in plain clothes and gets stabbed by a Rambo style knife, but it doesn't effect him or interrupt his lunch. Things become Boah, which I gather is a genetic tag given to each mutant the evil scientist operates on. It's frightening power happens when it gets mutilated, they show a tiny dog savagely attacked by a lion, don't worry though it gets revenge. Everytime somebody says look out it's a BOAH, I chuckle because it sounds like "Bowel"!

S&M Lion-O

When an assassin stabs Ikiru, it slithers out of his body after he mutates and than the creature dissolves his flesh like melted butter. It turns out Boah is a parasitic worm that feeds off the host, giving it inhuman powers, but it's weakness is that it must be burned to a crisp.

Ikiru's friend is 10 years old and she is also a mutant that assists him in figuring out when the assailants are about to strike and she has an unhealthy fixation on him (their age difference is a major problem).

I'm just as confused as you are

Ikiru looks kind of like Nightcrawler with more purple festive hair and a giant red orb in the middle of his forehead. His little friend is abducted and used as bait by the creeps who injected him with the Boah in the first place. Everytime they think they've bested him, he becomes insanely more powerful. during the last 10 minutes a beefy Indian named Walken battles Boah and is beaten to a bloody husk. The cheesy celebration music sounds kind of like Turn The Beat Around by Vicki Sue Robinson.

Cybernetic Navajo Joe

Anime is a weird genre, it's either too soft, too porny or good and gory (which is obviously the best kind). There's endless amounts of it (just wade through Huluplus for an hour and nearly scratch the surface of what to watch). I saw this on Youtube and the super graphic stuff is not that easy to find, Boah falls somewhere in the middle of cutesy and explicit and it's pretty entertaining. No anime can ever match the impact of Akira in my mind though, that's still my all time favorite. Devilman is pretty great though, I highly recommend Gatchaman and Fist of the North Star as an anime novice. The Wandering Kid (or Urotsukidoji) otherwise known as the Citizen Kane of tentacle rape cartoons is also featured in the catalog (I'm not so sure if we'll get to that one, it's possible). Leave a message in the comment section if you think we should give it the GUTS treatment.
       
B'OWL