NJC

I hope you "Run Run" into a very Happy Birfday!

2007-10-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Our favorite movie mogul turns the big one double-Oh-OH! today. And like all men who live past the age of ninety-five, he's become the spittin' image of George Burns.

So celebrate accordingly: watch some Shaw flicks, and check out this three-part, vintage Shaw's docu on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UE24UnCmHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxW3u5ORPx8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBCMZd6gUew

2007-08-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hold on to your dicks, 'cause this one's a doozy.

Mikadroid (1991)

Despite a box cover claiming “Available for the first time in North America”, we all know that this Mikadroid has been around the block, only under a different name: Robokill Beneath Disco Club Layla. One that Discotek has decided to tag on, you know, for ghetto nostalgia. A feeling I’m starting to get.

“The cyborg slashes away her clothes while viciously slicing her body”. Yep, that’s what got thirteen year-old me to scrawl that glorious title onto the lime green order form. Weeks later it arrived, via Miami, a fresh batch of yellow labeled tapes which may or may not have contained traces of Florida snow. I was ready for the Robokill.

What I wasn’t ready for was the unimaginably graphic contortionist porn I got instead. Phone calls were made to my friends, viewings were held. All that was missing was a circle jerk… and Robokill. More weeks pass, this time the real thing arrives.

While it didn’t make me as popular as The Twister, it still brings back memories, and not just ones of a blond with her ankles pulled behind her head. It represents early Japanese movie watching that didn’t involve Street Fighters or Baby Carts, but Evil Dead Traps and Sweet Homes. Late night video romps in the basement, where any thing with a cool box cover, or a lurid description, shot through my VCR faster than a thin-crust through my colon. Nowadays, while I lay off the Domino’s, a lurid synopsis can still do the trick. Kinda like this:

Showa year 20, the Japanese army is undergoing construction on a new breed of indestructible super soldier, the project’s codename: Jin’ra. Men turned into humanoids, one turned into 100% killing machine, the Mikadroid. The plans are halted, and the project buried deep underground, until…. 1991, the disco club Layla, where the preferred dress code for boogieing down is a large medallion, sports coat, and no shirt. Its dance magic gets the sparks flying down below, to the resting place of the ultimate killing machine; bringing it to life in the neon land of Mister Donut. When the club lets out, all paths lead to the underground garage. At midnight, the gates are locked, leaving those inside trapped with the Mikadroid.

It’s nice to be wrong. At thirteen, while I liked the Robokills of the faux-title, it just wasn’t all that impressive after seeing Ron Jeremy lick his own penis while exclaiming “Look what I can do!” No, it was worse than that: it was boring. I didn’t pay to see boring. Then again, I did pay to see Van Damme and Dennis Rodman in Double Team. Eight times.

This time I had fun, not viewing number three of Double Team fun, but fun all the same. Director Tomoo Haraguchi and his crew know their horror; as they visually quote everything from Deep Red to Maniac. Even blaxploitation-actioner Hell Up In Harlem gets a shout out. Though initially wanting to make a zombie epic titled Mikado Zombie, Haraguchi still delivers the goods with this Red Sun Tin-Man slasher, which boasts killer work from modern SFX ace Shinji Higuchi, and, like any hack n‘ slash worth it‘s weight in karyo syrup, loads of inventive kills. While the pacing issues are still present, it doesn’t diminish its position as a true relic of the rough and ready V-cinema days.

So maybe I’m a big nostalgic push over, or maybe I just like crap, but I say dance your heart out in that disco club called Layla; dance all night, then make your way underground to that dark, dank garage, and see what you find. Who knows, maybe ten years down the road it’ll give you some memories.

Wes Black
Discotek

"Do you know what this is for?! It's for jacking off!"

2007-08-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Anyone with access to a Netflix account should rent 10 to Midnight as soon as they can. I really want to say more, tell you all about the crazy shit that happens, but I won't. You just need to rent it, sit back, and ask yourself "Do you know what this is for?!"

Bye, bye

2007-08-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

Ready, set, blast off....

Sayonara Jupiter

“You, you’re destroying the cosmos, and the solar system!” says the black beanpole with the feathery weave. But see, he’s got it all wrong. They’re gonna save the cosmos, and the solar system. They’re gonna save it all, but to do that they’ve got to say “sayonara,” sayonara to Jupiter.

In the year 2140, man has colonized in space, and the universe is in need of a second sun. Thus begins the battle over the fate of Jupiter, and why they must say “bye-bye“ to space’s King of the Gods. Leading this Jupiter Solarization Project is Dr. Eji Honda, and with child prodigy Carlos, he’ll take his favorite planet, and use it to bring a new life to mankind.

On the sunny beaches of earth The Church of Jupiter, led by singer/songwriter Peter, and his pet dolphin, wait for it, Jupiter, look to stop the re-birth of the planet they worship. They take pills that give them “no fear, without any of the consequences”, and argue that mankind doesn’t need to go into the space, it’s too big, so lonely. They don’t understand the truth; that earth is too small to contain man.

But, no matter what Peter sings, or what pills they take, Jupiter is bidding farewell.

Years before 2010, you know, the year we made contact, and sometime after the Prophecies of Nostradamus were fulfilled, there was a time of war, Star Wars. Sci-fi became the craze of now and tomorrow, and everything from before and beyond melded in the galaxies, then into the brain of man. One man: Sakyo Komatsu, the big, spaced-out, space dog of Japanese sci-fi fiction. He’s the one that caused the Sinking of Japan, unleashed a Virus on the world, then set loose the agents of ESPY to save us all. But it wasn’t enough, at least not for Godzilla governor and Toho tyrant Tomoyuki Tanaka. He wanted the epic of all epics, the one that truly would destroy the cosmos, and the solar system, man, and he got it.

So leave behind your worries. Leave them all behind, and believe in lovers floating nude through the universe, believe that Mickey D’s can make a “humburger” soar, or that on the beaches, under the sun, you can take a pill that will make you feel no fear, without any of the consequences. That hippie chick may have never given a name to the little green pill, but I like to think it’s the thing that can save us all, the thing that makes us just say it: Sayonara, Jupiter.

Wes Black

Discotek

You and your pussycat lips!

2007-08-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with the liquidation of my review archives, here's a snappy little number about Teruo Ishii's Blind Woman's Curse. I thought this one turned out pretty good.

Blind Woman’s Curse (1970)

"When people refer to filmmaking as my job I'm always a bit embarrassed, because I don't consider what I do as anything more than having a great time."
- Teruo Ishii

With an unmatched consistency, the late Teruo Ishii delivered film after film that was, to quote the tagline for Pieces, “Exactly what you think it is.” I’ve seen the looks on your faces when the greatest Japanese cult film you’ve never seen turns out to be Noboru Ando smoking in a dingy bar for eighty-minutes. Hell, I’ve had that look, delivered right to my mug by the greats, but never, ever, by Ishii. With him, the real thing is always better. Which should excuse me from writing a synopsis for this movie, but since I get paid by the word, here we go:

Ishii opens the show with a synchronized, matching-tattoo sword-slashing rain-dance where our gal Meiko Kaji kills somebody’s big boss, and blinds his sister. Then after spending three years in a Technicolor prison cell (years before becoming #701), Kaji returns home to the ol‘ gang. She now must maintain her honor and control while caught in the middle of a twisting, back-stabbing, turn-coating gang war. Oh yeah, there’s also possessions, evil cats, opium den whippings, a dancing, drooling hunchback, an nudie avant-garde haunted house, kitty-cat wire-work (when they’re not yanking it by the tail), and a cane-carrying Ryuichi Uchida in a bowler and red loin-cloth. Anything to avert your eyes from the hairy ninkyo nether regions; something which Ishii admittedly had no taste for.

Likely looking to cash-in on Toei’s popular femme-ninkyo series Red Peony Gambler. the folks at Nikkatsu concocted their own twist to contend with the lady dice-rattler: Rising Dragon, Iron Flesh. The first two films follow the ho-hum ninkyo pattern, but when number three was ready to roll, those Nikkatsu cats asked for a little horror to be thrown in the mix. What they got was starlet Kaji taking a backseat to a mop-topped dandy driving yakuza spook-house ride at three hundred MPH. A mix-tape of madness that makes Seijun Suzuki’s transgressions in youth action seem not so transgressive. I like Suzuki, I swear I do, but people shitting their short-shorts because he floods the set with yellow lights won’t know how to handle Blind Woman’s Curse.

Here’s the real kicker: Ishii made better, and wilder, movies in his career, hell, Ishii made better movies than this that year, and they’re all out there for you to find. So tuck away your Yugi-Oh cards, and gasp at the horrors of a malformed man, scour the depths of hell, and discover the joys of torture. It may all sound too wild, and inconceivable, but don’t you worry, that mop-headed man in the sky will be by your side, holding your hand at every atrocity, and sharing a laugh at every off-color gag. After all, the only one enjoying it more than you or I is Ishii himself.

Wes Black
Discotek

One Spicy Meatball!

2007-08-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm sticking with that blog title. Deal with it.

Here's one to get you wet, hard, or, if you're really freaky, both.

Meatball Machine (2006)

“Some came crawling from the ocean, others falling from the sky. They are here to do one thing: eat each other.”

A suicidal salary man is readying to hang it up when things go Predator-vision and he‘s tackled by a tentacled extra-terrestrial bent on bodily invasion. So begins The Tingler meets Tetsuo, as two spaceman-manned Necroborgs do a close encounter of the cannibalistic kind. Bionic-buzz saws slice and dice, but they’re interrupted by an amateur alien hunter and his pulsating-pus-ball packing daughter. Two down, who the hell knows how many to go; soon these alien-assholes spread across Japan. A kid gets run down by a truck, turning his limbs into blood-soaked mud-flaps, projectile vomit floods the frame, and tentacles reach out and touch everyone in a twisted marriage of Overfiend and Evil Dead.

Sadly, they can’t keep up this avalanche of atrocities, leaving the middle a scatter shot mess of sleepy-time inducing love story, sloppily intermixed with much-needed snippets of Necroborg annihilation. With any other flick, I would kick up a bitch-fit, but when the third act hits, it’s all the fun of a veiny penis-rocket emerging from your chest.

With things being so slap-dash, uneven, yet brilliantly imaginative, it’s no surprise to see Yudai Yamaguchi’s name in the credits. Hell, it’s titles like this that put him in a one man race to become Japan’s version of Lloyd “Troma” Kaufman. His influences range from the nonsensical, joke-a-second hijinks of Japanese television, to 80‘s chunk-blower gore-flicks, rounded out with a steady diet of tokusatsu TV and classic Konami arcaders.

All of which make their way into Meatball Machine.

But, it’s not all of Yamaguchi’s invention. Originally a late 90s cult short-film by Jun’ichi Yamamoto, the legend of the Meatball gained enough steam to get a remake, this time with Yamamoto as co-director to co-director/editor combo Yamaguchi. With this Meatball-redux, the Ya-Ya Brotherhood take the Japanese henshin-hero style, blend it with an 80’s splatter aesthetic, and wind up with the long lost Frank Hennonlotter directed GWAR video by way of Tetsuo. Helping things along the way are Keita Amemiya and his gnarly Necroborgs designs, and gross-out FX master, and Yamaguchi regular, Yoshihiro Nishimura, who keeps the impaling, eviscerations, decapitations, and all-around gooiness lookin’ puke-worthy.

Meatball Machine may come barreling at you with a hard-on, only to go limp midway through, but with a climax where the video game meets the video nasty, it’s just a few pumps away from becoming a modern late-night classic.

Wes Black
TLA/Danger After Dark

Reader Poll

2007-08-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

A host, or just fabulous. You decided.

Sweet Home

2007-07-25T22:13:00.003-07:00

My body arrived back in Los Angeles early this week from Tokyo, but my brain is still floating somewhere over the Pacific, reeling from the effects of airplane fart-repellent-air and a microwaved dish of scrambled eggs. A typical day since coming home includes waking at 6 A.M, stumbling around, then passing out mid-afternoon, only to wake up at night in a pitch black room, confused and thinking I'd been riding the Ginza line. Oh, and eating left-over birffday cake for breakfast, which is only slightly less ghetto than smoking a vile of crack for breakfast. Now I'm going to watch The Entity, and then hopefully fall asleep at a decent hour.

The remainder of the Tokyo pics and tales coming soon.

The Showa Croquette Returns

2007-07-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Too wiped to write much, but the past two days have featured: A disappointing trip to Video Market in Shinjuku, where I found that I already owned nearly everything there, a more fun than I thought it would be trip to Harajuku where I raided Kiddy Land, ate crepes, and nabbed a wide of Koike's Dummy Oscar and another Go Nagai H Manga Collection from Book Off. Also I must say, forget the Harajuku girls, it's all about the Harajuku Nigerians, you got that wicked style, I like the way that you are, I am your biggest fan.

Today was Daiba by day, and Akiba by night. Had a blast at the high-tech Sega Joypolis, and an even bigger one at the Nostalgia Mall at Decks. After dinner at Gonpachi we headed to Donki in Akiba, and raided it's five floors of madness before hitting the subway, where we were momentarilly stuck without power mid-tunnel in a packed car.

Tomorrow: Tokyo Disney, and maybe Tokyo Tower.

Natural Disaster Week in Tokyo

2007-07-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a trip to the electric town, Akihabara, and I must say, I could never bring myself to travel elsewhere for my cheapo USB card and nazi big-tits splooge dojinshi soft needs. Seriously, the place is rad and has officially been taken over by the otaku elite, who apparently have found a away to stop cars from entering the surrounding streets.

I hit every floor of the super-smelly Tora no Anna, saw some busted-looking maids, nabbed some hotly priced, by Tokyo standards, DVDs from Liberty 1, dazzled the locals with my UFO catcher and shooting game skills, turned into a degenerate for about 30 minutes at a pachinko and slot joint, and then spotted some cat-ear-wearing otaku from the USA who seemed a little more than shocked and disturbed that their Eastern counterparts are less about anime and manga than they are discount computer gear and taking candid photos of underage girls.

After that we hit Ginza, where we were priced out, and under dressed for just about everything, grabbed some Korean food, then hit the hotel room for K-1 Heroes.

Tomorrow, pics, video, and possibly a trip to Shinjuku.

Saru Hunter

2007-07-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Today was all about Nakano Broadway aka the big, savage nerd mall. Mandarake is all over the joint, and provided me with with: the Go Nagai H Manga Collection, Gataro Man manga, Hungry Man, and the long sought after Saru Hunter; a manga about apes taking over Japan, raping the the women, and the man out to stop them.

Besides Mandarake was the great movie memorabilia shop Trio, where I found a borderline homosexual Jackie Chan photo book, some killer okonomiyaki, and a plethora of other otaku related shops for all your famicon, replica rifle, and cosplay needs.

After that was a brief rest, then, still a tad jet-lagged, we headed to Tokyo Midtown and nabbed some grub before walking Roppongi and checking out the Nigerians offering "big tits man, you can feel them!".

Tomorrow will be either Akihibara or Shinjuku.

Tokyo Schmoe

2007-07-13T05:08:00.000-07:00

9:08 PM Tokyo time. I've been going since 9 AM Los Angeles time, no sleep. Been far too wired for a nap. Saw Rutger Hauer at the airport terminal before I left Cali, which I think means I'll have a good trip, but in exchange be doomed to writing straight-to-video movies.

For the 11 hour flight I had Richard Matheson, Warren Ellis, and Bernie Wrightson to keep me company. Them, and some fabulous airlines scrambled eggs and sausage.

Took the friendly neighborhood limousine bus (aka a bus) to Tokyo land from the far off land of Chiba, which was far from Sonny. Now I'm sitting in my hotel room, ready to pass out, while Tokyo Tower's wax museum beckons to me from across the street.

Photos and more tomorrow.

87 Years of Dynamation!

2007-06-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

The whole lot of them
Jason and the Argonauts trailer

The Valley of Gwangi

20 Million Miles to Earth

This is Dynamation

Street Fightin' Sista

2007-06-25T16:49:00.001-07:00

Here's one straight from the pages of Otaku USA. This is what it looks like before all the fart jokes are removed, and it's edited into a semi-readable, cohesive piece.

The Sister Street Fighter Series

It’s late at night, and I need a fix; one of those thrilling, chilling, skull-splitting, brain-bashing extravaganzas presented, of course, in 3-Dimensions of DuoVision. One that can only be contained in not a double, but a double-double feature: the four films of fury that are Sister Street Fighter.

I pop in the first flick, the ground shakes, the sounds of belching, loving, and fighting surround me. I look around; rats scurry, hobos sleep, the homeboys from Harlem show up in their kung fu silks. I take a whiff; stale popcorn, over-relished hotdogs, chain-smokers. It’s 42nd street, New York, the year, 1974. How I got here: a mystery. Could be the power of cinema, more likely the noxious fumes I call farts have me hallucinating. A funky tune blares, I look up at the fifty-feet of tattered silver to see waves crash. That’s it, Toei’s got me in their grindhouse baby, and there’s no turning back.

The familiar sound of a raspy snake, ready to strike, takes over the soundtrack. Only this time it’s not a bush-browed nut-cracker, but a girl, cute too. Japan’s one and only female action icon, Etsuko “Sue” Shihomi, a chick so quick she can pierce a fly with a toothpick.

The set-up is rapid fire; ching-chong music lets us know we’re in Hong Kong. Koryu Lee (Shihomi) gets the 411 on her missing brother, an undercover drug agent working the beat in the Japan, and she‘s on the hunt. Backing her up is the sock-it-to-me Shorinji Kenpo school of bad asses, and the original Street Fighter himself, Sonny Chiba. He plays Hibiki, an ex-race car driver, ex-bodyguard, and current bad motherfucker with his own judo-chop to grind. Then it’s sickles to the eye, and karate kicking in the sky, with Muay Thai killers in polka dot dresses, bad dudes with wicker baskets on their heads, and a Mohawk sportin’ dart-blower with a penchant for African fashion. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi isn’t much at shooting karate, but he sure as shit can shoot crazy.

A brief intermission, the Harlem cats ape Chiba’s brutal body movin’. The second feature, Hanging on a Thread, begins and Koryu is doing anything but. She’s up against diamond smugglers movin’ the goods in high class hooker’s asses. Like “in” them, surgically implanted, no butthole stuffing. Running the operation is a master of whip-yo-ass-with-a-golf-club-jitsu, and his back-up: a parrot-parading doctor, his torch-toting tranny girlfriend, and an assortment of karate-killers who are, as Jim Kelley would say, “Straight out of a comic book, man.”

The end credits roll, but before you can say Sho’nuff, the doors crash open, and the Shogun of Harlem appears. But he isn’t looking for Bruce Leroy, he’s here for the return, The Return of Sister Street Fighter. This one’s about smuggling gold through pharmaceuticals, I think. What’s for sure is that Koryu is again up against an army of kung-fools who are less about karate, and more about crazy. This includes series regular Musashi Ishibashi as a cat whose style is apparently Flamenco, and even a screamin’ Zulu warrior.

The crowd thins out, but that’s alright, because Fifth Level Fist isn’t much of a killer anyways. A sequel in name only, O.G Street Fighter director Shigehiro Ozawa takes the reigns and brings in a light crane-kick, instead of the burning back-fist of films past. Even the Shogun of Harlem is snoozing in the aisles, and I might just do the same. Though, it’s been a fun trip, going to the grindhouse, the real one that is, with the big Toei logo and crashing waves to lure you in.

Wes Black

BCI/Ronin Entertainment

Sister Street Fighter
Sister Street Fighter: Hanging by a Thread
Sister Street Fighter Returns
Sister Street Fighter: Fifth-Level Fist

Strange But True Tales of Doodie: The Re-Enactment, Part 2

2007-06-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

And now, the epic conclusion to this scat-tastic tale.

I walked through the very locker room where it all began, then stepped out onto the court where one brave Detroit baller said what was on the minds of all in attendance: "You smell like shit nigga." It was time for gym class, the final period of the day. A period held in the perfect arena for this re-production of poopery: ground zero.

I grabbed a ball as a good dozen of my classmates, including our famed dump dropper, watched from the sidelines. I got warmed up, and began to gain speed. Few were prepared for what would come next.

Like a high-flying marriage of NBA Jam and Michael Jordan, I launched toward the net. My body tensed, my face contorted. A guttural war cry rose from my belly; a deafening, bassy trombone-blast bellowed from my anus. Boomshakalaka: the ball went swoosh, yet I couldn't help but think of Prince's When Doves Cry:

Sometimes I'm just like my father, too bold.

Years earlier my dad, in an impressive display of gastrointestinal athleticism, spun wildly and performed a perfectly executed side-kick/fart combo. The result: a solid turd launching out the leg of his shorts, and into the wall.

You've heard the bathroom rhyme of sorrow: "Here I sit, broken hearted, thought I'd shit, but only farted" Well, there I dunked, thought I'd farted, but instead defecated all over myself like a filthy animal. I was brought back down to earth, in more ways than one; it's your lucky day Mike, there's a new brown boy in town to take the heath bar heat. The place sounded like a Def Comedy Jam show. Mike stormed out, which only amplified the howls. It soon became clear that no one really knew what had just happened. I was in the clear. The chances of "fallout" were slim; under my gym shorts I wore a pair of Lycra trunks, which mashed the turd up against my ass. I played along, "pretending" that I had shit my pants. I was soaked in sweat, putting on a big, fake laugh. I let several minutes go by before casually mumbling "I've gotta take a piss."

I darted to the school's rarely used "gross bathroom". But as nasty as those toilets were, it was nothing compared to wearing a fully-packed speedo-diaper. I rushed into a stall, locked the door, and pulled down my shorts; it was worse than I could have imagined. This was no wet squirty turdy, or a damp loosey goosey, it was a fresh baked brownie stamped to the back of my shorts and ass.

I scraped off what I could with the T.P, then shuffled to the sinks to wet some paper towels; praying that a fellow student or teacher wouldn't come in and find me naked from the waist down, my butt cheeks smeared brown. I scrubbed my ass until I felt slightly less disgusted with my self, then took a good look at the trunks; they were a lost chocolate covered cause. Even the gym shorts were a mess. I didn't bother to clean either, I just wrapped them up in a wad of paper towel, and then crammed them deep into the garbage can. But now a new challenge had arisen.

Heading pants less through the gym, and into the locker room to retrieve my school clothes wasn't an option. My only hope was the small towel around my neck, one of the few non-doodie covered possessions I had left.

Soon I was in the, thankfully, empty halls, and maneuvering to the exit closest to the bathroom. The double doors of salvation that lead to the parking lot.

The lot fell under the watchful eye of our Vice Principal, a dead-ringer for Al Gore, who sat in his office window, waiting to catch students smoking in their cars, or making a mid-day fast-food run. His rule was: once you pulled in, you didn't go back out until the final bell had rung. This mattered little to me, as I stood wrapped in a towel, the living embodiment of some long lost, scatological Baby Huey comic. I was a solid athlete, and had beaten members of the track team in both sprints and long distance runs. I knew I could make it. I waited, watching him sit in his office from a crack in the double doors that offered my best chance of escape.

Then the shot from the starter's pistol rang: he turned away from the window.

I was like Arnold and Yaphet in The Running Man. Only I don't have an Austrian accent, nor a black penis. And instead of one of those fancy skin-tight numbers, I was wearing a hand towel with my balls flopping around and my ass hanging out. The multiple criminal charges that could have been brought against me at that point didn't matter; a jail cell would have been a blessing compared to my "accident" being made public. At the time I was too afraid to look back, but I'd like to think that our vice-principal got a glimpse of my freshly wiped butt cheeks before I turned the corner and hopped into my truck.

The next day people asked what happened to me, or where I went off to during gym class. My response, even to my best of friends, was the same, a confused "Huh? Oh, uh, nowhere, I was here the whole time. Why?"

I never came forward with the full story until now, and to this day the incident remains the only known case of someone inadvertently shitting their pants, while making fun of someone who inadvertently shit their pants.

Commercial Break

2007-06-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned for more Strange But True Tales of Doodie, right after these messages.

Ghoulies

Ghoulies II

Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College

Strange But True Tales of Doodie: The Re-enactment, Part 1

2007-06-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

The following is true.

A small Rochester Hills, Michigan based high school. The year: 1999. Basketball was in season, and to one Mike N. all that mattered was making the starting line-up. So when his dream came true, and the coach shouted for him to "hit the court", he squeezed his cheeks to hold in a ready-to-drop doodie. A doodie so ready-to-drop that it did just that; partially onto the locker room floor, but mostly into his shorts. There was a mad dash, he scooped up what hit the floor, threw it into a near-by garbage can, then darted out onto the court. The remains of the crapee still in his trunks.

How he managed to keep what was described as a "massive shit" in his shorts throughout the game is unknown. What is known, though, is that players on the opposing team could be heard saying "Stay the fuck away from me motherfucker" and "You smell like shit nigga." A fellow teammate would later describe Mike's spot on the bench as looking "Greasy, like he ate Popeye's, then wiped his dirty ass fingers off on his seat."

Comments about that "shit smell" were made, players dry-heaved, the stench reached the crowd, causing several to flee. Yet, after the game all things doo doo related were kept quiet. An unspoken code of silence was taken by the team. The story buried. That is until a juvenile scrawling on the back of a desk appeared. It was simple, yet poignant; it let you know all that had happened, with a few simple words: Mike shit his pants.

At first the witnesses were hesitant to speak, but soon details would arise. Once they did, word quickly spread. Insults were slung, practical jokes played. The pressure rose and became too much, the hot-tempered pants-shitter had to step forward. He blamed the incident on his Irritable Bowel Syndrome. "I'm sick you motherfuckers" he implored. But him revealing he had a "spastic colon" only made matters worse. A dramatic re-enactment was in order; one with me as the star.

To be continued....

From the Dung Pile

2007-06-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Unpublished (unpublishable?) review time.

Rafureshia

So, there’s this funny story about rape, incest, and social isolation, wanna hear it?

Poor Alisa (Kinkao) just wants to see what’s “on the other side of the ocean,” and who can blame her, she’s been trapped on an island all her life by her perverted papa. He tells her the outside world is a “boring place filled with boring people.” Fed up, she dives into the sea, and heads to the other side.

Meanwhile in this “boring place” one of these so-called “boring people,“ Harumi (Yumi Yoshiki), is partaking in a bout of mutual masturbation at the dinner table with her stone-cold mother-in-law (Kiyomi Ito) while aloof husband Yoshio (Koichi Imaizumi) casually chows down. Mom’s pissed that she doesn’t have a grandbaby yet, and wants to make sure Harumi’s what her son needs in the bedroom.

Later that night, Alisa washes ashore, and is greeted by a gaggle of grimy fishermen, looking for love… or gang rape; when you stink of rotting fish, you can’t be too choosey. After one stumbles out into the street and brags to a local yakuza that he just “fucked a mermaid,“ Alisa gets put to work as a chainsaw-wielding dominatrix at Harumi’s mother-in-law’s fetish club; where a prominent politician dons his finest bib and bonnet ensemble.

Then “boring” Harumi drops her drab-duds, puts on a little black number, and hits the red-light circuit for a little “play”, while Alisa ends up with a sack of cash and a new perspective of the world. Humping and hijinks ensue as these characters join in the night, looking for rafureshia, the “flower of illusion.”

Who would'a thunk it: a light-hearted comedy from Hisayasu Sato. Well, as light-hearted as something from the director of Lolita Vibrator Torture is going to get.

Hitting the pinku scene in the 80s with the impact of a brick to the dick, Sato established himself, along with directors Takahisa Zeze, Kazuhiro Sano, and Toshiki Sato, as one of the “Four Kings of Pink”. They were a group whose pinky pontifications looked less like the biker babe bonanzas of Toei, and more like the transgressive cinema of Nick Zedd and Richard Kern.

The Kings weren’t so interested in getting you hot n‘ heavy, as using the naughty action to reveal the often dark inner workings of their characters. Breakdowns, isolation, and extreme sadism filled their features, and Sato was arguably the most caustic of the bunch. In roughly ten years he created some sixty films, nearly all the stuff of sexual-nightmares, where rapists dwell in concrete blocks, and every character is a naïve or twisted social outcast.

Which makes this slap-stick sex-fest the odd bird in his filmography; with gags involving cross-dressers, katanas, and cutlery to the crotch replacing the vicious violence and emotional breakdowns. Still, there’s gang-rape, underground fetish clubs, and mental and sexual abuse, but it’s the kind that tickles your funny bone.

So leave the raincoat at home, and put away the K.Y. because this isn’t some pallid porno, this is pink, and the King is going to make sure you never make that mistake.

Wes Black
ArtsMagic

Hollywood's Topp Zombies

2007-06-07T14:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.hollywoodzombies.com/

Scary-Kate and Trashley, Tom Ooze, Hacked Hogan. This is the best thing in years. Seventy-two individual zombie cards, and ten special Mug Shot cards.

Don't forget to play Monster Mash-Up on their website. I mashed Wreck Nolte, Mike Die-Son, and Melt Gibson.

Up and Down

2007-06-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

The video wars continue with the battle of Pretty Ricky

The Fantasy Boiz fire the first shot

Peer Pressure lays on the pressure

The amount of bills that Dez lays out is shocking. I honestly wasn't ready for that.

My Teacher

2007-06-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

The Drifting Classroom war of the video blogs has begun:

First Blood

The Rebuttal

For the record, I'm all about Troy Donahue as "My Teacher".

I think I came down with a case of this once

2007-06-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's pronounced exactly how you think it is.

Ota-Word Play

2007-06-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

So the first issue of Otaku USA has hit the stands, and your's truly provided some so-so movie reviews (though compared to the Atragon review by Sir William Regal, mine look downright caustic), a solid interview (which you can read below), and a cool column with Coco (again, look below). Now, being an asshole, one of my favorite things to do when writing for a 'zine is to see what does and doesn't make it to print. An old favorite of mine is from the Animerica days when "boobs" was deemed too dirty, but "spreading their legs and flashin' the gash" was read by thousands of 12 year old anime dorks, dying to peep the latest on Puni Chibi Princess Neko. While there's nothing that memorable in issue one of Otaku USA, there's still a handful of notables.

Referring to a group of "bad asses" is right as rain, "whip-yo-ass" is just dandy, but you can't move the goods in "high class hooker’s asses" that kind of activity must be done in their "cabooses". "Butthole" remains unmentionable (maybe that's why my grandma called it your "unmentionable"), you can't talk about your "farts" and god forbid you liken them to "noxious fumes". In the context of Henshin Pimp we cannot have our "ding dongs flapping in the wind", nor expose our "tootsie roll heads like an igloo", our "vein like a Shepard's cane", or have our "balls in plain sight", but the "skin on our scrotums" can and will "set the hillside ablaze". A "sonofabitch" should be called a "sonofagun", you can be "sure as hell" but never, ever "sure as shit", a "wound" can be "bloody", but never a "tampon", and above all it's A-OK to have a "long dong" a "cock", and you are most certainly permitted to "drench" something in "semen".

Overall the 'zine looked good for an inaugural issue. Tomo Machiyama is a wild, ranting madman as usual, Joey Coco delivers the goods, and it's cool to see Jason Thompson (gotta grab his book) large and in charge of the manga section. I've got my gripes, but shit, I'd have my "gripes" if I were fucking a One Million Years B.C-era Raquel Welsh in the Playboy grotto while Ralph Macchio cheered me on from the sidelines, telling me I had the "eye of the tiger". Plus, they did make me look good by cutting down my very long, and very dry, Demon Spies review.

One thing though: Moms Mabley doing jumping jacks what is with that chick in the comic's tits? They look like upside mangoes.

Otalkin'

2007-06-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

As seen in Otaku U.S.A issue #1:

Mamoru Hosoda, Boy of the Future

Miyazaki, Oshii, Tomino Anno, Hosoda… Hosoda? That’s what the less militant of the Otaku U.S.A forces may ask, but after Mamoru Hosoda’s latest work leaps onto these shores, you’ll be hard pressed not to place him above the rest.

Fresh from studying oil painting in college, Hosoda started at Toei Animation, and was soon directing shows like Himitsu no Akko-chan (1998) and Gegege no Gitaro (1997). After toiling in television, he used Revel's Bolero to back the near brilliant Digimon Adventure (1999), and followed it with the exciting, yet sweet, Digimon: Children‘s War Game (2000).

Wowing the industry with the double-Digimons, he was invited to Ghibli to helm an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ novel Howl’s Moving Castle. After reportedly experiencing some high-tension he either quit, or was fired; depending on who tells the story. In the meantime he hit another creative high-note with the Takashi Murakami collaboration Superflat Monogram (2003). He soon returned to Toei, and released his frustrations on One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005), a rollicking adventure that doubles as a thinly veiled tell-all of his time at the house that Nausicaa built.

Now, with Madhouse, he’s taken Japanese meta-fiction king Yasutaka Tsutsui’s classic youth novel Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo (2006), and created a modern masterpiece of animation, Japanese or otherwise. I sat down with Hosoda at the Korean and Japanese Animation Today event, where his film played in front of a packed house of animation lovers, and some newly christened fans.

Wes Black: Why did you choose to make a continuation, following (the original story’s lead) Kazuko's niece, rather than a direct adaptation of the original novel?

Mamoru Hosoda: I did it because I wanted to have the actions the main character takes seen from different angles, to create multiple layers. I thought a different view point was needed, because if I made the film directly from the original story, the point of view was going to be limited to just one girl, a really young girly girl. So I wanted to make it from various points of view, that way different age groups will be able to see the same problem from different angles.

WB: Now, in America, when you adapt someone else’s work, the fans can get angry if you change things around. With the book being such a classic was there any adverse reaction due to your new approach?

MH: At first, I was a little nervous about that, the problem you mentioned, but then I realized the audience I was focusing on were the teenagers of Japan, and they aren’t really familiar with Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, or its adaptations. So I decided not to worry too much about it, and just thought: “It’s okay for some people to get a little angry.” After that I just focused on the teens. And in the end everybody liked it, from the original's fans, to the teenagers; they were all very generous (Laughs).

WB: Did Mr. Tsutsui give his blessing on your fresh approach, what was his opinion of it?

MH: Mr. Watanabe, the producer, had to take the script to Tsutsui when it was complete, and while he realized that the older generation might not understand this new approach, he was still worried about Tsutsui thinking it was too different, but when Mr. Watanabe went to get the comments from Tsutsui, he said: “Oh, this is totally different from the original, but that’s why I like it.”

WB: What about Mr. Tsutsui's work, and this story in particular, appeals to you?

MH: I read the original book when I was in sixth or seventh grade, and when I read it, and this goes for all of Tsutsui's writings, I felt this expansion of the world. I thought there is something exciting somewhere I don't know about. With Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, it was about the future. I felt this excitement towards the future then. So I really wanted to express what I felt at that time in the film.

WB: This is your first film where you're not working with a commercial brand such as Digimon, or One Piece, how was it directing without the constraints that come with an established series?

MH: I had been making those program pictures for the Toei Manga Matsuri, but it wasn't like a stepping stone. They were for kids to enjoy, and I think that I did my best to accomplish that goal. I wanted to carry over this overall goal to make a film that is enjoyable to people even outside of the program pictures. So I didn't really feel different.

WB: After the success of Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, do you see yourself going back to working with a studio like Toei on an established series, or do want to create original works, or possibly look to novels again?

MH: Well, I’ve left Toei, and not because I don't like them, but because the environment there just isn't a good one for making animation films. What I mean by that is that they’re too much into being business-like, so it’s not a very strong creative environment. Every year it was becoming harder and harder for me to be more creative. So in the future I'm going to be doing more original work, or adapting novels such as Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo.

WB: You've directed commercials, television, and films, do you approach each one with a separate mindset, or just as an animated storyteller, regardless of length or format?

MH: I've made commercials that run fifteen seconds, and features that run one hundred minutes, but my mindset when I’m getting into these projects is always that I’m making a film; no matter what the length or the medium is. There was one project I did for Louis Vutton, with Takashi Murakami, called Superflat Monogram. This played at twenty-six Louis Vutton stores throughout the world, so it's obviously nothing like a film, because it’s inside these stores, but even then I still set my mind onto making a film. So what I’m saying is that I always have a mindset for making a film.

WB: I wanted to talk about the film you made before this, the One Piece movie. Now, since I watched it I've wondered: did Ghibli invite you over, only to give you a small net to catch a big fish?

MH: You mean about making Howl’s? (Laughs)

WB: Yes, the movie is an allegory for your time at Ghibli, right?

MH: (In English) No comment.

Special thanks to: Yoshihiro Nihei of the Japan Foundation, Rumi Bunya, Madhouse Studios, and Mamoru Hosoda.

The 500% Original, Wholly Aboriginal

2007-06-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Flush that cheap, knock-off "episdode" down the commode, 'cause it's here, it's here, proving that the end is near:

New JAKQ City sizzles in the morning sun,. Inside Shocker HQ it’s torrid, but far from horrid, as we’re deep, deep inside a pair of ladies divine as a jug-wine, when wham goes the door and we hit the floor.

We’re not ones to shout if caught with our ding-a-lings out, but being it’s Shocker, and we’re in bed with their wives, they plannin’ on takin’ our lives.

We’re like a tornado, a Human Tornado, out the window we go, ladies in tow. Our ding-dongs flap in the wind as we make a thirty-foot drop that we can‘t stop. Now we'll be fine, but the ladies could go straight to Hades. We say “hold on tight” and they squeeze the sturdiest thangs in sight, and like in a movie we FREEZE.

You take a sip from your flask and ask “Just who are these two with Tootsie Roll heads like an igloo?” The one with a vein like a shepherd’s cane is I, Wes “Clack-a-Lack” Black, and to the right, with his balls in plain sight, is Joseph “Bro-Buster” Luster. Combined we’re the insane in the Solbrain motherfuckers known as Henshin Pimp!

How you a pimp, you gotta cane for your limp? The answer ain’t easy nor breezy, but a long, thick and greezy… road that is. But don’t you fluster cause here’s Big Joe Luster with a story ‘bout a cat who’ll take you out faster than a gat, the King of the Jungle with a face lookin’ fungal…

Lion Maru

Dig this trip back to 1972, when P-Productions first manned the plan for Lion Maru. Creator Shoji Ushio had these cats strutting big time, transforming under the sunshine of feudal Japan into a lion from a man. The story of the young Shishimaru and his fight against the Akuma Gosun was ready to burst when Kaiketsu Lion Maru dropped on April 1st, but those devils never stood a chance because Shishimaru keeps something magical hangin’ 'round his pants. Unsheathing his sword, he transforms into a beast ready to pounce– his enemy gets trounced before there's hope for a ten count.

But he's not fighting alone, oh no, he's got the jealous ladies about to erupt with the hot little number Kazumi there for backup. "Little Help" also comes in the form of the boy Kosuke; one puff on that magical flute and your head's gonna spin, because here comes Hikarimaru, our hero's own personal Pegasus gliding down with the wind. That savage mane caused his enemies to quake, but they'll be back again, make no mistake.

This proved true with Fuun Lion Maru in 1973, more follow-up henshin action from our man Shoji. These boys musta had mo‘cheddah, 'cause things were lookin' better with Lion Maru going Rocketto way before he got ghetto. This is a new Shishimaru, though, picking up after his bro's last breath with new powers that change him into a storm cloud of death. His enemies this time ain't anything he can't handle, goin’ up against the one thousand meter big-faced leader of Mantle. His story would run 25 episodes, less than half of its predecessor, but give it some time, my friends, there'll be a true successor.

Fast forward many years– 33 to be exact– 'cause P-Productions made sure our boy Maru'd be back. In 2006 so much had changed but the names stayed the same. Like we hinted at before, though, it was time to get Ghetto– Lion Maru Ghetto; or if you want to be PC just call it Lion Maru G, it won't matter to me 'cause it doesn't change what we see. Some new style for our hero and mainstays like Tiger Jo, conceptual artist Keita Amemiya was able to get this lion lookin' like more than a super-sized Chia.

You might recognize these guys from a previous show, a lot of the crew rocked video, design and direction on Garo. As far as the original series goes, this takes place 300 years later, and Maru's up against a whole mess of 21st century haters. This show only bestowed us with 13 episodes, but just lay back and crack a brew, this ain't the last you'll ever hear of Lion Maru.

Now that you heard 'bout Maru, it's back to how we do. No matter how clever or light as a feather, this freeze frame can’t last forever. So we do a fully nude butt-slide down the mountainside. Sparks fly, the skin on our scrotums sets the hillside ablaze, sending Shocker into a craze that will last for days.

Now what else we’ve all seen, well, it’s a long walk home to our under ground thunder dome, and those rascals from Shocker won’t be far behind, so it’ll have to wait ‘till next time. So tune in, same Henshin time, same Pimp channel for the two-fisted wonder of the L.A. blunder and the Louisville thunder that is Henshin Pimp.

Wes Black & Joseph Luster

Arrivederci, cocksucker

2007-05-21T15:19:00.001-07:00

Bruno Mattei died after falling into a coma last week. Unlike others, I'm not going to pretend the guy was a great filmmaker just because he kicked barf bag. In fact, he was terrible, and directed a load of unwatchable crap, which I, being a watcher of unwatchable crap, of course watched. He was a member of the old guard of Italian-exploiters, so it's sad to see him go.

Here's his latest, though probably not his last, work Zombies: The Beginning. Which, other than being shot on digital, looks like a movie I would have rented from Thomas Video as a kid in Michigan.

When you're done with that, take a stroll down shitty film memory lane:

Rats: Night of Terror

Strike Commando

Robowar

When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathin'

2007-05-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Fuck the PG-13 rated Live Free or Die Hard, this is the real shit:

Warning: May Cause Wet Panties

2007-05-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Though most of my old Animerica writings were lost back in the great computer crash of 2006, I just managed to unearth this early unpublished "gem". It's kinda shitty, but I still dig it, and thought you might too.

Kabuto

If you don't have a dick and balls dangling between your thighs, then stop reading now. Why? Because we're talking about the manga of Buichi Terasawa here. An illustrated entrance into the world of men. This ain't Naruto ladies, it's pure steel and sex appeal. Our main man Buichi has made a hell of a career creating testosterone drenched tales such as Space Adventure Cobra and Goku: Midnight Eye. All of which seem like crazed remainings of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter novels by a guy who deemed them too "faggy". Hell, he even contributed to the bloody live-action T&A ninja-fest Kunoichi: Lady Ninja (on DVD from TokyoShock).

"Now let us travel back in time when the everlasting battle between two men begins..."

Ditching the neon-lit future of some of his other works, with Kabuto, Terasawa throws his manly men and curvy women into Japan's Tensho era (1573-1593). It's here that our macho hero Kabuto does battle with the hellish Kuroyasha Douki, who his ancestors sent back to hell long ago. Douki is pissed about being locked up for so long, so before he takes over the world he's looking to wipe out the offspring of those who put him away. To put an end to the hell boy's plans Kabuto enlists the help of a cursed sword known as the "Evil Sword, Flying Dragon" and the might "Four Gods". Which include a hot blond in fish nets, a kid ninja armed with a deadly Dreidel, a Tengu in the flesh, and a wolverine look-a-like who can snap swords in half with his teeth

Although he may cite Akira Kurosawa as an influence, Kabuto is 100% pure pulp (if you couldn't tell already) More The Mucker than The Seven Samurai. It's like the art of Frank Frazzetia put into manga motion, but from the mind of a guy who looks like he's snorted coke out of a whore's ass crack. Memories of Barbarella, Bond, and samurai swords flow out onto the page with a complete disregard for logic. Gadgets that even Q couldn't cook up are wielded by Spaghetti Western heroes in a feudal setting where a Royo babe is never too far from arm's reach. Full metal ninja demons, UFOs, disembodied heads with legs, and raging hell spawn burn across the page at a relentless pace; this shit is hot, red hot. Midway through I reached down for a ball scratch to discover a mound of freshly grown pubes and an extra testicle! So if you think you're tough enough, then give it a shot. If not then stick to your pussy stuff, and leave Buichi to the real men.

Wes Black

4 stars

ComicsOne - $11.95 - 320 pages - NA
Copyright Buichi Terasawa
"One more ball to scratch, and a few less brain cells left to kill"

Wesley come lately

2007-05-18T00:19:00.000-07:00

After waiting out the big crowds, I finally went and saw Spider-Man 3. All I've got to say is: you're all a bunch of jaded, sad-sack cynics. What the fuck did you want, Spidey defeating Sandman with a vacuum again?

Game night

2007-05-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Dial that hotline

In front of your eyes

2007-05-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

You can see it

too all ladies we are do parties, house calls watever .... we travel everywhere ........ jus hit us up wit a message wit yo number , city and state (Song Request Optional) ........... and we will set sum up ...... the prices are different dependin on wat u want ..... our manager will work wit u ......

Heed that warning.

The Great Pretender

2007-05-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

He cannot contend.

We come crawlin'

2007-05-13T00:11:00.000-07:00

The Otaku USA HQ. Pre-deadline. How we do it.

Where boiz learn to be boiz

2007-05-12T02:56:00.000-07:00

This is my life.

Dream Boi

2007-05-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

A candid photo of Patrick Macias outside the Otaku USA HQ.

Eat ya heart out, sucka

2007-05-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

Talked to Kane about his role in Shocker, and what the hell happened with the film. Here's the highlights:

- First off, he was shocked that their are people that still watch Shocker.

- He told me that he beat INXS asphyxiater Michael Hutchinson for the role of the construction worker, landing the part after a single audition. Which then irked the rest of the cast members who had auditioned for months to get their roles.

- They had a tarp set up during the scene where he tosses the heart necklace into the lake, so they wouldn't lose it in the water. He said without fail, he sent that necklace soaring over the tarp take after take; no matter how many times they adjusted it. The problem with this was not so much finding the necklace, but that a crew member would have to dive into the freezing cold lake at 5 A.M.

- He was originally supposed to rough up Peter Berg in their scene together, but after Berg arrived on the set, and got a look at him, he told Craven "No way".

- On if the movie was intended to be a comedy he said : "Actually, Wes was completely serious. He's an incredibly intelligent guy, but also kind of a hippy. So he had this idea that Shocker would be a horror film that people could watch while on drugs, and get freaked out. All the producers and executives were really excited, thinking they had something huge; then we went to the premier, and by time it got to the scene with Beaver everyone was like: "What the fuck is this?!?"

- He says that he felt "So fucking stupid" during the scene where he's staring under the bleachers.

- Without me even asking, he re-created his run, and said "How do ya like this body, Jonathan?"

On a side note, Kane will probably pick me up, and snap my spine in two if he finds out I posted that pic of him.

No more Mr. Nice guy

2007-05-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Shocker just might be responsible for Japan's late 90's horror boom. I hadn't seen this one since it was originally released on video (the sneak-an-R-rated-movie method of choice for an 8 year old Wes Black), and my memory of it was foggy. Until last night.

It's a post-Nightmare on Elm Street shocker from Wes Craven, which tries to recapture the Kruger magic by bringing over the cast, crew, and formula from the Nightmare series. Even the title sequence was pulled from the original Nightmare to guarantee Horace Pinker as the next slasher icon. At least that's what the executives had in mind.

Watching it now I'm convinced that Craven is either half-parodying the Elm Streeters, or having fun and doing some self-sabotage on what was an overly-calculated attempt at making a new slasher franchise. Or this shit just blew up in their collective faces. Any way you cut it, it's a wild, wild, ride that's almost never scary, but is always throwing some insane concept or set-piece at you. Sometimes it even seems that Craven is channeling Sam Raimi, building on their decade long cinematic back-and-forth.

But, onto the Japanese horror thing. I'd scream "liar" right in the faces of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hiroshi Takahashi, and Hideo Nakata if they claimed to have never seen the film (well, maybe not, but I'd be thinking it as I kiss their asses). Before you cry foul, keep in mind that Kurosawa has named Hooper's Spontaneous Combustion and The Mangler as major influences, and, oh yeah, he basically remade Shocker as Pulse. He did it very well, and he went in directions that Shocker didn't, but it's clearly the springboard all the same. As for Nakata and Takahashi, replace bald, limping Horace Pinker with a slim, long-haired girl named Sadako and you have the finale to Ring (yes, that part is of Nakata and Takahashi's invention, not author Koji Suzuki's).

Of course that all pales in comparison to it featuring a bit part by former Alice Cooper guitarist, and my nihongo no kurasumeto, Kane Roberts as a muscle bound construction worker. Now, while the folks at Universal couldn't guarantee that Shocker would be the next great horror series, I can guarantee you that Kane will be hearing more Shocker questions tomorrow night than he has over the past twenty years.

Mondo Pakistani

2007-04-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Most shot-on-video zombie flicks are real pieces of shit, so it's refreshing when a non-corn laced turdlet drops from the rotted anus of undead-filmdom. This potential piece of creamy goodness is former film critic, and cult film encyclopedia, Omar Khan's Hell's Ground (Zibahkhana), Pakistan's "first gore film". Their myspace page sums it up as so:

ZIBAHKHANA/HELL'S GROUND is the first modern horror film to be shot in Pakistan. It breaks all of the rules of local productions and was made entirely independently with no film industry or government assistance.

In the spirit of the old EC comics, the film tells the story of five teens who get lost on their way to a rock concert, are menaced by flesh eating mutations and then fall into the clutches of a family of back woods killers. The film includes copious amounts of gore alongside a splattering of social commentary and several slices of dark humour. It's best seen as a tribute to the cinema of Lucio Fulci and George Romero, but viewed from a distinctly Pakistani perspective.

The film is directed and co-written by former film critic Omar Ali Khan. Its cast combines some of the country's most exciting new talent alongside Pakistani film veterans such as Rehan and Najma Malik. The gruesome make up effects were done by Nawab Sagar, another industry veteran who has worked on numerous mainstream productions. The film was shot by London trained cinematographer Najaf Bilgrami and was edited by the UK's Andy Starke.

Early word is that Khan and his team nailed a Mystics in Bali meets Fulci feel for the flick, so we can hope for the goods. Meanwhile, you can visit them here:
http://www.myspace.com/hellsgroundmovie

And check out the trailer:

Are you ready for Freddy

2007-04-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

More from my recent slasher/horror kick. After watching the classic Dream Warriors the other night, I decided to go back and check out the recent Infinifilm DVD of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, which I hadn't seen in a good five years. It was interesting to watch how much the series differs when under Craven's control; the dreamscapes that Freddy takes his victims through are less cartooney, and more surreal, capturing that helpless feeling you often have in a nightmare. Even Kruger's humor carries a vulgar, disturbing edge to it, rather than featuring, say, a dog pissing fire (Part 4). The only Elm Streeter that comes close to what's featured here is New Nightmare, which Craven claims is the only Freddy follow-up that goes in line with his original intentions.

And off that, here are some of Freddy's best moments, backed by The Fat Boys' "Are You Ready For Freddy":

I'm a big chicken-shit

2007-04-24T23:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone who loves a good scary-as-shit ghost story, or just a plain old good story, should do themselves a favor and pick up Joe Hill's debut novel Heart-Shaped Box. Forget the hype, and that Hill is the son of Stephen King, this book has all the urgency and excitement of a young gun running off pure inspiration, with the structure and character work of an old-hand. Even dear old dad's debut wasn't this hot. Kept my ass awake long after I'd put it down.

Check it all out here:
www.joehillfiction.com

Yo, Freddy! Where you hiding at, you burnt-faced pussy?

2007-04-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Another night, another 80's horror flick with a hair metal sing-a-long theme song. This time it was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, possibly the best of the Freddy sequels, which not only features one of slasher cinema's greatest heroes in Roland "I ain't wanna sleep no more" Kincaid, but a little ditty from Dokken.

He's Back

2007-04-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last night was Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives! One of the best in the series, along with parts one and four, and one of the wittiest slashers flicks out there, thanks to the script/directing work of Amazing Stories vet Tom McLoughlin.

Of course, this is the real reason to see it:

I'm So Horny

2007-04-13T23:18:00.000-07:00

In honor of Friday the 13th:

Crispin Glover in Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter

Violence Action

2007-04-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

A relic of V-Cinema's past, with a focus on "hard-boiled actor" Makoto Sawamura.

Fat white kid with a ninja,

2007-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Or mine and Joey Coco's childhood dream (besides the one about titties).

Hitoshi Matsumoto, the funniest man in Japan, does his thing in English.

My Pet Monster: The Movie

2007-01-30T20:10:00.000-08:00

I saw this one. More than once.

This goes out to Joey Coco

2007-01-30T02:31:00.000-08:00

Otoko Matsuri Dynamite!!

2007-01-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

Some vids from Japan's New Year kakutogi festivities.

Pride Otoko Matsuri

Pride Shockwave 2006 Show Opening
Uploaded by Badboul

Ikuhisa Minowa vs Kiyoshi Tamura

MINOWA Ikuhisa Vs TAMURA Kiyoshi
Uploaded by ganjamandu59

Takanori Gomi vs Mitsuhiro Ishida

ISHIDA Mitsuhiro Vs GOMI Takanori
Uploaded by ganjamandu59

James Thompson vs Hidehiko Yoshida

Pride James Thompson vs Hidehiko Yoshida
Uploaded by Princenino

Josh Barnett vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Pride Otoko Matsuri 2006 - Josh Barnett
Uploaded by bassi-

Shinya Aoki vs Joachim Hansen

Pride_Otoko_Matsuri_2006_-_Shinya_Aoki_v
Uploaded by bassi-

Tatsuya Kawajiri vs Gilbert Melendez

Pride_Otoko_Matsuri_2006__Gilbert_Melend
Uploaded by bassi-

Kazuyuki Fujita vs Eldari Kurtandize

Pride_Otoko_Matsuri_2006__Eldari_Kurtani
Uploaded by bassi-

Kazuhiro Nakamura vs Mauricio Shogun Rua

Pride_Otoko_Matsuri_2006__Kazuhiro_Nakam
Uploaded by bassi-

Emelianenko Fedor vs Mark Hunt

Pride Shockwave 2006 Fedor VS Hunt
Uploaded by Princenino

K-1 Dynamite!!

Genki Sudo vs Jackson Page

K1 Dynamite 2006 Genki Sudo vs Page
Uploaded by Princenino

Akebono vs Giant Silva

K-1 Dynamite2006 Akebono vs Giant Silva
Uploaded by Badboul

Badr Hari vs Nicholas Pettas

K1 Dynamite 2006 Badr Hari vs Pettas
Uploaded by Princenino

Royler Grace vs Hideo Tokoro

Tokoro vs Royler
Uploaded by johnob

Norifumi Yamamoto vs Istvan Majoros

Kid_Yamamoto_vs_Istvan_Majoros
Uploaded by manhoef

Masato vs Satoru Suzuki

K1 Dynamite 2006 :Masato vs Suzuki
Uploaded by Badboul

Katsuhiko Nagata vs Shuichiro Katsumura

Peter Graham vs. Semmy Schilt

Musashi vs Randy Kim

Tokimitsu Ishizawa (Kendo Ka Shin) vs. Taiei Kin

Yoshihiro Akiyama vs Kazushi Sakuraba

??VS??
Uploaded by waratanews

Choi Hong Man vs Bobby Ologun

Henshin Pimp Theater: Jissoji Lives!

2006-12-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

The trailer for Akio Jissoji's Silver Mask update Die Silbermaske has shown up. It looks like he's mixed his passion for Rampo in with the tokusatsu madness.

Plus, a fan made, Ultra-flavored Jissoji tribute video:

Henshin Pimp Theater: Otomo gives us guns

2006-12-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

Katsuhiro Otomo's 1981, 16mm live-action film jyuu wo warerani (Give Us Guns)

Ultra Jissoji

2006-11-30T16:21:00.000-08:00

Ultra-universe regular, ATG legend, and Rampo enthusiast Akio Jissoji dead at age 69.

He did some great work on Ultraman, Ultra Q, and Silver Kamen, directed the best non-Teruo Ishii Rampo adaptations (several in fact), was a major player in the the Art Theater Guild, and would probably have a bigger following amongst Japanse film fans if anyone (other than Kojiro Abe, of course) knew who the hell he was.

Here's an NHK news report on his death, which features him in his office writing while surrounded by props and toys. At age 69. I hope I'm that lucky.

HUSTLE Two-for-Tuesday Part 2: Razor Ramon HG vs Esperenza

2006-11-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

From the 11/23 HUSTLE MANIA show. The opening minutes give you all the set up you need.

HUSTLE: HG vs Esperenza
Uploaded by dman1982dq

HUSTLE Two-for-Tuesday Part 1: Your new desktop

2006-11-28T21:39:00.000-08:00

HUSTLE up.
http://www.hustlehustle.com/free/wallpaper/

Mr. Winslow, I need to call 911

2006-04-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

In a perfect world, this is what it would be like when your house is burning down.

Henshin Pimp Theater: Yeah Yeah Wow

2006-03-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

First episode of Toei's live-action Spiderman, wonky english subs and all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0w3LTEJZ2ig

True Confessions of a V-Man: Eric Douglas, will you be my V-alentine?

2006-02-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

Crime Hunter 2 - Bullet of Betrayal (クライムハンタ裏切りの銃弾)

Director - Toshimichi "Shundo" Ohkawa
Year - 1989
Company - Toei

The Crime Hunter series delivers yet another landmark event for the V-cinema history books. Where the original was the first ever V-cinema of all time, this one is the first to have a gaijin "star" in its cast. And who is bestowed with such a great honor, you ask? Well it's the late, great Eric Douglas, beating such luminaries as Chad McQueen and Michael Rooker to the punch by several years. In fact, it wouldn't be until V-World and V-America were unleashed on the video renting population that gaijin actors would again shame themselves in Nippon.

Unlike the last one, this movie starts on an educational note, with a title screen informing us that “Little Tokyo is the residence of Japanese Americans", before kicking off with an exchange in unintelligible English (and one of the guys was white). Then it's not too long before somebody gets shot in the face, and "Crime Hunter" is on his way.

Joker, back to being on the Little Tokyo Metropolitan Police Dept, is cruising the fog-machine sprayed streets of Los Angeles in his old porno-littered squad car when the call comes in. Again, the fine folks at the LTMPD give him a license to kill the perp at first sight. Instead, he just lets out a cry of "Rock N' Roll!" before riddling a sex shop with bullets, and taking the punk in alive. Turns out this skuzzy looking scum-bag may know where Joker’s missing partner Cash (immortalized by Douglas) is hanging.

After being partnered with a ham in a Hawaiian shirt, Joker and his new human shield start their search for the missing cop. A shit load of cigarette smoking and people getting shot later, they get his location. Soon they find Cash lying handcuffed and on a filthy cot in an old warehouse, looking as if he doesn't have a shred of his dignity intact(no acting necessary there). Then an emotional, tough guy dialogue exchange between him and Joker, where they affectionately say “fuck” to each other several times, ends in betrayal (or a Bullet of Betrayal if you will). His partner takes one to the face, and he's sprayed with bullets, and sent flying out a window all thanks to Cash. Of course they all seemed to forget that Joker is bullet proof, and has a thing for avenging his dead partners.

This is when things really kick into high-gear, as we’re engulfed in a plot that revolves heavily around "the stuff". Joker buys lots of really huge, and impressively phallic guns. Macho man Makoto Sawamura, dropping the perm for a fancy set of dread-locks, returns as a thug-for-hire. All while Eric Douglas hangs out in a drain pipe, and apparently believes he's starring in Wall Street. One explosive acting highlight has him, hair slicked back, questioning who he really is. "Who am I? Am I the boss? Am I the detective?" he screams at his confused and English impaired Japanese co-star. Trust me, it's intense stuff that rivals even his best moments in Delta Force 3.

Following the original's Roman Porno-esque rule of having a shootout every ten minutes, this one doesn't skimp on the blood and bullets. Sleazy strip club shootouts, multiple head-shots, and a chick in an evening gown wielding a bazooka. Hell, even a raped whore is thrown in for kicks.

Also, being that they actually shot this one in L.A (rather than Okinawa) there are scenic shots-o-plenty that all seem to end with a group of black guys staring directly into the camera. They even managed to capture a real life gang brawl on film, you know, for extra realism. All this excitement going down in Little Tokyo does beg me to ask one question though. How come whenever I go to Little Tokyo all I get to see is a Seijin Suzuki look-a-like in a Dirty Dancing jacket?

Henshin Pimp Theater: Baba Chop!

2006-02-13T19:50:00.000-08:00

Antonio Inoki vs Super Vader (Big Van Vader)

This one was Vader's debut in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Watch out for the Go Nagai designed mask he comes out in.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=z8fyp5CA0QA

Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid

The original, Ikki Kajiwara created Tiger Mask with the legendary Satoru Sayama donning the fur and bellbottoms.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=ja0tI6ibypQ

KENTA vs Kenta Kobashi

This is a great recent match from NOAH, which is apparently where it's at for hardcore puroresu fans nowadays.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=FhF9LbLP1XY

Dr. Death Steve Williams vs Toshiaki Kawada

Two legendary tough guys clash in Giant Baba's AJPW (All Japan Pro-Wrestling)
http://www.youtube.com/?v=MCjcGySaLxA

Mask Red and Blue vs Pierrot I and II

Tokusatsu inspired insanity from the HUSTLE promotion
http://www.youtube.com/?v=0g03dRJAlR0

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka
Shoot-style pro-wrestling in RINGS. This is just one of Tamura and Kohsaka's awesome matches.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=o7f74RnGSpA

True Confessions of a V-Man: Crime Hunter, or Pop Goes the V-Cherry.

2006-02-12T01:06:00.000-08:00

In 1989 Toei Video launched its V-cinema series; the first ever outlet for straight-to-video distribution in Japan. The launch title for Toei Video's new venture was Crime Hunter. This is its true story.

Crime Hunter was the brain-child of writer, director, gun-fanatic, and soon-to-be prolific V-cinema producer Toshimichi "Shundo" Ohkawa. Previous to Crime Hunter he was a writer on the popular Abunai Deka series. Nowadays, he's probably best known for directing the ultra-bad Riki classic The Yakuza Way, and for producing Atsushi Muroga's V-classic Score. While his record has been spotty over the years, he most definitely deserves a spot in the V-cinema Hall of Fame (or shame) for bringing the world of girls, guns, and a cool pair of shades straight to the Japanese video shelves.

Crime Hunter - Bullet of Anger (クライムハンタ怒りの銃弾)

The "Little Tokyo Police Department" is cruising the streets. Joker(Masanori Sera) and his partner, a peanut-popping Riki Takeuchi, are chilling in their porno-plastered squad car. Over the radio the dispatcher sends them after a perp, they are instructed to "shoot for the head" if necessary.

At the scene is a bulky Yusaku Matsuda wannabe (Makoto Sawamura) with a big perm and a double-barrel. Joker and Riki take him in without much of a fight, but are jumped on the way out by some guys in clown masks and bowlers. Joker is sprayed down with machinegun fire, big perm runs off, and Riki takes one to the head from a foot-long magnum.

Somehow Joker survives the assault, and after a quick recovery he turns in his badge and dons a Members Only jacket to hunt down the killers. He then hits the streets looking for “big perm“, and is roughing guys up in alleyways, and hopping into his muscle car Dukes of Hazzard style. Soon enough he’s onto some radical right-wing gun smugglers that may be involved, and decides to crash their pajama party in the junkyard.

Joker gets held up by the gun smugglers skin-head friends who show him some fingers in a jar, and lock him in a cage. To escape he does a traditional Chinese Lion Dance and fires twin 44’s out from the lion’s mouth. And no, I’m not making this shit up. Next he tracks down “big perm” and finds him holed up in a warehouse drinking Bud. Turns out they have a common enemy of the clown-mask, bowler wearing variety, and they gear up for the big gundown.

Before that can happen, Yoshio Harada stops by for a cigar smoking cameo and sticks around long enough to shoot some punk in the face. Joker then shows up for the final big gun n' stunt spectacular wearing a Rambo headband and carrying a machinegun the size of a Cadillac. “Big perm” pulls out a headband of his own so they can battle bullet-for-bullet and side-by-side.

It doesn't take too long to figure out that this is one big, sweaty gun porno (and that I had a huge, throbbing erection)! A scene of Joker dismantling and cleaning his gun is intercut with a woman showering, not to mention every weapon gets its own close-up as it pumps out bullets like a cumshot.

Over half of Crime Hunter’s sixty-minutes are taken up by bloody shootouts. With the rest consisting of multiple weapon close-ups, gun cleaning, and people getting punched in the face. Although, at one point they do take a break for a heartfelt moment between Joker and Riki's old sack of peanuts. Of course it doesn't take long before he's using even that to sling a grenade toward some slimeball.

The first and, even after all these years, one of the best. Crime Hunter is pure crack in a cassette tape, and that's all V-cinema needs to be baby.

True Confessions of a V-Man: Call me Gigolo. Gigolo Cop.

2006-02-08T01:53:00.000-08:00

Gigolo Cop: Roppongi and Asakusa Beautiful Boy Club (Jigoro koppu: Roppongi Asakusa Bishounen Kurabu)

Director - Takemitsu Sato
Company - Japan Home Video
Year - 1991

Gaijin crime is infesting Japan. Foreign criminals are using amnesty to slip through the system unscathed. In response, the Japanese government sets up a task-force known as the "Kaishakunin"-- a throwback to Japan's feudal law-enforcement. They are Executioners operating above the law, and above human morality. The leader of this new kill squad is Shimamura, played by former "King of Eros" and "Furyo Bancho" Tatsuo Umemiya.

He decides that before they can begin they have to get into the criminal world. So, to get hot-wired into the underground, Shimamura becomes a gigolo. A gigolo cop with a license to kill, and a team at his disposal. After being taught the finer points of being a "beautiful young man" by an old queen, they open up the Bishounen Club. Shimamura plays the role of their gay gigolo, prepping for his night's work by applying blush and eye-liner.

Soon they are contacted to investigate the bodies of young girls popping up around Tokyo, all which were ruled "accidents" by the police. But they, and a burly cop named Oninhara (Rikiya), know better. As they should. The sleazy Sanei Corporation is auctioning off human "sex dolls" to high-power foreign governments in exchange for weapons, land, and top secret info. These perverted politicians are given carte blanche with their prizes, going as far as killing them to satisfy their urges.

Once Shimamura catches on, Sanei begins to hunt down members of the vigilante crew, littering the streets with corpses. A Full-Metal-Umemiya then summons the troops and loads up his bazooka for a war between gigolo and sex slave ring. This all leads to a warehouse set, grenade launching, samurai sword slinging finale, with machine-gun toting babes, geysers of gore, and knife-throwing mayhem dominating the movie's closing minutes. Do the gigolos prevail? Is the "sex doll" ring taken down? Well, let's just say it all ends in blood and tears, and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Henshin Pimp Theater: Mazinger Z - The True Story

2006-02-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Uploaded a vid of Mazinger Z's Rocket Punch, done for reals.

You can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77vI5oQTA-8

True Confessions of a V-Man: Riki Takeuchi, Pachinko Ball Wizard

2006-02-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

Pachinko Game Drifter (Pachinko Mujyuku/パチンコ無宿 )
Riki plays pachinko, the end.

This 1995 V-cinema classic has Riki riding around with plushies in a big-rig ala Truck Yaro, and, like the title implies, playing pachinko. Lots of it. It’s opens up with RIki busting some heads and hamming it up following a pachinko game gone bad. After some spastic facial expressions, he teams up with a pachinko parlor owner with a penchant for purple tights (played by frequent Pinky Violence comic relief Akira Ohizumi), and does with he does best. And what he does best is sit in front of some silver balls for long periods of screen time while mugging for the camera.

In between the pachinko playin' he even finds a little time for romance. Well, if you, like me, consider leering and groping romance. In one extra steamy scene Riki even flashes his bare ass for the camera (sadly, a mosaic keeps us from fully taking in his balls and taint). Also, there's some tits. Small ones, but it's the thought that counts.

So get ready for lots of guys sitting around smoking and playing pachinko with the intensity of a prize-fight. Plenty of amazing (read: shitty) video effects (my favorite being Riki's head turning into a pachinko ball). Not to mention political intrigue, drag queens, and Riki with his khaki's tucked into a pair of black high-tops. Just because Riki forgot he starred in this one, doesn’t mean you should forget to watch it. Plus, you know you wanna see his ass.

True Confessions of a V-Man: Sho gets in a Dog Fight

2006-02-04T23:16:00.000-08:00

Dog Fight
V-cinema action from Junk and Score director Atsushi Muroga.

A dozen screens are blasting some raunchy AV movie. It's a porno shop, lit a sickly green by flourescent lights. Porn and cash are exchanging hands when the cops bust in. The owner runs out into the rain-drenched alley howling like a wolf. Once they catch him, the titles burst onto the screen off a shot of his snarling face. The credits roll to a rip-off of The Terminator score, all while Sho Aikawa smokes in slo-mo.

Our sex shop owner strikes a deal with a horny, rapist cop, played by rat-faced Shingo Tsurami, to infiltrate Sho's gang. He gains their trust after a montage set to bad hip-hop, which concludes with Sho karate chopping a water bottle, and gets in on a deal with Hong Kong coke pushers.

Meanwhile, an iron pumping, raw-egg-smoothie drinking Shun Sugata is pulling the strings, and getting a big rip-off in effect. When Sho pisses him off, the cop rapes the porn shop owner's junkie girlfriend, and all hell breaks loose. Sho and company get dressed up like it's Resevoir Dogs, and a dread-locked, one-eyed Rastafarian gun smuggler (Hitoshi Ozawa) supplies the hard-ware. Two-fisted gunplay and over-the-top displays of brotherhood follow, all making it feel like 1991 again.

True Confessions of a V-Man: All Outlaws Attack!

2006-01-31T01:10:00.000-08:00

Sex, Drugs, and Pachinko!

A multi-volume shocking true document!

The final testament of a V-Man!

A life of moldy VHS tapes, scowling faces, and confused video store staffers revealed. No honor, no humanity, just ones man's trek through the V-Cinema ghetto and beyond. Riki and Sho are here, Bunta comes to slum, Hiroki Matsukata is the big boss, and underlord George Kennedy watches from the dark corners of V-America. Neo-Chinpiras, Blue Tigers, Be-Bop Highschools, Jingi(part 37), and one severe case of the Rokudenashi Blues wait in the distance. Will you decide to follow, or will you decide to live.

This is no hope, this is no love, this is V-Cinema.

Coming Soon!

Henshin Pimp Theater: Return of Ultraman (Kaettekita Ultraman)

2006-01-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2232750013734831521

I've uploaded Daicon Film's second live-action short, The Return of Ultraman. It was released in 1983, and was written, directed and starred a 23 year old Hideaki Anno.

The title is a reference to Anno’s previous Ultraman Deluxe shorts made when he was a sophmore at the Osaka College of Art. In the second Deluxe movie Ultraman leaves the earth and goes back to space, hence the "Return of Ultraman" (or Kaettekita Ultraman) title.

Also included on the video is a making-of featurette detailing the production’s FX creation.

Riki screams for ice cream, Daicon does SunVulcan, and Hard Gay says Yahooooo!

2006-01-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

V-Cinema gangstar Riki Takeuchi freaks out before succumbing to ecstasy over Umachoco ice cream bars. You can view the shocking proof here:
http://www.akagi.com/umachoco/index2.html

Don't forget to download a desktop while you're at it:
http://www.akagi.com/umachoco/index3.html

Now I want to get bi-polar over tasty frozen treats.

Up next we have the Daicon Films production of Patriotic Task Force Dai-Nippon (Aikoku Sentai Dai-Nippon), a parody of super sentai shows. Namely SunVulcan, which the opening song takes its tune from. Besides the legendary series of animation shorts, the future Gainax team also made a series of tokusatsu fan films in the early eighties. These were: Kaiketsu Notenki, a Zubat parody starring former Gainax head Yasuhiro Takeda. The Return of Ultraman, which is an Ultraman fan flick directed by and starring Hideaki Anno as Ultraman minus the mask. Last, but not least, is their biggest production, Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu, which featured SFX by future Gamera FX genius Shinji Higuchi.

You can watch Patriotic Task Force Dai-Nippon in all it's grainy glory here:
http://www.youtube.com/w/aikoku-sentai-dainippon?v=nE7qWXAWSJU&search=Daicon

Now to top it all off is more from everybody's favorite pelvic pulsator Razor Ramon HG (pictured above with fellow pelvis thruster Naoya Ogawa). This time HG goes to Yahoo Japan's offices looking to be their latest spokesman. Hilarity ensues.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2644445570646904549

Boi of the Future

2006-01-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

Loosely based on Alexander Key's The Incredible Tide, Future Boy Conan is the first series directed by Hayao Miyazaki(thought two episodes are helmed by longtime collaborator Isao Takahata). It's also his best work as a director. The series plays out like twenty-five-minute long "best-of" reels of what Miyazaki does, well, best. All the chases, politics, and the hard-on for aeronautics that we've come to expect from him, but without all the bullshit that can drag down his features. The story follows what may be the last boy on earth in the post-nuke future, and the adventure that a young girl named Lana pulls him into.

Last year I planned to write a feature on the show, but it was axed by the magazine at the last minute. This left me with what I'm putting up today, an interview with infamous Japanese journalist Tomo Machiyama. For those who don't know Machiyama is the founder of Eiga HiHo, Japan's best movie magazine, author of several best-sellers, including Otaku no Hon (The Book of Otaku), and he also co-authored Cruising the Anime City with Patrick Macias. He was kind enough to answer some questions for me about Conan, lolicon, and Miyazaki. For more on him you can visit an interview done with the late, great Pulp Magazine here:
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/5.05/columns_pulpman.shtml

And you can check him out at his blog
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/TomoMachi/

Or at www.japattack.com

Q. What was the audience's reaction to Captain Dyce's obvious lusting for 11 year old Lana?

A. There was not so much antagonistic reaction. The first reason was that Conan just follows the traditional kind of Quest for the hero. Always the hero has to fight with a father figure to win the bride or the girl. That father figure represents the old system which the young boy has to overcome and take over. The girl represents the prize which is given for the new king of the new world. Joseph Campbell said this is the most basic archetype of heroic mythology in many cultures, the story of Oedipus. The second reason was that Miyazaki and his staff from Toei studio had already made this kind of story before Conan. The first example was Horus, Prince of the Sun, a heroic fantasy based on a European myth. Miyazaki and the Ghibli people made this while they were still at Toei. Horus has to fight against an evil dominating wizard to win the wizard's little sister Hilda, who looks like 12 years old and whom he loves.

The second was Puss In Boots, which was also made by Toei. It was a story about a poor boy who fights against a rich and powerful middle-aged Wizard who wants to marry the young princess that the boy loves. She also looks like 12 years old. Before this modern age, girls were forced to marry right after they had their first menstruation. In the original A PUSS IN BOOTS story, the boy doesn't fight against the wizard, just the cat. But Toei Animation studio, where Miyazaki worked as one of the animators, then changed the story to where the boy has to fight against the wizard by himself, rather than the cat.

So, audiences in Japan already had gotten used to this plot.
Later, you can find the same structure in Miyazaki's Lupin the 3rd, Castle of Cagliostro and Laputa (Castle in the Sky). The heroes fight to save the young girls from dirty old guys who want to have her. So this complex is always in Miyazaki's work. He is always doing the same thing again and again. So it was not so new for us.

Q. Were there any popular anime before Future Boy Conan that had such strong lolicon overtones?

Many! Many many many! I can't count! Tezuka did it. Ishinomori did it. Fujiko Fujio did it. Just see my article about Tezuka's sex anime.
http://www.pulp-mag.com/archives/6.02/sexandviolence.shtml

However, regarding Miyazaki, there was the prototype of LanaÂs character. Alissa, a girl introduced in "When The Seventh Bridge Falls", one of the episodes of the original series of Lupin III(1969), which Miyazaki directed. In the episode, she is randomly kidnapped by a criminal mastermind. He used her as a hostage and he forces Lupin, the genius thief, to rob a treasure. In the end, Lupin shoots the villain to save the girl. It was 1969 and it was the first time for us to see a bullet penetrate a man in a very realistic way in prime time anime for children.

This was Miyazaki's first attempt to tell this kind of story all by himself. Alissa was thought of as the prototype for Lana and Castle of Cagliostro. The episode was also very erotic because Alissa is tied up the entire time and tortured by a buzz saw which almost cuts her head. It was like S&M or bondage, but she looks no more than 12 year old or less. So, audiences were given very complicated feelings to work out, like guilt and sadism. We hated the evil old man, but at the same time, we also felt very erotic feelings seeing the poor beautiful girl as a sadistic object.

Q. How popular was Future Boy Conan when it first aired?

A. It was very, very popular. It was the first attempt for NHK to make an original 30 minute animation for prime time. It was very successful. After Conan, Captain Future appeared in the same slot and tanked. Years later, it was the same time slot for Nadia: 7:30 pm. Making it was a big move for NHK.

Q. What kind of influence did the lolicon overtones in
the show have on otaku culture?

Lana, the heroine, became an icon of the lolicon people. Before, people like Tezuka and fujio-fujiko had shown little girls taking showers and baths, but they were doing it unconsciously. No one pointed it out by saying "This is very naughty." While Conan was on the air, Hideo Azuma, who was the first manga-ka that admitted he was lolicon, featured Lana from Conan in his comic, and openly declared his affection for her. Azuma, in his late 30Âs then, was very a popular manga artist and much loved by hard core Otakus. His declaration of love for Lana was a kind of breakthrough for Lolicon people I think. After that, lolicon guys came out of the closet. Then Cagilostro came out. Then Nausicaa began. The female characters in those films are all the same.

Q. Is the conflict between the community run farming country of High Harbor and the money/power obsessed wasteland of Industria representative of Miyazaki's politics?

Yes, it's obvious. Miyazaki has used this situation for his anime again and again. You can find the conflict between materialism and nature in the TV series Heidi of the Alps, on which he worked in 1974. Heidi who is raised in nature in the Swiss Alps suffers the urban life in the big city of Frankfurt. In Nausica, war is held between the industrial kingdom Tolmekia and the nature loving NausicaÂs people. In MONONOKE HIME, there is a conflict between the industrial guild Tatara and the guardians of wildlife.

One for the boys who like boys that like boys, or The Hard Gay Chronicles Part 1

2006-01-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, the U.S has seen its fair share of gay themed entertainment, but they've never really gotten Hard. Hard Gay that is.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7199990863486757834&q=HG

But who is this pelvic thrusting sensation? Masaki Sumitani, a comic who hit it big playing a hard line gay activist and helper of the people named Razor Ramon Hard Gay (or HG for short) on TBS's Saturday night comedy program Daibakuten. The shtick has Sumitani hitting the streets in leather bondage gear performing acts of yonaoshi (social improvement) while thrusting his hips and yelling “Whoo!” at fleeing bystanders.

For the part Sumitani bought his clothes at the gay fashion shop “VFTQ”, and did research in Doyama-cho, a popular spot for homosexuals in Osaka(although a friend recently told me all that you’ll find there are pasty old Brits wandering the streets like Homo-Frankensteins).

As a result of his appearances on Daibakuten he’s seen toys featuring his likeness, books containing his popular phrases, a pro-wrestling gig, and his first single.

Yeah, a single. A cover of Saijo Hideki's "Young Man"(which is a cover of the Village People’s "YMCA"). You can take that in here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7122640757487501917

I personally like the DJ pumping up with the turntable.

Ok, I think we've gone too far for now. This much Hard Gay activity can't be healthy for the mind. But there is still much to cover, toys, his history, pro-wrestling, and why the Japanese latched onto his act in the first place. All this and more to cum in the Hard Gay Chronicles: Part 2.