Matt Cooper Anime

Highschool of the Dead (2010-11)

Following the outbreak of a zombie virus, high school student Takashi Komuro (Junichi Suwabe) is forced to fight against the hordes of the living dead. Joining him are fellow survivors including his former girlfriend Rei Miyamoto (Marina Inoue), an intelligent, rich-kid Saya Takagi (Eri Kitamura), martial arts expert Saeko Busujima (Miyuki Sawashiro), portly geek Kota Hirano (Nobuyuki Hiyama), and teacher Shizuka Marikawa (Yukari Fukui). The group must work together, putting aside any former differences to escape from the school and find their way in this post-zombie apocalypse.

“Highschool of the Dead” is based on the manga by Daisuke Sato with illustration by Shoji Sato. Sato’s previous work was mainly self-published and this was his first non-“adult” project. The show borrows heavily from the exploitation genre, with graphic violence, blood splattering everywhere as they take out zombies in often darkly-humorous ways. The female protagonists are all endowed with improbably large bosoms and the camera rarely misses an opportunity for a shot of jiggling breasts or exposed panties. The male characters, Takashi and Kota, who presumably act as the surrogates for the intended audience, find themselves in the unusual position of being at once surrounded by beautiful young women, and simultaneously threatened with a gory death at the hands of rampaging zombies. There are serious tonal shifts throughout from horror to comedy, and it often has the feel of a show entirely put together by people who had no higher objective than to bring to the screen exactly what their audience would want to see. Although there are any number of zombie shows, this one does keep things fresh and fast-paced, with constant changes of environment and new challenges for the group. The introduction half-way through the series of a young girl and a dog to the group further alters the dynamic. The animation utilises several techniques, with comic inserts, frenetic CG enhanced action sequences, and the art-work on the zombies is especially good. The rock soundtrack keeps up the energy, and I enjoyed that the credits for each episode are accompanied by a different track.

A simple zombie survival tale that will appeal to anyone who is a fan of sexploitation cinema and gory horror. At times the show rises above the ridiculous and there are some moving sequences when it seems that the enormity of their situation finally catches up with the characters, but these are usually followed by more outrageous action or sex-jokes to lighten the mood. I would highly recommend it as one of the standout examples of the genre, with excellent animation work and character design and a story that keep throwing up unique and exciting scenarios.

Matt Cooper Films

Big Tits Zombie (2010) by Takao Nakano

When a film has a title like that you are really only watching it for two reasons. Written and directed by Takao Nakano, “Big Tits Zombie” is based on the manga by Rei Mikamoto and stars several adult film stars in what is a low-budget comedy horror romp. Beginning in media reswe see two of our heroines (Sora Aoi and Yumi Yoshiyuki) surrounded by zombies, hacking their way through with a katana and a chainsaw. Lena (Aoi) then kindly offers in voiceover to take us back to where this all began. Having just returned from Mexico, Lena is looking for work and finds it in the “Paradise Theatre” stripclub. Working alongside her are Ginko (Yoshiyuki), Maria (Mari Sakurai) who has a goth-loli style and love of Shakespeare, Nene (Tamayo) who is into reading tarot, and Darna (Io Aikawa) from south Asia who is raising money for her family back home. With few customers the women are bored. They are then farmed out to the local onsen spot to entertain the patrons there with female wrestling and other games. Following a fight in their dressing room, they discover a hidden passage behind a wall that leads down to an underground chamber. The chamber contains many occult books and a portal to hell. Because why not? When Maria begins reading an incantation from one book she unwittingly summons the dead back to life.

The film is as ridiculous as the title suggests and doubtless nobody involved was expecting a masterpiece. The manga “Big Tits Dragon” by Rei Mikamoto on which the film is based no doubt gave more weight to the film through giving each character some sense of personality. There is an attempt to give Lena some backstory and character development, even if it largely involves her getting drunk and having regrettable sexual encounters. The others are likewise all given a peculiar character quirk. Darna’s love of money and Maria’s gothic obsession are traits that do tie into the story in interesting ways, and it is more than you might have expected for anything to make sense in this film. One of the oddest moments of the film is a flashback involving Ginko, where she explains how she previously killed one of the zombies after he broke into her home and killed her younger sister. This subplot doesn’t really come back in any major way, which is a missed opportunity.

Speaking of missed opportunities, while there are plenty of zombies in the film the titular breasts make relatively few appearances. The sequence near the end where they have breasts sprayed with arterial spurt from slain zombies one would imagine would be a common occurrence in the film, but it plays as though it is intended as a scene inserted simply to justify the title. This wouldn’t be an issue were it not for the fact that the filmmakers rarely seem to make use of their biggest assets, that being the great cast of actresses he has. The script has several decent jokes, but too few to really class this as an out and out comedy. When they meet a blue ogre from hell who is in middle-management and complaining about the number of souls he is having to contend with, a little like an overpopulated prison as he remarks, the scene feels underplayed. Likewise, there are many creative moments, such as a woman having her organs eaten in the style of ‘body sushi’, playing ping pong with an eyeball, and a woman whose organs flail around like tentacles, that suffer through poor effects work. The last of these is severely damaged as you can see the strings holding up the puppetry. The flame-throwing vagina was one moment that absolutely caught the tone of the film, somewhere between horror and comedy, but it needed to push the envelope in this vein more often.

Sadly, the film falls between two stools. Neither raunchy or terrifying enough to be a standout of the ‘ero-guro’ genre, nor funny enough to be a great comedy. It’s short runtime means it is sure to find an audience looking for some B-movie goodness, but again the filmmakers really missed a trick in not going all out either in terms of the sexploitation or horror to make this truly memorable. It is to their credit that they attempt a modicum of plot and character and there is enough to keep you entertained, but it could have been so much more.

Matt Cooper Anime

Battle Vixens (2003)

When a new female transfer student Sonsaku Hakufu arrives at Nanyo Academy and begins challenging everyone in the yard to fight, her cousin rushes in to help her before she causes serious damage. This is no ordinary school, and no ordinary world, as various individuals have an earring that contains the spirit of a legendary figure from the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. The ditzy, upbeat protagonist is the spirit of a legendary warrior who loved fighting for its own sake and was a champion of the period. As the story progresses the characters find themselves involved in numerous fights with other students, replaying historic battles and attempting to avoid their fates.

Based on the manga by Yuji Shiozaki, and directed by Takashi Watanabe, the series contains many tropes from similar sexploitation series, going to almost any length to include upskirt shots of the girls, jiggling breasts, or sexually charged sequences. Each of the characters is given a unique personality though they remain largely surface level clichés. The conceit of the reincarnated spirits makes for an interesting story as the characters attempt to escape from their predestined paths, or relish following them. Those with knowledge or interest in this period of history may get more out of the series than the casual viewer, as each episode ends with a brief historical note on who the characters are meant to represent and what happened to them. The fight scenes are good and the humour, though broad, is entertaining. The major weakness is in the story that never really grabs your attention in the way it should. With the characters established it too often feels like a sequence of battles without a meaningful purpose. We see the rise and fall of several of the characters, but despite engaging fights you never feel a sense of danger. This is partly down to the outlandish premise that significantly impacts the ability to relate with anyone.

The central theme of the film is the idea of fate and escaping from it. Being reincarnated the characters are essentially living out another life in the modern era. This also conjures up the notion of a cyclical history where humanity is doomed to repeat its former errors and violence is an ineradicable human trait. By the end the characters do manage to change their course, but this raises the question of why they couldn’t have done this earlier. Despite a weak story the series moves quickly and does feature some exciting sequences and humour. Its main flaw is that, much like the characters, it feels as though it is going through the motions with few surprises.