Urotsukidoji: The Mop-Up (oh that's such a bad title) - by Liam R
There comes a time in everyone’s life where you have to square up to your fears and take them head on. Whether this be getting on a plane, holding a spider or merely entering a dingy backstreet pub on a Saturday night we all have to do it sometime. As far as I go, there is much chance of me facing my fears as there are of Slough Town entering the Football League in my life time. You see I am absolutely petrified of snakes, for a very good reason – how can you like an animal that has no legs but can still move. There are worms, but they’re featureless tubes whereas snakes have evil looking eyes, evil looking tongues and evil looking skin. So I won’t be seeing a psychologist any time soon to overcome that particular fear. SIDETRACK – a few years ago I did try to overcome it, when a flatmate’s friend brought a snake with her after a visit from a vet. I stood in the kitchen until she left but I had made my mind up that I was going to give it a go until I decided “no way dude”.
So what does all that crap have to do with Urotsukidoji? Plenty as it happens. You see in my first review I made a comment that I was particularly worried about re-watching the first two films again because of what happened in them. What I didn’t let on is that those fears were made all too real within the first five minutes of viewing. This was of course all going down while I had the third series sitting on my shelf awaiting a debut viewing, and after watching that and knowing full well that there was a fourth series still to be reviewed I couldn’t quite make a decision. Do I get number four for completeness, or do I try and have a dig around to see what happens? Having completed the digging, let’s just say that I wish I had left it at number three but we will deal with that in due course.
So to fully explain just what’s going to go down in this here article we need to start at the beginning. I was planning on using this column to do extended thoughts on Urotsukidoji One to Three, with a little bit of what I could find out on number four until I went hunting for my dad’s birthday present last year. I wasn’t looking for animated rape porn you understand, but after finding him something he might not have enjoyed I had time to kill before my train home so I wandered over towards the ‘Anime’ section of HMV to browse the latest titles when I saw them: Mission Of Darkness, Urotsukidoji IV and La Blue Girl Returns. Taking them in order, …Of Darkness is a really shitty hentai series which makes Urotsukidoji look highbrow. Want an example? Well here you go:
“You see, the military plan was simply to hire every call girl, hooker, exotic dancer or any other fairly attractive (by this title's standards) woman and round them up outside town. Then, they -- as told by the magnificent summary on the DVD -- spray the entire area with pheromones to attract the intergalactic rapist. Are you with me so far?
Anyway, I'm sure you're over and beside yourself with surprise when I tell you that, yes... it turns into a big orgy that doesn't even get interrupted when the penis monster (now bigger than Godzilla ever was) BURSTS FROM THE GROUND, grabs several women and staples them on himself as if they were human post-it notes with breasts.” [Source: THEM Anime]
Deep or what? Then came Urotsukidoji IV. Now what I had learnt about this title was that it was, like the first movie in the series, a three part story so I was expecting, nay praying for a running time of around about 80-90 minutes. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that the running time was a paltry 41 minutes. In fact, here’s a brief snippet from the back of the box to explain the short running time:
“The first two episodes ("The Secret Garden " and "The Long Road To Divinity") have been found unsuitable for release in the UK due to their explicit nature. They are therefore presented here in still format only.”
And in fact I’m going to leave that as that for now, or else you’ll stop reading. So that leaves La Blue Girl and in fact I’m going to leave that for a while as well, as that body of work should no doubt make amusing reading when I eventually get around to talking about it.
No where exactly was I going with all this? According to my hastily arranged research, there are three distinct genres within hentai: spoofs/comedies (Sex Demon Queen, for example, rips the piss out of RPG games, involves henchmen growing dogs heads, extending penises and random old blokes built like bodybuilders who give a rambling monologue before getting killed around randomly placed fuckfests or there’s Ogenki Clinic which is so bizarre and at times hilarious that it deserves it’s own review), romantic epics and tentacle porn. Now out of those three which genre has had the most titles released over here? If you said either of the first two, get the fuck out of my website you moron. And which of those was the first to be released? So enough with the long winded introductions, let’s return to the nightmare (again).
If you think these will help, THINK AGAIN!
Urotsukidoji: Legend Of The Overfiend
Notes: Film culled from three 50 minute episodes. American Running Time (Theatrical – 110 minutes). British Running Time (Theatrical – 108 mins).
Sorry but before we get going, check out this review of the movie. Seriously I'll wait.
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you just kissed your ten bucks goodbye” – Les Claypool. Only two of these things are true after watching Urotsukidoji. You will have kissed money goodbye. You will not laugh. And you will most definitely cry. Not tears of sadness, more tears of relief of having made it to the end and tears of rage at how something so unapologetically sick and twisted made it to general release.
For all the things that are wrong with this film, and there are a shitload believe me, this is still a landmark release. With the initial batch of anime released over here none courted more controversy than this and no title has divided more opinions. So exactly what is good about this film? Well the underlying plot and storyline are actually pretty cool, and if you look deeper and past all the erroneous junk there is a pretty powerful moral story about the general fucking over of the planet but even that is probably a stretch. It’s also animated quite well (when it’s not rape) and there are a couple of cracking set pieces (Suikakajyu and Amano’s fight plus the end sequence before Amano’s crappy monlogue). However, the way the film is executed though, just takes any goodwill that may have come its way and fucks it up the arse.
For starters, all the characters seem to fall into two distinct categories: completely retarded idiots (Akemi) or sex obsessed perverts (everyone else). No shades of grey, no nothing and it makes it incredibly difficult for the viewer to get attached to a film where everyone is a varying degree of a bad guy or just simply not likeable enough to be a hero. And then there is the rape.
You see, I don’t know whether I’ve thought about this too much and my brain has turned to a puddle of lukewarm jelly, but from my memory every time the plot needs to change direction we get some sort of rape scene. For example, the only reason Akemi and Nagumo ‘fall in love’ (and I use that phrase VERY loosely) is because of a rape; Niki only decides to chop his cock off after a full blown schoolgirl lesbian orgy; Niki only remembers to go after Nagumo after raping and killing three girls with his twenty foot long cock. The list goes on and on, but in the British version these are thankfully chopped to bits and remain teetering on the edge of good taste. The full length Japanese version is longer by almost 50 minutes and what do you get for your money: longer sex scenes! Fully animated (and horribly detailed) penetration! More rape! In its original form it’s much less of a horror film with rape, and instead a rape film with a few bits of plot development and gory murder riveted on as an afterthought.
Still as I said before, you have to see this at least once. As the first hentai movie ever released outside of Japan its place in history is assured, but it is a shame that it is overshadowed in almost every way by it’s sequel. *** (out of a possible five).
Urostukidoji II: The Legend Of The Demon Womb
Notes: Film culled from two 50 minute episodes. American Running Time (Theatrical – 86 minutes). British Running Time (Theatrical – 83 mins).
When the day comes and I have to explain to the police why I have such a large collection of illegal stuff, pornography or otherwise, it will be a dark day for humanity. What won’t be a dark day is when Toshio Maeda is run over by a truck as people who aren’t fans of misogynous under-aged tentacle rape will dance a dance of joy that the lead proprietor of such filth is dead. Which is a shame because if this was a trial, he could show Doji II as a prime example that he does have a clue how to pull together a good horror movie without relying on erection-inducing slime rape. Now that’s not to say the Doji II’s rape content is lower than the prequel because it isn’t (in a ratio obviously) but it is how said sexual deviancy is portrayed is what lifts it above the wank material of its older brother.
You see as I outlined in the previous paragraph, Doji I’s rape scenes were (intentionally or not) designed to arouse young men. In Doji II the rape is handled in the way it’s supposed to: with horror and disgust. It’s high brow stuff, but whether it was meant to be that way I don’t really want to find out. Nor do I want to find out exactly who or what was smoking/being smoked when the subject of the NAZI SEX DEATH RAPE MACHINE came up. I mean, what the fuckety fuck fuck fuck? There have been many times watching the film (well not THAT many) where I have pondered exactly why it was there and I still can’t come up with a decent reason. The only logical explanation could be a rumour that the SS in Germany had several ceremonies which were occult in basis if not execution (that’s totally the wrong word) so ran with that and came up with the NAZI SEX DEATH RAPE MACHINE.
Well that’s enough about that so what else is there to commend about the film? In a word: Takeaki. Finally, a character in the series that you can actually care about whether he lives, dies or gets his arse penetrated by a spiky tentacle. Indeed, as the film goes on and his morality and humanity are stripped away by Muhnihausen’s mental torture you can’t help but root for him, even when that slut Megumi is attempting to do naughty things to him. I could almost go so far as to say that if Nagumo had been replaced by Takeaki in the original film, I wouldn’t hate that one as much.
So in a weird way, this is the only Doji film that is what can only be described as good. In fact for hentai standards it’s a masterpiece. If someone could carve out all the rape, insert a vague police investigation to the serial killings while keeping it within the same setting as the first you would have a great film. A film, called The Exorcist (no, I’m not kidding either!) ****.
A first subtle detour: A one-way ticket to Hell and back
Note comedy 'Not For Children' label. I mean, how stupid are some people?
Part of the reason this collection of words you are reading has taken so long to go from typed gibberish to typed gibberish in another format and rendered in a web browser is what I am about to tell you, and without a doubt this will quite possibly the hardest series of paragraphs I will need to write. You see it will be the hardest thing not because I’m an idiot (although that is true) or because I can’t write (wait, that’s true as well) but mainly due to the locked away fears I have kept since I first stumbled upon the myth that is La Blue Girl.
I can’t remember the exact circumstances leading up to my viewing of this, this, thing but I’ll hazard a guess that it was around about the time I reviewed Urotsukidoji I. Having seen the legend ‘From the creator of La Blue Girl’ on the dodgy American imports of the previously mentioned title I figured that I would download an episode to see what all the fuss was about. This was just one of the many thousands of really fucking stupid things I have done in my life, and something that I am still paying for in my waking nightmares (more on them coming soon).
You see, the first scene up was a demonic gang rape. Nothing unusual there, except that while Doji over here had bad editing and THE FOG OF DOOM! to cover up the vaginal atrocities being performed, La Blue Girl had none, letting you the view watch gooey tentacle rape in badly animated and poorly drawn close up. I skipped ahead towards the end to see the ‘heroine’ (as loosely termed as possible) giving herself a good finger fucking in order to transport herself to the demon world. Oooooooooookay, I then went back to the middle where the scene that drove me over the edge lay. Not only was it an insanely long rape scene but our ‘heroine’ kept making really, really bad sexual jokes, double entendres and puns all the way through it, like rape is something to be laughed at. I could take no more so I went into my back garden, threw up and stayed outside for an hour smoking terrified to go back in the house. When I could finally stomach going back in, I deleted the fucking thing forever. Now please don’t think that I am making any of that up, as that is exactly what happened on that fateful afternoon.
But after a few months and a hell of a lot of alcohol I decided to download another episode, thinking that the first one maybe wasn’t representative of the series (and I know this makes me sound like a pervert). So what do we get treated to in this episode: a flashback to various rapes, including one performed by what looks like one of those air hoses you find at you local petrol station forecourt; rampant female masturbation in the street in front of children; a dubiously aged girl growing a ten inch long dildo from her clit and raping her teacher; twice; a battle of rampant ten inch long clit dildos; a four on one demon gang rape; a woman getting raped by a two foot wide stone dildo. I mean, you really do run the entire range of atrocities in that, and this is one THIRTY FIVE MINUTE EPISODE! I have no idea what this says about Doji or Maeda, but whatever you think of Doji, it’s practically Oscar winning material compared to its younger. More depraved brother. And having written this, can someone pass me the eye bleach? An dif you still don’t believe me, here’s what the BBFC had to say about it when they banned it:
“Rejected on grounds of its pornographic treatment of sexual violence. Warrior tribes demonstrate the art of gang rape as a martial technique. Monsters with penile tentacles subject female captives to multiple penetration, while a victim responds lasciviously under the influence of an aphrodisiac. Verbal abuse compounds images of sexual victimisation and male power, and the message that rape is the ultimate source of sexual pleasure is overwhelming.” [source: BBFC / melonfarmers]
Urotsukidoji III: Return Of The Overfiend
Notes: culled from 210 minutes. British Running Times: 180 minutes including 10 minutes of just-for-OVA-release flashbacks so call it 170 minutes.
Well lordy, lordy. Now I may have already said some cruel things about Doji so far in this article but the first two movies, beneath all the horrible sexual stuff, do have some great ideas that in the hands of the right writer could be a cracking little horror series. Number three in the series also has some cracking ideas: the world has been destroyed, mutants are everywhere, let’s bring the chaos. Unfortunately the execution is somewhat flawed. Fuck that, it’s not flawed it’s got about as much hope as the Titanic did back in the day.
From a sheer technical standpoint, the animation is fucking crap, making the prequels look like Toy Story compared to this abomination. Second and third reasons lie in the hands of Kiseki Video and the idiots who edited this whole shebang. Kiseki really ruin this by getting in a crack team who translated the script word for word. Now with political speeches this may be alright, but in a movie you can’t do that as a lot of what is being said makes fuck all sense when literally translated. Aside from the subtitles not making a lick of sense genders change at random, names change from one line to the next and all sorts of other niggles which make trying to follow incredibly difficult when you’re laughing your arse off at what is written on screen.
And then there’s the editing of the rape scenes of which there are many. The usual tactic here seems to be wait for a rape scene look like it’s about to start then cut right to the end. I guess this can be construed as a good thing, but why not just cut the whole fucking scene out? Of course, this pales into insignificance next to the beloved FOG OF DOOM! Now this censorship technique seems to solely exist in Japan and involves fogging over the actual penetration shots. This in turn stems from what happened in Japan between the release of Doji I and Doji II where a string of sexual crimes were commited meaning that that the once liberal anime scene had to censor the hard stuff. Now as someone who has seen a scene with THE FOG involved, why couldn’t they cut it out? It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on and sometimes, well let’s say that the fog thins a little too often for my liking.
There's something not quite right here. Oh yeah, she isn't in the fucking movie (not that it matters mind)
Now I could (just) about live with all this if every other important ingredient in a decent film or series was present but Doji III falls down here as well. The plot moves at two speeds: crawling through treacle in a lead suit or ten times the speed of light but this is probably not helped by the crappy translation. But the worst of the worst is the motley crew of characters assembled here. Now take everything bad I said about the chacaterisations in Doji I and multiply that to infinity. Take Alector for example: she’s killed by her father’s mad search for the Chojin or Evil King/Lord Of Chaos (it’s never made clear), is rebuilt as her father’s personal sex slave (twice), is raped by Buju and then falls in love with him, gets gang raped then reconciles with her father. Do these people even live in the real fucking world? I know that movies are meant to be flights of fantasy where disbelief is suspended but to swallow all that Alector goes through and watch her make nice nice with Daddy dearest makes my stomach turn.
Also, Buju is just a complete waste of space turning from evil, raping and pillaging bastard to confused nice guy in the space of about five minutes. Caesar, well the less said about him the better. I think the film tries to play him as a sympathetic character but he lords over so much depravity (usually with his daughter remember) that you can’t help but hate him. Amano is relegated to the coolest bit of the series, fighting with Muhnihausen on some nuclear missles but also has zero input on the ongoing story despite being the focus of the first film. Megumi, well she gets raped by a body constructed of two dozen rotten corpses and the less said about that the better.
This could have and should have been the end of the series with the post-apocalyptic setting and everything delicately poised to get to that goal, but everything about the series just drags it down into the territory of simply unwatchable. Apart from the aforementioned battle amongst the nukes in Episode Three, there is simply nothing to recommend here as the plot barely advances from start to end. ½*(and that’s because I’m generous).
A secondary subtle detour: The BBFC, censorship and the difference between ratings
This may be hard to believe but in the days before the internet the only way to watch pornography of the hardcore persuasion was in a dingy cinema in Soho . Eventually the BBFC, the body responsible for rating all British film releases, started allowing porn through under the new R18 rating. Unfortunately, these early releases were missing penetration shots, cum shots, blow jobs, even erect penises were banned from them. But slowly and surely the BBFC has come round and now pretty much anything goes. Well almost anything as fisting, hardcore S&M, gagging during fellatio and any form of strong abuse (verbal or otherwise). So why exactly am I telling you this and what does it have to do with Urotsukidoji? I’m glad you ask, as this has everything to do with what constitutes the difference between a straight 18 rated film and an R18 one.
“Sex works are works, normally on video or DVD, whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation. Sex works containing only material which may be simulated are generally passed ‘18’, while sex works containing clear images of real sex are confined to the ‘R18’ category.” [source: BBFC / melonfarmers]
So where does this leave hentai? Well it rather cunningly straddles the fence as because it is animated is, by definition, simulated meaning that it should be a straight 18. Yet it does show “ clearly unassimilated shots of oral-genital or oral-anal contact (especially shots showing clear sight of contact of lips or tongue with anus, labia, clitoris, penis or scrotum)” [source: BBFC / melonfarmers] meaning it should be an R18. I know this probably means nothing to any of you, but when it comes to censoring or certifying hentai for release a distribution company could argue that what you are seeing is clearly simulated due to animation and get away with an 18 rating. At which point, I would quite probably kill myself.
Urotsukidoji IV: Infernal Road
Notes: Japanese run time – 135 minutes; British run-time – 42 minutes.
DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!
Well if that doesn’t clue you in as to what the fuck is going on then I don’t know what will. First things first, I’ve never seen this part of the series. Secondly, what we shall call Doji IV is actually Doji IV and V, with part IV being a two part story only vaguely connected to the rest of the series. In fact “you can go straight from the end of Urotsukidoji III to the beginning of the Urotsukidoji IV (or Doji V as I’ve christened it – Liam) movie without missing anything significant” [source: animeondvd.com [http://www.animeondvd.com]]. But you see, the BBFC had big problems with the first two parts of the series. Want to know what those problems are and the number one reason why we’ll never see those episodes over here without running the risk of getting incarcerated by Customs & Excise? Thought you did…
“Rejected on the grounds of its pornographic treatment of sexual violence. This involved children in the abuse and physical mutilation of women. in one scene a boy of 10 or 11 years old is sexually assaulted by two naked women and saves himself by tearing them apart, stripping the flesh off one and ripping the other's buttocks apart. Children become voyeurs of adult sex, instigating and viewing orgies and applauding the rape of pubescent children. As so often in Manga cartoons, these are tentacled multi-orifice rapes by lecherous monsters, which the Board found depraving and corrupting.” [source: BBFC / melonfarmers]
Enough of a justification? Hell no as they tried to submit again for a release and so the BBFC let them have I again with further justification…
“This is the second time that this work has been refused video classification by the BBFC. Throughout the work, there are realistic animated representations of children involved in sexual acts and perceived as sexual objects, or witnessing sexual acts. The Board's concern about the attractiveness of such material to paedophiles, and the appeal of the cartoon style to young children who would thereby be more vulnerable to its use by paedophiles to entice them, was confirmed by advice from a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. It is therefore unsuitable for classification under the Video Recordings Act 1984. Before rejection, the Board carefully considered whether cuts would remove the dangers. However, they would have to be so extensive that no viable version of the work would remain. Indeed, it is doubtful if any version of the work would be acceptable.” [source: BBFC / melonfarmers]
Those be fighting words they be. So if anyone should ever tried to import the original, uncut series of Infernal Road they would be arrested under pretty much every Child Protection Law you can think of. But is it really that bad? I mean, evil psychic children forcing kids slightly older themselves to get raped and killing everything isn’t damaging is it? Of course it is, it’s highly disgusting but this dude apparently doesn’t think that child initiated rapes are that bad…
“In fact, one of the ghastly things about Lord Ellis and his followers is that they have absolutely no comprehension of sexuality in any form, and regard all of those who have it with limitless contempt; coming from Toshio Maeda, a person who seems to think more deeply than most on sexuality, this is a disturbing idea. This two-OVA story arc is one of the least erotic sections of the Urotsukidoji series (ALL of the sex scenes are set, intentionally, in contexts that render them too disturbing to be very erotic – an interesting, unique achievement), and easily the most grueling to watch. It makes you wonder what would actually happen if the world were run by practically undefeatable children...and shudder in dread. The graphically gruesome and degrading treatment of adults that we see is only a suggestion of the numberless horrors perpetrated throughout the years in the fog-shrouded pit. And, just as in all of the other Urotsukidoji story arcs, there are people genuinely in love -- Ken and Yumi. And, also like all of the other story arcs, there is tragedy. Just as no-one in this story can be considered altogether “innocent” in the popular sense (before they grew up, Ken and Yumi were exactly like Ellis & Co.), so likewise no-one is above feeling pain, grief, ruin and madness.” [source: animeondvd written by ‘Giaourus Ericus’]
So they people that reviewed it for a British release said that there are “are realistic animated representations of children involved in sexual acts and perceived as sexual objects, or witnessing sexual acts” whereas this moron just seems to see how some people can occasionally feel emotions. Of course, that’s not the dumbest statement he makes in his review…
“With every detail of this interaction, I refute the idea that Toshio Maeda doesn’t understand what love is – even through the dub, this part of the story is very tender and beautifully handled. (Additionally, you have to watch Legend of The Overfiend to understand the significance of the charm that Idaten gives Himi as a gift.)” [source: animeondvd written by ‘Giaourus Ericus’]
Stop laughing kids. There is nothing even remotely lovey dovey about anything that happens during this whole series. Sure I can make a vague exception for the Takeaki-Megumi story in number two, but for a series that throws rape in every few minutes I totally refute this idea. Maeda uses sexual assault as a way to turn on his viewer, which may well work in some deep, dark recesses of human depravity but not here? And to use kids to perpetrate these same sexual horrors in a few throwaway episodes at the end of the series, may he burn in hell tonight. Oh and if you want to know how the whole series ends, I’ll tell you now: The Chojin drinks some menstrual blood from Himi and the word reverts back to how it was at the end of the series, with no destruction whatsoever. What a fucking waste.
The final, final, final, etc. word
You may need this
And this is a promise I want to keep as well. Over the last year, I have made several references to this very article which you have just trawled through. It’s gone through several revisions, both in my head and actual typing. It’s been scrapped more times than I can remember so now that it’s finished I suppose I should give myself a pat on the back for getting it done and take an intense course of therapy to remove all the horrible shit I’ve had to watch, look at and read just to get it completed.
Now the best way to look at the Doji saga is to essentially split it into three parts: Doji I, Doji II and Doji III and IV. The first movie is a benchmark and one of the anime films that you have to see before you die. It may be horrible and full of sexual deviance but if you could cut away all of that you are left with a pretty decent horror movie with a few cool sequences (the Suikakajyu vs. Amano fight, the world uniting set piece) but it still is filled with more rapes than is necessary. Don’t buy it, but if you need something to shock your mates with rent it. Doji II is a much better movie all-round than any in the series. Everything that you see is executed (almost perfectly) giving the viewer a truly unsettling psychological drama which uses sexual assault as something to make the viewer look away from the screen rather than turn the viewer on (a major fault with the rest) that with a little tweaking could have been a truly great movie.
The last two parts sink back into typical Maeda territory as previously trod by the likes of La Blue Girl and Nightmare Campus. Rape, rape and more rape with a flimsy storyline used as an excuse for more rape. They really don’t serve any purpose and the series could have quite easily been wrapped up in three episodes rather than seven. And as for Doji IV, well the less said about that the better.
So where do I go from here? It seems that this article will be my defining moment in my writing career so I guess I should end with something deeply profound or witty. I won’t, so just be glad I summed all this stuff up so you don’t have to watch it. But now I think about it, maybe someone should remake the series...