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Abashiri Family
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Title Info
- seen: 1-4 of 4
- type: OAV
- grade: burnable
- Other elements of this title:
- This title should offend everyone.
- people: Go-Nagai
- form: sub
- genre: hentai
- made: unknown
- Review created: Sat Dec 2 12:40:32 EST 2000
- mod: none
Did you know that Go Nagai translates as Go-away in english? well, you do now. I borrowed this video because, on some deluded site, i'd read a good review. When I learnt it was a Go Nagai film my optimism exploded. But perhaps this was going to be the one that changed my opinion of him? Well, it did... this video is even more gross, cheap and disgusting than any of his previous efforts. It's just way stupid and, worst of all, it actually takes itself seriously at points...unforgivable.
The plot is like a weird assemblage of Go Nagai's typical fetish's. It begins with the worlds stupidest bank-robbery. Although this is really just a stage to introduce the most feared criminal family in this alternate (it's ruled by China) and mega-violent Japan. Each member of the Abashiri family has super-abilities. The big one's a cyborg, the youngest uses explosives (including his clothes) and another is a super fast pervert type. Warped perverted little daddy is a swordsman, and the other brothers more than a little bit different. In fact this whole bank robbery is staged to that daddy can reveal to the family that one of their brothers is actually...a female (they're not too bright).
It seems the always male Abashiri family has had it's first daughter. And daddy is determined that she will get to live as a normal woman, despite already having 160 kills to her name. Thus, even though she is a master of one of the most deadly martial arts in the world, he enrols her in paradice academy so that she can learn to be a young girl, prior to living a normal life.
Now this actually sounds like a serious story. And in the hands of someone with even minimal amounts of skill and taste it would be. But this comes to you through Nagai-brand perv-o-vision. To start with the bank is populated with masses of super ugly tellers who throw off their dresses to reveal leather and weaponry. The owner is a bionic transvestite. And the whole place is a police trap and this quickly surrounded. But this just gives lots of targets for some stupid violence as each abashiri gets to do their `special moves'.
And of course the school she is put into is actually a hell-prison for murderers run by sadistic and perverted criminals. The body count goes through the roof as whatever taste this show had runs screaming for the hills. There's perversion and lots of randomly flying body parts and some really dire action. This is just so lame it is almost guaranteed to make you wonder why you cared about anime in the first place.
But I expected this from Go Nagai. What really makes this annoying is that at times it seems to believe it is doing something of value. There are the barest flashes of actual story or plot before Go Nagai once again gives in to his desperately sad inability to have matured out of primary school. It's also a mess, with scenes strung together and characters introduced and carelessly blown away. Likewise sometimes the Abashiri daughter is tough, which suddenly changes when she needs to provide a target for some sexual assault.Even for Go Nagai this series is a complete waste of time. And it is without the protection of `not taking itself seriously' which enable something like Kekko Kamen to be survivable. It's a barely coherent mess of random scenes, sadistic violence and cheesy dialogue. It's tasteless and tedious and corny and pervy and i'd feel easier being an anime fan if every copy spontaneously combusted.
The animation itself is likewise careless...but it's still way better than this deserves. Ugly character designs for everyone but the two `pretty' women. Stupid characters in general, an unbelievable world, terrible technical design...it's just sad. And then there's the careless linework, splotchy and blocky coloring. Finally the violence is of the `school kid with red texta variety' and very unexciting. It's basically the cheapest possible stage to support Go Nagai's sad little vision of the world. Combine with shitty dialogue and over-acting (probably meant to be humor) and you've got something that gives meaning to the word burnable.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:14 WST 2009