It is the year 1941. 11-year-old Murakami Wataru lives with his family, Japanese textile traders operating in British Kenya, when war breaks out between Japan and the Allies. Fleeing into the bush, young Wataru falls headlong into a series of fantastic adventures. (Source: ANN)
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Overview: Kenya Boy, along with being one of the more polite things Trump calls Obama, is also the name of a 1984 kids movie considered "one of the worst ever" by older otaku. The founder of animenewsnetwork listed it among his anime Hall of Shame and that guy has seen about 5,000 anime! Background: Kenya Boy was based on a 1950s manga that never really gained fame or popularity outside Japan. The manga is basically a Japanese Tarzan ripoff that hasn't aged particularly well. The movie tries to adapt the entire manga and crams WAY too much plot into a 100 minute run time, making the last30 minutes an absolute blitz of insanity. Plot: The plot is basically what you get when you mix Tarzan with a cocaine induced fever dream. Our hero Wataru is a young Japanese boy whose father is a merchant in 1941 Kenya. Since Kenya was a British colony and Japan declared war on Great Britain, Wataru's father decides to give his son a last tour of the country before fleeing back to Japan. Unfortunately, a rhino attacks and Wataru becomes separated from his father. The next day, Wataru finds a sick man named Zega who is actually the chief of the Masai tribe. Wataru offers to retrieve a rare healing herb to cure Zega, because he is Japanese and the Japanese are a brave and noble people. Seriously, this manga's patriotism is off the charts. Every other line is "I am not afraid for I am Japanese!" "Wow! You're Japanese! You must be very strong!". Wataru manages to escape a monster frog the size of an elephant and retrieve the herb. In exchange, Zega leaves his son in charge of the tribe and travels with Wataru to help him find his father. 3 years later, Wataru has become a spear wielding, elephant riding badass that can summon a Godzilla sized purple snake...because Zega is appararently the African Orochimaru. Wataru and Zega soon come across a young blonde girl who is being manipulated by an evil shaman. The shaman claims the blonde girl is a goddess and the entire village believes him, for some reason. Wataru and Zega manage to defeat the evil shaman and free the girl, whose name is Kate. We get a quick scene of Wataru and Kate bonding and becoming friends, but then she is immediately kidnapped by the lizard people! They are a subterranean tribe with idiotic Barney the Dinosaur costumes who worship a giant lizard. Fortunately, they flee in terror if you damage their costumes. Why? Who knows! With Kate rescued, we enter the final act and HOLY SHIT is it ridiculous! A full 3/4 through the movie we are introduced to the villain...some Nazi with a monocle! This guy named "Von Goering" has found Wataru's father and convinced him that he is a nice guy. In reality, Goering wants Wataru's father to convince a German scientist to complete Nazi Germany's secret atom bomb. The scientist, who I guess is supposed to be Heisenberg, refuses on moral grounds to allow the Nazis to have the bomb. However, Goering captures Wataru, Kate, and Zega. He then threatens to kill them if Heisenberg doesn't create the bomb. Heisenberg demands the hostages are released first, then detonates the bomb inside the testing faciliy sacrificing himself to destroy the Nazis and the research notes. Fortunately for our heroes, the bomb tears open a portal to Mesozoic Era. Yes...this fucking happens. Our heroes are attacked by a T-Rex, but the giant purple snake also traveled back in time! The snake kills the T-Rex which causes it and all other dinosaurs to immediately turn into skeletons. Why? Who the fuck knows! Our heroes then ride the snake back to the present and into safety. Wataru bids farewell to Zega and rides a train with his father and Kate because the war has apparently just ended. Art: The art during the beginning is actually quite good. This film actually had a decent budget for a 1984 anime. Then the art gets...weird. If this weren't such a crappy movie it could get away with claiming "Avant Garde" but instead it just feels like it wasn't finished. Sometimes it randomly cuts to black and white. Sometimes the lines aren't drawn in. Sometimes the bottom half of the screen becomes pixelated or looks like 8-bit graphics. Sometimes characters change skin color for absolutely no reason and then turn back again in the same scene. I have no idea why any of this is happening! Music: The music is a full orchestral soundtrack that is FAR better than this clusterfuck of a movie deserves. Audio: Many veterans of old school anime are in this, but Wataru is played by a child actor who never voiced anything again. Even non-Japanese speakers can pick up on how flat and emotionless his performance is. This kid is the Japanese Jake Lloyd! Overall: Kenya Boy is a VERY flawed film with a plot that's total nonsense and art that is inconsistent at best. However, it is quite entertaining and definitely worth a watch! You will never see another anime quite like this one!
Circa 2024. After watching Kenya Boy I am quite stunned. It uses some standard "boy must survive in Africa tropes" but then had a pacing that only intensifies by the minute. It is one of those movies that most represents what it meant to be an anime in the 80s. I won't bother with a synopsis, just know a boy gets lost in Africa due to the start of WW2 and must survive nature while looking for his father. This is the basic stuff that would normally make this an average movie, it's how far the writer went from there that truly makesthis a classic. Explosions, monsters, and a good vibes ending truly is what makes it 80s. Music feels classic. Animation is very well done, but had some questionable choices where they remove colors and sometimes backgrounds from scenes that makes some parts look a unfinished but thinking back on it, I suspect were completely stylistic. Africa's natural beauty is in full glorious display, Africa's culture, not so much. Regardless how accurate it is, African tribes are mostly portrayed in a stereotypically offensive or at least tacky way. Luckily by the end of the movie it's easy to overlook since the true enemy of the movie is revealed and the trusted allies were the friends they made along the way. A truly classic action adventure spectacle, the likes of which we never see today.
There's this concept of a show that is "So Bad It's Good" - as in, it is recognized to be a terrible movie/show, but its terrible-ness is so over the top that it is actually entertaining to watch. In fact, MST3K was founded on this principle. Kenya Boy is definitely one of those "So Bad It's Good" movies. As it started, I thought I was in for a standard Coming Of Age story, as a young boy is separated from his father in the heart of Africa at the start of war, and has to fendfor himself. Well, okay, I can go along with that. And then, it starts to go off the rails. Just a little bit at first, with things like giant animals and such. But then it just goes absolutely nuts. I won't go into all details because spoilers, but soon he (along with his father-mentor-figure) are fighting off literally hundreds of swarming tribesmen with nothing but a single spear. Giant frog! Giant snake! Which they ride! Giant lizard! The Lizard King! Blond jungle woman! By the end of the movie it gets so crazy they add in actual Nazis,fighting dinosaurs and an atomic explosion. Don't you dare go into this, expecting to take any of this seriously. It's a bad movie, sure, but it is damn entertaining. Especially if you want to watch it with a bunch of friends that like to one-up each other with snarky comments.
