Daizaburo Edi-Ban, a Japanese-American, joins New York City's toughest precinct, the 34th. On his first day he is partnered up with John Estes, called Sleepy by his friends and Mad Bull by his enemies, a cop who stops crime with his own violent brand of justice. Mad Bull makes no qualms about executing common thieves with shotgun blasts if they even pose a minor threat to him or anyone around them. Mad Bull also often steals from prostitutes and does incredible amounts of property damage while fighting crime. Mad Bull's unpoliceman-like behavior often puts him in hot water with his partner Daizaburo and the 34th precinct. However, despite how reckless or illegal these acts are, a good cause is always revealed (For example, Sleepy uses the money he steals from the prostitutes to fund a venereal disease clinic and a home for battered and raped women). Perrine Valley, a police lieutenant, joins Daizaburo and Sleepy later on to help them tackle more difficult cases involving the mafia and drug-running.
Mad Bull 34 is inspired by the high-action buddy cop films of the '70s and '80s.
(Source: Thevinnymac)
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Comentários
animegorey
I was so happy I was able to find this on dvd ( if you can't, let me know and I'll help). This is funny, with good action and interesting stories. Each episode is about 45 minutes. Violence is great and explicit. Profanity flies like there's no tomorrow and it fits this anime. Animation is typical of early 90's. Some nudity that also has it's explicit moments. Pretty good cop anime that is not afraid to be over the top wether it's violence or comedy. Very enjoyable and rewatchability is high. If you like cyberpunk, I would recommend you check this out. I don't thinkI would classify it as cyberpunk, but it has it's moments.
literaturenerd
I knew I had to review at least one anime over the holiday season. Maybe I could review Tokyo Godfathers, the best Christmas movie ever made? Nah. Maybe I could review Akiba Maid War…but it’s just so hard to talk about that show without spoiling the fun. So, I decided to do something completely different and just re-review my favorite “So bad it’s awesome” anime of all time. I wrote a quick, shitty review back in 2014 or 2015 but I did NOT do this series justice. Now it’s time that I fully commit to spreading the gospel of the Mad Bull! It's difficult to talkabout Mad Bull without first bringing up the man responsible for it. That man being the legendary Kazuo Koike whom we lost back in 2019. Koike is best known for Lone Wolf and Cub, which is considered one of the most influential works of early seinen. Koike alongside Go Nagai are really credited with giving manga some balls and showing publishers that it doesn’t just have to be for kids. There’s a big market for adults as well. Lone Wolf and Cub is SOO well respected that it’s one of the sacred manga that’s considered acceptable to talk about on literature forums like /lit/ and you won’t be made fun of. That’s why it’s one of the 10 manga that MAL elitists will actually fucking read alongside Berserk, Punpun, Monster, Phoenix, and of course JoJo part 12: Balls of Steel. So why am I about to review one of the most laughably bad anime of all time? How did Koike go from an industry legend to a man whose latter works are a risible embarrassment? The rise and fall of Kazuo Koike almost eerily parallel that of American comic artist Frank Miller. He’s this guy who just shows up out of nowhere and absolutely kicked down the door with tits and gore and rampant misogyny and everyone was like “Holy shit! I thought comics were for little kids! This guy is actually making them enjoyable for men. That’s fucking bad ass! Much like Mr. Miller, Koike could actually be a pretty good writer when we wanted to be. However, both men let their fame go to their heads until their works morphed from cutting edge to a grotesque parody of itself. Koike went Lady Snowblood and Lone Wolf in the 1970s to writing Mad Bull, Wounded Man and Crying Freeman all in a row during the 1980s. Interestingly, the work that bridged his good work and his awful work was a manga that he worked on for 3 years alongside Go Nagai. While Koike’s latter works are indeed awful, they’re also undeniably entertaining. Mad Bull especially, which has been described as an escaped mental patient’s attempt at writing a buddy cop film.
The other hero behind today’s anime is Satoshi Dezaki. He is the elder brother of Osamu, one of the greatest and most innovative directors in the history of anime. While his brother reinvented the anime industry, Satoshi founded a studio called Magic Bus and mostly directed utter schlock. They must have had some awkward family get togethers. However, Satoshi wasn’t without his triumphs. Sure, people like to laugh at Magic Bus for making stuff like Cipher and Wounded Man, but they also helped animate a little OVA series called Legend of the Galactic Heroes when most other studios weren’t interested. In 1990, the stars aligned, and Dezaki directed today’s MASTERPIECE of an anime. While the Mad Bull manga is entertaining, the anime is an entirely different level of awesome. The manga knew it was a joke. It’s supposed to be stupid. However, the anime often forgets this and plays the most ludicrous situations entirely straight. Half the time, the anime seems to think it’s a hard-hitting drama and brutal criticism of America in the vein of Chinatown. This blissful lack of self-awareness is really what helps cement the anime as an all-time masterpiece of schlock entertainment.
Described by the official Anime Encyclopedia as an “odious, infantile, and puerile piece of shit”, Mad Bull 34 is the story of a 9-foot-tall police officer who cleans up the mean streets of 1980s New York City alongside his strait-laced partner, Daizaburo “Eddie” Ban. This name btw would make you think that his legal name is Daizaburo but he’s always called by his nickname Eddie. He’s never once called Eddie in either the show or the manga. Not once…ever. Officer John “Sleepy” Estes is a loose cannon cop who takes every opportunity he can to kill criminals and get them off the street. In his defense, he never kills anyone in the anime who was unarmed. However, he’s not the best cop when he brings in only one criminal for questioning in 4 episodes and kills about 87. It’s also probably a bad look in 2022 to have your anime start with a white police officer shooting a black guy’s head clean off within the opening 15 seconds. Don’t worry, Officer Sleepy also kills a bare minimum of 15 white people per episode. There is no discrimination or pattern whatsoever in his mass slaughter of New York’s criminal population. Officer Sleepy is also the biggest pimp in New York, but the anime presents this as a good thing since he uses the girls’ money to treat STDs, drug addiction and other medical expenses, so he spends their money more responsibly than they do and takes care of them. This anime has issues as you may have guessed. Each episode is a different adventure featuring an incredibly over the top villain including a cyborg mob-boss and female athlete who stole an alien super suit from the mafia and became The Predator. Daizaburo contributes to the show mostly by getting the living shit kicked out of him and needing to be rescued. A female cop Perine is introduced into the show although her contribution is much the same as every other blonde woman in this show. I’ll just let you guess what that is. There are only 4 episodes, but they are all completely insane and utterly hilarious.
Mad Bull is the perfect show to watch with friends because no matter how many times I see it, I’m still finding new errors and goofs! You’ll notice the first time you watch it that every single English word in the anime is misspelled. Even Sleepy’s name tag when you first meet him is “Suleepy”. The episode title should read “Good-bye Sleepy” but instead reads “Good by Sleepy” as if he’s selling a perfume. Then you’ll notice the scaling. Officer Sleepy goes from 6 feet to 12 feet tall and everything in between. Often within the same scene. Scaling errors in this show are so bad that it often feels less like an error that was made due to crunch time and more like they actually didn’t know how to scale. They missed that day of art school. It’s common practice to not draw every character in every frame of animation during a group shot. After all, the human eye can’t pick up if a character is missing from a single frame and the animation moves at 60 FPS. Mad Bull leaves characters out of enough frames that they’ll often just blink in and out of existence. At first you think you’re just seeing things. There’s no way that just happened. However, it just keeps happening. In one scene, Sleepy shoots a goon wearing a hockey mask at point blank and the shotgun blast explodes his skull while leaving the mask completely undamaged. The anime even shows you this from a side view for some reason, so it looks like the blast of pellets just phase through the mask and liquify the head on the other side. There are just SOO many errors and things that go wrong in this anime it’s magical. You’ll never catch all the things wrong with Mad Bull. Its Cinema Sins score would be near infinite.
The soundtrack of Mad Bull features officially licensed music from the legendary James Brown, whom I am 100% positive just signed off on it without ever seeing the show. The other wonderful thing about the audio is the English dub. You can still laugh at Mad Bull in Japanese, but the dub is the way to get the true Mad Bull experience. The dub was written in England by Manga UK and designed to have the saltiest script possible to punch up the rating and sell this as a very mature anime. This anime has easily some of my favorite quips and insults in the medium. “The man is so low he could parachute out of a snake’s asshole!” Although I will warn younger viewers that there are quite a few homophobic slurs in this dub. So don’t be surprised when that keeps happening. The entire dub is English actors trying New York accents with various degrees of success. Perine’s actress just flat gives up after one episode and reverts to an RP English accent. Everything about this dub is just spectacular. It is the whipped cream on the sundae.
Sadly, I can’t bring myself to rate this higher than a 5, but I’m still DEFINITELY recommending that you check it out. I think the English dubbed episodes are still free on Youtube. If not, they can still be found across the internet. The series is also available on DVD through Discotek, although the Discotek DVD for the North American region is now out of print and sells for over 120$ due to the series’ relentless parade of police brutality. I’m pretty sure Discotek would be happy if every copy of this DVD with their name on it was destroyed. Needless to say, it is never going to be re-released. If you need some laughs and holiday joy this season, I can’t recommend Mad Bull highly enough.
lawlmartz
Time to dust off the VCR and take a trip back to 1990, 'cause today I'm talking about that glorious ultraviolent cheese called Mad Bull 34! Break out the Nike Cortez, Power Shoulders, and the grunge flannel- frost your tips, mute Will Smith and eject your Lion King VHS... we've got some 90s to cover. For the uninitiated: Mad Bull 34 was made by a company called Magic Bus... who've done *checks* literally nothing else of note. They even made some hentai once, it looks like. Amazingly, this studio has been around since the early 80s, and somehow has generated enough revenue off their titlesto continue to exist in 2015.
In 1996, Manga Entertainment took it upon themselves to make a gag dub for this ridiculously ultraviolent and unapologetically profane show- and created perhaps the ultimate cult classic, because the finished product is absolutely hilarious for more reasons than I can count. One of these reasons is insane, over the top violence. Another one is crazy dubs.
Artwork and Animation: 2
Mad Bull is old, hand drawn, and absolute garbage. The majority of it is on par with Violence Jack level badness, but occasionally it looks decent. The first two episodes looked okay, but the quality descended for the second half. If you like action lines, blood fountains, and super gore, Mad Bull will scratch your itch for the sick. In multiple standoffs with even minor criminals, Sleepy will just straight up murder them. Shotgun to the head, decapitations, held out onto an oncoming train, you name it, Mad Bull's got it.
If I were rating it for blood, gore, and violence, this would be a straight 10/10.
Sound and Voice Acting: 9
If I were grating cheese, this would be Kraft- the cheesiest. If I'm grading their performances, oh my buddha, this takes the cake. While Daizaburo's got one of the New Yoik-iest fake New Yoik accents I've ever heard, the rest of the cast is so varied, I have no clue what they wanted to be. Perrine flip flops between a generic English accent and Chicago, and the episodic cast's voices are so freakin' awful that I could have rounded up some drunk hicks and gotten better performances out of them than this.
Manga Entertainment probably went around the office after they got this license and asked who wanted to be in it. (they're also based in Chicago, which would explain the Chicago sounding accents... hmmm)
But- this is the charm of Mad Bull. It's not meant to be taken seriously. This is high action cheese at its absolute best.
Story and Characters: 4, 7
Mad Bull pulls from a lot of pop culture for its stories. It straight up rips off the movie "The French Connection" in episode 2, titled "The Manhattan Connection". It also borrows the Predator monster for episode 4. Generally speaking, the four stories go like this: Sleepy and Daizaburo go on patrol for Sleepy to bang some prostitutes, pay off an informant, or just generally cause mayhem- then they happen upon a crime in progress that leads to the discovery of a larger ring of criminal activity. Storywise, it's very functional- because it just plays off the Buddy Cop movies of the 80s tropes: one character that's a completely lawless ruffian and somehow manages to be a cop (Sleepy), and the stick-up-his-ass, by the book stiff (Daizaburo).
In typical cop show fashion, Sleepy is the kind of cop that always gets the job done, no matter what. This includes murdering every criminal in his path, and using his superhuman strength and penchant for violence to cause a lot of cost for the state of New York. His straight man Daizaburo is the guy that plays everything by the rules, and is stunned alongside the audience at the antics his partner pulls.
And he pulls crotch grenades, as well.
You've gotta see some of this to believe it. WTF factor: 9.5/10
Enjoyment and Overall: 9, 6
I can't exactly rate Mad Bull a 9/10 just because it's a lot of fun to watch... except that I can. It's funny as heck, and really over the top with the violence in creative and disgusting ways, and the fact that it has this incredibly bad, but cheesetastic dub really puts the icing on top. If you're a fan of so bad it's good or cult classics, this one has its picture right next to those terms in the dictionary.
You can't go wrong with a bit of the old ultraviolence, and Mad Bull delivers.
As always, come rage at me. Or leave nice comments, I don't care- feedback's appreciated.
unimportantuser
Mad Bull 34 is one of my favorite bad OVAs. It's stupid as hell, a very inaccurate representation of what New York is like, it's CRAZY, over the top, makes one go WTF, but about all else, it is NOT boring. I'll attempt to explain why Mad Bull is a work of bad art. Oh & btw, there will be massive spoilers in this review. Read at you own risk Story: The "plot" of Mad Bull basically consists of Sleepy & Daizaburo going around New York "upholding the law". There really isn't an overarching plot to Mad Bull, rather it's an episodic 4 episode OVA. But honestlythat was for the best, as the episodic format helps lead into the crazy shenanigans that ensue throughout Mad Bull 34.
Episode 1 is the set-up episode, it gives us some establishing shots of New York, introduces us to Daizaburo Dipshit, nicknamed "Eddie" (except they never call him that). The next shot that actually matters showcases a girl tied-up & about to get drugged & raped. Suddenly Sleepy nicknamed “Mad Bull” (except they rarely call him that) bursts into the room, & in an encouraging display of Police Brutality, blows the perpetrators heads off (in a way that doesn’t happen in real life might I add). Several bouts of introductions & exposition later we come to the supermarket scene. Robbers (wearing Jason masks & Rollerskates) come out of a supermarket after robbing it. The police cruiser then glides onto the scene & Sleepy, in yet another encouraging display of Police Brutality goes in & blows one of the robber’s head off. With Daizaburo Dipshit giving the appropriate reaction of “He’s blown his head off”. Also on the scene, was an innocent bystander, a woman no-less, a woman who pissed her pants because of course she would. Sleepy then tells Daizaburo “She’ll thaw out if you stick ya finger up her ass” & being the dipshit that he is, Daizaburo proceeds to do so, & gets chewed out by the woman for it. We then cut to a scene of Daizaburo & Sleepy sitting in the police cruiser. Sleepy eyes a prostitute & after Daizaburo says he’s not interested, Sleepy says, & I quote “Huh, you don’t mean your a faggot?” Yes, that is an actual quote. After this, we then cut to a scene of Sleepy trying to get Daizaburo some pussy because he’s such a “good friend”. He gathers a punch of prostitutes in one room & goes “Well girls, I was hoping you could give this one for free, as this man is a 100% certified virgin, & is in desperate need of some pussy”. A series of still images later, Daizaburo says he has a fiance to get out of getting some pussy. He then tells Sleepy that he knows that he meant well & was only trying to do a good thing for him (which isn’t how that works irl btw).
That’s all in just the first 10 minutes and 21 seconds of episode 1? Does this sound like the kind of fun, trashy, unintentional comedy you might enjoy? If it does, I can only tell you that you’re in for one wild ride of crazy shenanigans, appaling racism & sexism, hilarious inaccuracies to not only New York but life in general. Mad Bull 34 has it all.
Characters:
The characters in Mad Bull are some of the most unlikable yet likable characters at the same time. Sleepy is fucking INSANE. He does whatever he wants, no matter how wrong or inaccurate it is to how a police force would actually operate in real life. But that doesn’t even matter, because to quote sleepy “In the 34th precinct I’m the law. AND NO SCUMBAG IS GONNA GET AWAY WITH SHIT WHILE I’M ALIVE”. Sleepy also is just swimming in plot armor throughout the entire anime. So much shit happens that should get him killed. In the first episode, the tires of his police cruiser are doused in oil making the car slip & slide, then fucking flipping over and crashing into a wall, an event that nobody would survive, but Sleepy walks it off like a fucking champ, basically unscratched that’s how much plot armor he’s doused in. Sleepy also has creative “strategies” (for lack of a better term) such as crotch grenades. These just add to how awesome Sleepy is.
“Daisaboro Eddie Bannnnn” is our next character we have to discuss. Daisaboro first starts out as a relatively normal being who just wants to be a cop. But he has the fortunate team up of Sleepy as his partner. Daisaboro starts off as very critical of Sleepy’s actions. But once Sleepy tries to get him some pussy from some hookers & Daisaboro chews him out, he then proceeds to become friends with Sleepy at basically the drop of a hat with no character development whatsoever. After the fact he basically becomes Sleepy’s partner in law enforcement. Daisaboro is also swimming in just as much plot armor as Sleepy is, though I’d argue not as much since Daisaboro doesn’t get in as many situations where he should get killed as Sleepy does.
The rest of the cast of Mad Bull is pretty flavorless, vanilla, stock, generic, and uninspired. All of the villains in this show are evil for evil's sake with absolutely no motivations behind what they do or why they do it. But to make up for this the villains allow for just as many ridiculous, stupid, over-the-top, and bat-shit insane shenanigans to play out. So, even though they’re lackadaisical, they at least stay in line with the unintentional comedy of this series
Art & Sound”
The art in Mad Bull is pretty bad & an all around low effort. Character designs for the male characters are usually pretty basic and/or muscular (copying most Shounen manga from the time). The women have more effort put into their character designs than the men do, but because of the really bad art, the effort put into them is automatically fucked over since you can’t even begin to appreciate them. Animation is also pretty lazy. Even in the action sequences there’s barely any animation to go around, they’ll usually just cut to still frames of drawings gliding across the screen.
The voice acting is the best bad voice acting I’ve ever heard. I watched this in the English Dub (which is the only way you should watch this btw) and the voice actors were British. But they try really hard to hide the accents in their voices so that they can imitate what they think Americans sound like (spoilers, this is also an inaccurate representation of New York). But the actors at least sound like they’re having fun with their roles, maybe a bit too much fun. But this at least beats the voice acting of something like Girls & Panzer in Japanese, Sword For Truth’s English dub, and Conception’s voice acting in general. So a little fun goes a long way.
Overall:
Mad Bull 34 is bad. But it’s a fun kind of bad. Mad Bull 34 manages to keep me entertained throughout it’s bat-shit insanity, plot armor ridden main characters, lacking animation, bad art, surprisingly kick ass OST, and many other things. Mad Bull 34 is my favorite piece of garbage that I can enjoy watching without having to torture somebody in the process (though torturing my friends with this certainly helps. My final score for Mad Bull is gonna be a 4/10. But don’t let that rating deter you, this anime is absolutely worth watching because this truly is a once in a lifetime experience
Kain
Really weird no one has written a review of this anime yet. Well anyway its actually a ok anime and its and old anime from 1991 if am not mistaken and as all animes fans know, old animes are usually good dubbed. Well anyway if you are little bored and want to watch a 4 ova anime take a look at this. Besides from a couple of sex scenes and heads splashing everywhere its an ok anime. Check it out. Its good dubbed so do check it out dubbed. Just go to youtube and search for mad bull 34 and enjoy!
Sartana
Ahh yes, good ol' early 90s anime. As violent as politically incorrect as it gets. When anime was this wild unpredictable beast that made other forms of animation look bland. Before the moe days, before the waifu invasion. Mad Bull makes zero apologies in what it wants to be, a pure exploitation show with violent killings and boobs. The comic relief is a hit or miss, but then again, if you are already watching this is because you have the right sensibility for the material. Unless you are one of those bored millenials hipsters who watch "bad" stuff to go online and try to dosome MST3K/redletter media hacky "funny" review. In which case, you should consider another use for your spare time. Also, probably killing yourself.
Luquillo
Well… Mad Bull 34, I never thought the day would come when this 4 episode OVA hit DVD shelves, and it’s not because this series is some hard to find masterpiece. Instead, Mad Bull 34 embodied all of the negative clichés found in early 90’s anime. It’s over the top violent, exploitive, and gross. The series is totally shameless in what it wants to be, but to its credit though; the series does a fine job in setting out what it wanted to be. There are a small group of anime fans out there whom hold this high as some type of classic, but it’sdefinitely far and away from that.
This series follows the two cops as they combat muggers, rapist, gangsters, and eventually the mafia. The first volume is a plot-less and sex-filled blood bath, with some type of story coming around towards the end. However, the last three stand alone episodes are story driven as the two cops go up against in-house corruption, a suicidal Japanese cult, and a robotic monster reminiscent of the Predator.
Unfortunately, Mad Bull 34 will hit you with so much profanity and violence that the stories become an after thought, and you’ll just be wondering how they’ll kill someone next or how the two cops and later on a third cop by the name of Perrine Valley are getting out of these jams. One moment stands out to me when Sleepy guns down two robbers leaving one terribly wounded and attempting to take a female hostage. He kills the guy in a way that needs to be seen to be believed, and how they deal with the victim in shock is equally fuckin' sick, and this doesn’t even scratch the surface on how mad this anime is; from the Predator monster’s antics to the hand grenade jock strap, there is usually something floating out of left field. Mad Bull 34 is hilariously sick and the cool thing is that it never takes itself seriously.
The blood-lusting action fiend will no doubt see their appetite for destruction satisfied. There is seriously tons of action with only the third episode being the weakest to me. My only issue is that I need more than this stuff in my anime, because after awhile one can become numb to all of the killing, cursing, and sex.
I enjoy the English dub mainly because of those hilarious Boston-Italian accents. Daisuburo doesn’t sound even remotely close to a Japanese born American or New Yorker for that matter. I can almost swear that I ordered a pizza from this guy when I was in Massachusetts. The animation is hand drawn old school goodness, with the male designs looking quite brawny, and the females all looking sexy in some way. The violence isn’t the least bit tame; viewers will get it all from blown off heads to slit throats. One thing about the visuals that stood out to me is how the artist must have visited New York, because they did a well enough job on the landscape and subways. The 4,5, and 6 trains transfer to the 7 line in Grand Central station was detailed enough. The soundtrack isn’t anything truly gripping, but it does a good job working alongside the action.
Mad Bull 34 is a bad title that I enjoy. I can’t exactly hate it because at the very least it’s tonally consistent, and just not meant to be taken seriously. If there's one thing I can't stand is an anime with a severe identity crisis. However, this is something I would only recommend to the most serious otakus who must see everything. If this title sounds too out of control for you then skip it for sure. If you love loads of violence then this is for you.
Ehrgheiz
I had to write a review about this OVA because the difference between the first 3 episodes and the 4th and final episode is gargantuan. In the first three episodes, the character development is pretty decent. You get to understand the individuals and I specifically liked Mad Bull the most. Kindhearted, but over-the-top with violence, too. He was extremely fun to watch. Furthermore, the antagonists of the first three episodes were explained and introduced in a way that made sense. In the fourth episode, the idea of character and plot development were thrown out the window. It is difficultto express how terrible that episode was compared to the first three. If you want a zany cop show with sex and violence, then this is a gem. Just do yourself a favor and skip the last episode.
Bensonas
I'll be honest there isn't much positive I can say about this show. Considering I've seen this appearing in a number of 'top X animes' lists my expectations definitely weren't met. Animation wise is OK. For the time however, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to expect a little more. It's all quite basic. It's not horrible, it's just ok. There is quite a lot of gore here and though I'm not opposed to gore, I feel what's presented in here is a little unnecessary. Some people may think that gore can never be unnecessary, but those people are massive fans of Hostel, and that film isdiabolical. For gore to work it either has to shock you, scare you or make you feel uncomfortable. For me, I felt none of these things. Another issue I had here, given the district Mad Bull works in, number 34, women splay a central role. Animation wise, they all look the same. Further, the show take every opportunity it can to get some topless women on screen. Again, I get where this show is set, but it really needs to be dialed down as it is so frequent, one would have to question if the writers are alright.
Story isn't too bad. The episodes arnt badly written and they flow reasonably well together. The protagonist are likeable but another issue I had is that the antagonists weren't. More time should have been spent writing them in a way that makes you dislike them. Also, there are scenes, particularly the climax of episode two where the scene is just going on and on and on until finally we get a relief from our protagonist. Normally on these circumstances you are wanting the protagonist to arrive and the excitement is building along with the tension of 'will they not make it in time?!'. Sadly, I was left thinking 'please hurry up so this scene can be over'
Music is pretty solid, does what it needs to do to help move the story forward but ultimately, it's just there, rather than being something that pulls you more into the story.
I'm summary, it's not great, pretty jeuvenille and rather boring. You find some humour in the characters at first, I would be surprised if you genuinely enjoy for being a good show rather than as a gimmick.
ktulu007
I've looked at a lot of OVAs this year. And most of them have been awful. I kind of hope this is an exception because there are already a lot of contenders for Ye Olde Hall of Shame, but I also kind of hope it continues the trend because it would be kind of hilarious. This is by the studio Magic Bus, which has never made a worthwhile anime as far as I can tell. Seriously, their stuff I've reviewed was Dragoon, Phantom Yuusha Densetsu & Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu. The highest scoring being Dragoon with a sub-par performance at 4/10. Yikes. Story: Our narrative starts with alarge cop blowing the heads off of some attempted rapists. Now that's an acceptable use of excessive force. We cut to a young Japanese American officer being brought into the precinct where he's partnered with the large cop we saw earlier. The OVA then goes into their partnership and adventures as cops on the toughest of beats.
The biggest issue with the OVA as a whole is that it's exploitative trash. It actually reminds me of AD Police where it throws in a lot of sexual violence and overblown violence in general with neither the desire nor the talent to come even close to handling it well. Give AD Police some credit in that respect, at least it didn't have weird semi-comedic moments where the heroes Tom Sawyer their own funeral dressed as nuns.
This series also has a lot of terrible writing moments where they throw consistency or reality out the window because they need it for the plot or because the writers are actual rubbish. Take the reporter who outright accuses people of committing crimes. Now, this is set in 90s America. And I'm pretty sure America, like most countries, has rules against defamation in journalism and any reporter who did this would get themselves and their outlet sued. But because this anime is horrendous and the villains are all mustache twirling, one-dimensional evil, instead of doing the sensible thing and using lawyers the villain decides to have her killed. But using lawyers would have required subtlety and if there are three things this series doesn't understand whatsoever they're class, subtlety and how to avoid making a mess in its trousers after eating.
I'm going to get into spoiler territory here. The fourth episode is particularly bad with plot contrivances. For example, Sleepy gets chained to a bed, we spend about ten minutes with other shit while Daizaburo reaches him. Pretty much the instant his partner shows up, he breaks the chains and they get out of there. So, why couldn't he have just done that to begin with? Either the writer is literally dumber than your average pebble or Sleepy's supposed to have super strength that only works when someone's watching him and the series just never explained it. This episode also features exceptionally dumb villains. So, you're in the mafia and you have a super suit of armour to test, why not give it to someone who has every reason to hate you with no safeguards whatsoever? Nothing could possibly go wrong besides literally a billion things.
There's also this character who shows up and helps Sleepy because he wants to be the one to kill him but the series never explains what happened between them and there's never any pay off for it. So, he just comes across as being there to help advance the plot by guiding Sleepy.
Characters:
The characters are completely uninteresting. Daizaburo is the promising rookie. Sleepy is the passionate, grandiose type. Perine is the woman. The villains are just one-dimensionally evil.
Art:
So, we have the overblown, exploitative trash that quickly loses impact. We also have really badly done action sequences and all the villain characters who show up look like random Henchmen from silver age comics, except for the person inside the armour in the 4th episode. Probably because they're the only one the series tries to make somewhat sympathetic. Even if they do it in a very inept fashion. Even then, the armour still looks villainous. The various sex scenes are really bad too.
Sound:
Normally even when I watch a bad anime, the voice acting is still decent. That is not the case here. Matsumoto Yasunori, Ootsuka Akio, Takashima Gara and the rest of the cast are all absurdly over the top and it sounds terrible. The music is just generic and boring.
Ho-yay:
There is none.
Areas of Improvement:
Have some subtlety.
Have any degree of class.
Have some professional standards. Because there are bad fanfiction clearly written by twelve year olds that are vastly superior to this in terms of writing skills.
Final Thoughts:
This one is cheap, exploitative rubbish that's even worse than AD Police. Some people might find it to be so stupid and terrible that it's funny, for me the trashy, tawdry nature of the thing just makes it unbearable. As such, this one is getting a 1/10.
HarryRambod22
In a world where filth such as Umaru Chan and Eromanga Sensei Exist and are allowed to be shown on tv. It's important that we take a look back on a forgotten anime classic from way back in the day. Of course I'm talking about the classic Mad Bull 34. The main character for this show is of course John "Sleepy" Estevez. He is a true man who teaches you how to enforce the law and how to protect it. Hence Sleepy is the law of the city. Sleepy’s partner is an immigrant named Daizaburo “Eddie” Ban who is clearly an allegory for the regressiveleft we find in today’s society. For example Mad Bull kills two robbers in the name of justice by blowing them apart with his shotgun for stealing from a convenience store. While Eddie says things like “you can’t just kill criminals like that” and “this is murder.” Sleepy knows that violence and mass destruction is the way to go to stop crime (fight fire with fire). In the beginning Eddie criticizes Sleepy’s methods but then begins to realize police like sleepy are the only reason justice is being served in the city. Sleepy also does heroic acts such as sleeping with prostitutes, robbing them, and putting the money he took from them back into charities and putting it to use in the socio economic system. He does this because prostitution is illegal and cannot be taxed by the government so instead of arresting those heathen hookers, sleepy steals their money, and puts it back into the economy. When I witness such scenes I cry red, white, and blue. Eddie develops though into a true American officer throughout the series and it’s much better for him in the end.
Now the art and sound for this show is complete crap to be honest. The art is very cheap and old looking; they were clearly on a very low budget when making this thing and the music well not much can be said about it. They don’t really use any form of music except the closing credits which utilizes James Brown.
The characters are the best thing about this show. Sleepy is the complete opposite of Eddie Ban but they make a great cop buddy duo. Other great characters include Perrine, the chief, and the slutty news reporter Jackie. Perrine is a great example of a strong woman throughout the series. She knows how to fight, she shows appropriate emotion when dealing with crime, and she takes wild risks (such as staging a pretend marriage for Daizaburo to save his life) even when she was being raped by thugs throughout the series she caused them bodily harm and fought them back. The police chief is possibly the ugliest animated human I’ve ever seen lol. His face literally looks like an asshole turned inside out. Anyway other great characters include Enrico who is a Mafioso presumably murdered by Perrine who barely survived and became a cyborg gangster. Yes, you heard a cyborg gangster. Cindy the main antagonist in the last episode is another great character as she is the only villain with a background story behind her. It is revealed that her brother worked for the 34th precinct before he died and she wants vengeance on them because they wronged her brother Kevin. What fascinates me is that her brother actually used money he got from Mafioso’s to fund her Olympic training in college for track. Also she is one of the earliest examples of a dark skinned woman portrayed as attractive in an Anime medium, and yea she’s really hot with a great figure. I’ll just leave it at that.
One thing I did get out of this show even with the bad art and laughable story was entertainment. Sure the story was directionless and not well formed but it’s the episodic nature and the bat shit insanity that makes it entertaining. It’s like a crack addict view about American police officers. It’s not in any way realistic in the slightest. One of my favorite scenes in the entire anime was when sleepy was found to have grenades glued on his pubic hairs and he yanks the grenades with his pubic hair out painfully at the top of a tower to blast criminals into pieces. It makes no sense but where else would I see such lunacy. That is what makes it entertaining. Another thing before I cap off this review is this show is much better experienced dub than sub. The dub is so bad that it’s good with those ridiculous “New Yawk” accents and laughable one liners that the sub cannot evoke the atmosphere for this kind of show properly. Examples of such great lines include “We’re gonna fuck the ass off ya,” “you’re gonna have a sore pussy,” “listen you sad shit fuck,” and my personal favorite “all his friends would know his dad was so low he would parachute out of a snake’s asshole.” While this anime was incredibly stupid and over the top, you’ll definitely laugh when you watch this.
robddoo
Mild Spoilers I decided I'd stick this trashy OVA on for some mindless entertainment, going in with absolutely no expectations or knowledge of what to expect besides the worst, and maybe because of that I came out almost pleasantly surprised. Almost. Yes I did give it a 3, because it is still mindless, filled with inconsistencies, and is trashy in every aspect, but so long as you don't go into it expecting anything of substance its a pretty entertaining piece to point and laugh at. The story is set in New York's worst precinct, so naturally it'd be safe to be expecting obscene violence and gang relatedcrime, and you'd be correct, but nothing will prepare you for the actual level of crime presented. Chinese suicide bombers, a cyborg mafia don, and a cop killer in a Predator-style robot suit are just some of the "average" criminals the main characters, "Mad Bull" John Estes, his newbie partner Daizaburo Edi-Ban, and later veteran cop Perine Valley have to deal with on a given day. These 3 make up our main cast, but I found the only noteworthy character to be Mad Bull himself. Daizaburo and Perine get little to no development, we're never told of their backgrounds or past, and at a stretch you could say Perine has a small character arc, but Daizaburo is given no real spotlight and feels consistently overshadowed by Estes. We're told of some of Estes' past exploits and about his old partner, shown plenty of his regular routine such as how he's always spending "quality time" with seemingly every lady in New York, and constantly gifted with scenes of his insane natural prowess such as when he let a bomb go off in his hand and walked it off, or lifted and attempted to flip an actual tank. When we first meet him you'd assume he's simply a brute that shoots first and asks questions never, but as the episodes go on you'll see there's a softer side to the Mad Bull that he doesn't like to make known. In comparison, Daizaburo isn't given the same treatment whatsoever, we have no idea what he gets up to on a given day, he has no spectacular moments, and we finish the final episode having learned nothing about this character. Perine on the other hand, who's supposedly a star cop, has a couple of good action sequences, but again we know nothing about this character, and the sad truth is that more often than not shes treated as nothing more than eye candy for the viewer, being stripped bare on several occasions. One sequence involves her being caught in an explosion which conveniently results in her not being injured, but her clothes being completely torn off, and this is a trend the OVA consistently follows of introducing female characters just to have them stripped or worse at least once before the episode is over. I get it, they weren't going for a story-heavy, character-driven series, but these points just needed mentioning.
Animation wise, pretty subpar, it was made in 1990 but I think even compared to any late 80's/early 90's anime I've watched it was fairly low quality. None of the characters really stood out visually and the villains designs were just lazy. A number of scenes were very visually jarring, room dimensions being off, camera angles making objects or people appear larger than they should be. One particular shot had a street angled upward, but the cars parked on it aiming downward? It had me laughing and scratching my head as to whether I was losing brain cells watching this. Again, in most shows that kind of thing would have me frustrated, but here it just added enjoyment to seeing how many more obvious mistakes I could find in such a short series. The amount of awkward and shabbily animated sex scenes crammed into these 4 episodes is a joke in itself. For the sound, there was no OP, but each episode had a different ED, with 2 and 3 being pretty good but I wasn't a fan of the first or last ones. None of the other music throughout the series was particularly memorable, and a lot of the cartoony sound effects used throughout ranged from cheesy to simply unfitting.
This OVA clearly wasn't going for a deep story or endearing characters like I said above, and relies entirely on shock factor and over the top action sequences, but there is COPIOUS amounts of gore and violence, with people being eviscerated by swords, blown apart by shotguns, or the animators clearly not knowing or caring how bullets work as several times Mad Bull is shown decapitating people with just his revolver. While all completely silly, they do usually keep it fresh enough with how the cannon fodder get slaughtered for you to stay entertained, but by about the halfway mark in the fourth episode, the action combined with the final episodes poorer than usual plot had me borderline wishing it was over. A word of warning, a lot of the very graphic violence is of a sexual nature which would be seriously off putting for a lot of viewers. It's not once or twice, but at least several times in some episodes and comes off as pretty offensive, even by this anime's standards.
Overall, episodes 1 and 2 were the best of a bad bunch, and episodes 3 and 4 weren't as good as I felt they were trying to go more plot oriented, which certainly wasn't this OVAs strong point to begin with. It's episodic so there's not really an overarching plot, and that in itself could have been fine if only the individual stories were more interesting. On that note, I was hoping it'd at least end with a bit more closure, but I didn't realize it was 4 episodes adapted from a 27 volume manga which I've no intention of reading. I'd recommend watching this only if you're looking for a short, dumb, action-packed series to watch while taking a break in-between actual good shows, and only if you're not bothered by glaring issues in story and animation, or hectic amounts of graphic sex and violence of all kinds.
Fluffologica
An anime that was only possible back during Japan's bubble economy. Shockingly dirty and funny, a real surprise when you're used to modern anime. Obviously they couldn't accurately capture what New York City is like, but their TV-trope educated, over-the-top version of the city is far more entertaining. The English dub is fantastic, though the main character's long ass name: Daizaburo, gets distracting when he insists over and over that no one is allowed to refer to him by nicknames. Yet at the same time he's more than happy to refer to his partner as "Sleepy". The show jumps the shark in the last episode with acomplete tone change and sci-fi without any precedent in the last 3 episodes. But the rest of it is great.
Fear_the_Reefer
Daizoburo Edi-Ban Is a young American-born Japanese man, descended from immigrants and raised to uphold a strict sense of morality. He joins the New York city police force, precinct 34, intending nothing less than to enforce the law, punish evil, fight crime and defend the innocent. His idealistic nature is stressed to the breaking point when he finds out that his partner, whether he likes it or not, is a veteran cop named Johnny Estes, who carries two nicknames... Sleepy, probably for his chill and laid back nature when he’s off the clock, and Mad Bull, for his violent, uncontrollable nature thathe slips into whenever he slips on the badge. A long time loose cannon who would rather spend his time making the rounds with every prostitute in the tri-county area than patrol his assigned area, and to whom questioning live suspects just feels like a waste of time and energy, it doesn’t take very long for Officer Estes to show his impressionable rookie partner what the inside of a rapists’ brain looks like.
But as the two cops become closer... Or, as Daizoburo slowly slips into the trappings of Stockholm Syndrome, which seems equally plausible... He begins to see the good nature of his giant burly buddy, as well as the method behind his bull-headed madness. Unfortunately, his trouble doesn’t end there, as Mad Bull’s “Shoot first and ask questions to the splattered skulls later” tactics have earned him more than a few enemeies throughout his storied career, and he’s always willing to make a few more! With this giant, over-sexed, trigger happy senior officer by his side, Daizoburo will have to deal with rapists, gangsters, drug dealers, witness protection and a serial-killer who won’t stop targeting cops, all while struggling to defend his ideals, the general population, and his precious virginity from the very person he was expecting to help him do so. Welcome to the concrete jungle, my friends, because we’ve got fun and games, so strap on your grenade jock strap and take a bite out of the big apple.
Hey, did you know there used to be a production company called Magic Bus? If so, then that makes one of us! Seriously, though, talk about obscure. If this thing isn’t owned and operated by Miss Frizzle, I’m not sure what reality is anymore. Anyway, obscure is definitely the right word for this company, who appeared in the mid eighties and put out most of their work in the nineties, including nine straight years of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. They seemingly went quiet in 2006, having produced only two shows between then and now. Mad Bull 34 was an OVA series that they released over the course of two years. It was released in the early nineties, so... Well, you can probably guess from there what kind of animation you’re in for. The visual quality of this series is so low budget that even though it’s extremely dated, I highly doubt it was even considered acceptable for it’s time. It does kind of work in it’s advantage, as the low quality does sort of add to the overall tone, making it feel more like a bootleg video of a grindhouse movie, and yeah, that is a pretty good fit.
Even considering this, however, it’s still a really ugly looking show, which is especially hard to ignore in the first episode, where it looks like the producers haven’t even begun to figure out how to use budget cuts to hide their weaknesses. They get better at it in the third and fourth episodes, or in other words the second half, but the result they achieve isn’t really as effective as they were hoping, because while it doesn’t look cheap or badly animated in those episodes, it does look very obviously like budget cuts are being used, and that is an improvement, but not a huge one. No matter what episode you’re watching, however, the budget was clearly reserved for action, as the best looking moments in the series are the gunfights, the gruesome dismemberments and exploding heads, and the admittedly fun car chases. That’s not to say any of it looks good, per se, as it’s best moments look mediocre at most, but the rest of the on-screen material... And I do mean the rest of it... Suffers to help the action to even look THAT good.
The artwork is very roughly drawn, much like the backgrounds, although they did accurately capture the shitty and decrepit feeling of most areas in New York city. Character designs, despite falling to the same issue, are inspired and distinctive, as long we’re referring to the main hero characters. The villains are much more generic and samey, as most of them could be described as stock thugs, with a few rare muscle-bound black guys and sexy femme fatales to break up the monotony. A lot of the women who appear throughout the series, most of whom are either prostitutes, victims or both, are just big boobed, long haired blonde chicks with very little variation in their appearances. The heroes, who are among the very few featured people, are kind of unforgettable, even the one who looks just like all the other blondes. One of the tricks they use to make Mad Bull and Daizoburo memorable was through their drastically different heights, with the title character towering over all he meets, and the actual main character, an obvious audience cypher and the moral center of the group, is quite possibly the shortest man in Manhattan. Oh, and there’s also a villain who wears a costume that looks like a cross between Green Goblin and a Xenomorph.
With only four 45 minute episodes under it’s belt, there really shouldn’t be a lot of music, but each episode has at least ten different tracks in it. The music was seemingly entirely produced by one man, English rock guitarist David Ross Skinner, and while it does carry an authentic New York City cop drama feel to it, the homogeny does show, as there’s actually very little variety to the music. That’s not to say any of it sounds bad, as a lot of it is actually pretty cool sounding, but there’s only so much you can get out of a soundtrack that’s comprised mostly of slow tunes for “moments,” and high tension tunes for the action. Most of the ending themes were contributed by a Korean band called Maizurah, who can sing in what sounds like pretty impeccable English, but perhaps more surprising is the fact that the ending theme of the very first episode is a song from the Godfather of soul himself, James Brown. Yeah, I’m making that sound more impressive than it is, because James Brown is all around amazing, and yet they still managed to find one of his lesser songs. I seriously think Time to Get Busy is the result of Brown completely forgetting the lyrics and just not giving a fuck.
The english dub, on the other hand, is pretty awesome. I know that’s weird to say about a dub from the nineties, especially for the dub of a low budget OVA, because these things normally sound like the worst things ever, but the actors in this title just have so much fun with what they’re given. This is especially true of Allan Wenger, a man with so many voice credits to his name since 1978 that it’s a crime wikipedia doesn’t have a page on him. His dubbing resume extends to animation from a laundry list of countries, with relatively few coming from Japan. In any case, he plays the title character as dumb, cocky and bullheaded, but at the same time with enough laid back presence and good humor to make him feel more like a lovable doofus than a psychopath with a badge. Alan Merriott has a much more pronounced anime history, and as Edi-ban, he skews a lot younger than his co-star, and he does so with a much deeper accent, which easily sells the idea that he’s just transferred into this precinct from another county. Of course, both actors do have perfect accents and pitches for their characters.
Speaking of perfect accents, the prime female character, Perrine Valley... Well, she certainly has an accent. Her stint in anime voice acting appears to be a hiccup in her primary career as a British TV actress, including appearances in a 2007 Doctor Who spin-off. This is probably the reason she’s the only British character in the entire series, a fact that’s never explained or referenced in the dialogue. She barely has a presence, reads off her lines as stiff and blandly as possible, and is completely overshadowed by the female characters who are introduced in the following two episodes. Unfortunately the dub gets a little muddled from here, partially due to the many names on it that only appear in this specific series... Which si normally a sign that fake names are being used... And while several black thugs in the series are credited under the name Wesley Powell, I think I can distinctly hear Beau Billingslea in their performances. I could be wrong, but Beau is awesome, and if these stock thugs were being played by an actual black man... Unlike the anime’s only black female character... I could see him wanting to keep his name off of it. This show can get pretty racist, after all.
In the time that I’ve been writing for this blog, if I’ve ever said anything negative about an anime you like, and you disagree with me, I respect your opinion, and would love to hear what you love about it that I don’t. Granted, when a series offends me in some special way, I may argue with you, but I will at least acknowledge that you have a point that needs making. What I can’t respect is when people defend an awful series by saying, in so many colorful ways, that it’s immune to criticism. They don’t claim that any of my points are wrong, just that they’re moot... A series can be terrible and get away with it because it was never trying to be good, or it was aiming to please an audience that I’m apparently not part of. I’ve seen this argument used in defense of titles like Gantz, Kiss X Sis, Stella Womens Academy, and an untold number of old, shock-filled OVA series, when really, the only form of media I can justifiably see that defense applying to is actual porn. With any other form of media, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go in with standards and expectations, and you’re not nit-picky for having them.
For example, a lot of people love yaoi anime, because they want to see two hot guys bang, nevermind the fact that the situations are often highly rapey and the characters are infantilized. Peple like yuri anime because they want to see two hot girls getting it on, nevermind the fact that neither of them feel like real people in even the shallowest of contexts. People love romance stories even when they’re sexist and abusive as all hell, with special nods to Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey and Say I Love You. Yeah, I said it. I won’t say there’s anything wrong with indulging in your guilty pleasures because the thrill you get out of it is worth all the questionable crap you have to ignore, but to defend it as a profound piece of literature or awesome despite it’s flaws when you’re just ignoring the things you don’t like is insane. Yeah, I love caviar, but if you spread it on a piece of your dog’s dried up shit, I’m not going to stuff that shit into mouth for some caviar... I’m going to say ‘No thank you, i’d like the next batch to be on a cracker, please.”
On that note, do I have a low opinion of Mad Bull 34 because of it’s excessive violence, sex and misogynistic attitude towards women? No, because I actually have a rather high tolerance for these things. I enjoy Elfen Lied and Sword Art Online, after all, despite what the mediocre scores I gave them may suggest. The reason Mad Bull 34 fails to impress me is entirely due to it’s writing, and if you’re scoffing at me for not taking it’s ridiculous and tongue in cheek nature into account, guess what, I did. There is no form of literature or entertainment, save for literal porn, that isn’t subject to the quality of its writing, and yes, that includes exploitation media. That’s not to say there’s such a thing as objective quality, or that all forms of media should be united under one unifying standard, but if I have an opinion on something, I’m going to express it in depth and in detail, with no regard for what the piece was trying to do, or who it was trying to entertain. Except with Mad Bull 34, I don’t really NEED much in the way of detail, and I’m going to prove it by going episode by episode.
The first episode, so gracefully titled “Hit and Rape,” is the story of how Edi-ban met and formed a bond with Sleepy Joe Estes, and out of the entire series, this one probably contains the most violence and sex. I don’t mind that so much... What I do mind is that the whole episode plays like a glowing, self-indulgent self-insert fanfic written by someone who wishes they could be a giant, musclebound stud. He gets flaws in later episodes, but Sleepy Joe is SUCH a Mary-Sue here. He’s the pinnacle of justice, everybody loves him, and the people who don’t are either the villains he’s inconveniencing or people who just don’t understand him. He gets to have a ton of anonymous sex with hookers for free, but none of them mind, because he’s a totally nice person who’s paying to have their STDs and rape trauma treated, even though he demonstrates early on that his form of breaking woman out of shock is to penetrate them anally. He murders criminals for bullshit reasons, following convoluted logic that the rest of the world just blindly accepts, because he is Joe, and he can do no wrong, even based on a guess so farfetched that Sherlock Holmes would pump the breaks before acting on it.
The second episode tries to be better, as it introduces a strong female character... Of course, by this show’s standards, strong means ‘not a prostitute,’ and like most female characters, she’s pretty much just there to get in trouble, get assaulted, and show the audience her tits. I honestly don’t remember much about this episode unless I really think about it... I recall the villain being more obvious than Doctor Evil, Sleepy being able to survive half a dozen bullets to the ass as well as a point blank grenade explosion to the face, and to be fair, one of the most epic moments in anime history... Sleepy joe pulls off his pants to reveal that he’s tied a few dozen grenades to his pubes, which his partner starts to pluck and throw at a bunch of 1930’s cartoon mobsters. Honestly, that moment is probably why people remember this series at all... They sure as hell don’t come back to see Daizoburo miraculously rise from his death bed, all of his teeth suddenly intact, after a phony marriage ceremony helps him recover from what should have been a fatal beating.
I don’t want to give away too much of the last two episodes, for spoiler reasons and the like, so I’m just going to lump them together here. The third episode involves a plot between a politician and a reporter that’s so confusing, it’s honestly hard to keep up with, and our heroes get tied up in a witness protection story where everybody keeps making decisions that are stupid and contrived beyond belief, the backstory to the situation we’re dropped into is told to us and never shown, and apparently a politician can buy his way out of being positively identified by ten murder-scene rape kits, and with that much power, a lone reporter shooting her mouth off somehow poses a threat? And then you have the final episode, which started out really good, with a villain from Sleepy’s past come back to haunt him, killing more male police officers than the Russian chick from Kick-Ass 2, and it seems like the series will go out on a great note before a sudden reveal halfway through turns it into the most bafflingly awful love story since Elfen Lied. It does say something about your ability to write villains when the first one that has a remotely understandable motive gets treated like a fucking saint.
If any of this interests you, which I can understand, then you’re in luck... After twenty years of obscurity, it was rescued and released stateside on DVD in 2012 by Diskotek Media, who’ve been doing a lot of that lately. You can find it at a pretty decent price, too. Unfortunately, the original manga, which I can only imagine is superior due to that usually being the case, is not available, nor is it’s sequel, Mad Bull 2000.
I hope by this point I’ve proven to you that my problems with this title go far deeper than it’s so-called shocking content. Your sensibilities may differ, but for me, offensiveness is a matter of context, and not content, and no matter how bloody, over-sexed or misogynistic the material got, I just couldn’t muster up enough interest or investment in the story or characters to GET offended. It was so stupid and badly written that even when graphic rape was occurring on screen, I didn’t feel sorry for the victims, I didn’t feel angry at the villains, I didn’t feel disgusted by the tastes of the writer, I was just bored, staring blankly at the screen and waiting for any... Any... of it’s ridiculous shit to be as entertainingly bad as the crotch grenades were. And speaking of entertainingly bad, that’s exactly what this series is... You invite some friends over, you get drunk enough to think your reflection is picking a fight with you, and you laugh your asses off at how desperate this series is to try and make you remember it. It’s not anywhere near one of the worst anime I’ve ever seen, but I’d never recommend it to someone on the assumption that they’ll genuinely, soberly enjoy it. I give Mad Bull 34 a 3/10.
albertbrown
If there was a word to describe Mad Bull 34’s creation, it would be “gritty”. It would also be foolish to not say that as far as early 90’s anime go, it set the standard as to what Police anime (with exception to A.D. Police, Goku Midnight Eye and You’re Under Arrest! which would come years later in that era) could do. The first time watching Mad Bull 34, you’re immediately struck as to how much NYC is nailed on the detail aspect, where everything from the Red Light District to grand larceny to even homicide and street gangs run amok. The fact that we havea main character who’s been sent from Tokyo’s police division to team up with NY’s rough and tough detective makes the buddy cop aspect look even more interesting to see. Considering that the 90’s managed to make buddy cop comedies more silly than actually serious, it was nice to see the aspect of Kazuo Koike’s work being used in the way that was intended. (You’ll notice that this was where Lupin shined in this aspect, and for good reason.)
The downside of this anime, though not much of a dealbreaker, is that this anime was far too short for just four episodes. On one hand, it’s a blessing that this did not get any more episodes or create a couple of movies based on this classic anime, but on the other hand, it would have been interesting to see the cinematic version in full play as the full blown violence would have been the foil to a more philosophical discussion as to how trying to work and deal with the forces of good and bad can make a 90’s version of the city of New York shine.
Either way, Daizaburo and Sleepy represent the best examples of Good Cop, Bad Cop working together, in what could be the best hyper exaggerated and entertaining OVA regarding police anime. Even for its time, it still holds up very well.
Skow
This is a glorius product of its time. It is a 90s ova through and through it is unapologetically over the top gratuitous, vulgar and silly. If you are not looking for a history lesson in early anime/ova that were imported. It is worth a watch. If you like so bad it is good, it is worth a watch. If you enjoy violence and vulgarity for the sake of violence and vulgarity. That is only interrupted by some meandering plot or a pair of bouncing sweater puppies that were unleashed by a light breeze, then give it a watch. If you don't fall into the mentioned groups,likely best you avoid this relic from animes early days. It will most likely be one of your worst experiences watching anime to date. I do recommend seeing it if you are in this camp, but only if you go in thinking mystery science theater rather than top shelf anime.
The good... the humor, the absurdity and the ova does not give a flying frack.
The bad.
Razor thin plot, that is more of an inconvenience, than a narrative tool. But it drags you from scene to scene in such a way that you don't quite realize how thin it is, until the episode credits roll.
The ova tries this awkward romance thing, then it makes it into a convoluted mess. The cringe factor is over eight thousand.
The down right ugly.
It was only four episodes, this could have done with an extra two episodes, just so we could experience more of, this.
92rael_
I was looking for older and more free of censorship anime, I found Mad★Bull 34 in a slightly more isolated category, I was surprised by this show, honestly it's a lot of fun and very "politically incorrect" this show is definitely underrated, the protagonists and characters are really cool and interactive with each other, each episode is an explosion of adventure, comedy and sex, it's really a really good show and I recommend it mainly for men (although it's funny in general and can be seen by anyone) , also not a "complete" show I think there could be more episodes, for sure there couldbe told several stories around these protagonists.
