Theory Musing: Is Advertising Anime as "So Bad It's Good" Actually a Good Idea?

The concept of "So Bad It's Good", for those somehow unfamiliar with it, is that someone can enjoy something terrible because of how terrible it is. This has been applied to all sorts of mediums, whether it's movies, books, video games, TV series, comic books &, yes, anime & manga. The thing about "SBIG" (for lack of a better contraction), though, is that it's just like any other type of judgment by being completely subjective. Just like how one person can like something that another just can't enjoy, one person can love something because of how bad he/she feels it is, while another will feel that it's just outright terrible & not "ironically enjoyable"; some others may legitimately enjoy it & don't think of it as bad in the first place, even. Therefore, when FUNimation revealed the cover art for its upcoming, December 6 to be exact, DVD/BD combo set for Ninja Slayer from Animation, it received a mixed reaction due to FUNi trying to purposefully sell it as "SBIG".

Instead of using traditional quotes for promotion from sites like ANN or The Fandom Post, Ninja Slayer's packaging features quotes from seemingly random forum (or even YouTube) comments. Whether it's, "LOL NO." or, "This is easily one of the worst shows FUNimation ever licensed, maybe even THE worst.", it's easy to see that FUNi is advertising this anime as being enjoyable because of how bad it is. Even the trailer the company produced & put online recently, though giving off the feel of a badly worn & used VHS tape from the 80s (which is perfectly fitting), pushes the message that Ninja Slayer is really bad with the quote, "Hot garbage."; oddly enough, there's also a, "Pretty good." quote, which I guess is supposed to even things out? Now, yes, Ninja Slayer has been & will always be a very divisive anime, with the biggest point of contention being the wildly varying quality of animation each episode has. That's mainly because the anime was directed by Trigger's Akira Amemiya, the man behind the similarly minimalist & absurd Inferno Cop, who has admitted to deciding the frame rate for each episode by rolling a 24-sided die (one for each frame that's generally shown for each second of film), as if he was playing Dungeons & Dragons. For some fans of both of Amemiya's shows, they found FUNi's tongue-in-cheek promotion to be amusing & fitting for Ninja Slayer.

Personally, though, while I understand where FUNimation is coming from in this regard (while I haven't seen this show, I did see & highly enjoy Inferno Cop), I don't think trying to push the whole "SBIG" concept is going to be a smart idea in the end... At least, not in the way the company is executing it.

Star Dust: "Mr. Itano, Will This Be on the Final Exam?" "THIS IS THE FINAL EXAM!!!"

Ichiro Itano may not exactly be on the lips of the general anime fan, but for those who admire sleek & stylish animation of the 80s, then this man is one of the most cherished & beloved. After graduating high school in the 70s, Itano eventually joined the anime industry, becoming an animator for the original Mobile Suit Gundam, both the innovative 1979-1980 TV series & the 1981-1982 movie trilogy. He would make his name truly known, though, when he was offered a spot over at Studio Nue to help work on 1982-1983's Super Dimensional Fortress Macross. While working as a mechanical animation director (i.e. he oversaw how the giant robots animated), Itano decided to give the iconic Valkyries a little something extra whenever they fired their missiles. Simply firing off a lot of missiles at once did nothing for Itano, so he decided that every one of them would fly all over the place while in transport, with each having its own specific trajectory & motion. While he technically had done this visual flair before Macross, it was this anime's portrayal that would lead to it being deemed the "Itano Circus", which is now what any sort of wild & crazy multi-trajectory projectile scene is called, regardless of whether it was animated by the man or not (yes, even Pokémon has done it). Not many people have an actual example of animation named after them, so props to Itano.

Itano would eventually direct his own anime, as well, & I even previously reviewed his directorial debut when I wrote about Megazone 23 Part II International. His successive resumé in the director's chair is admittedly pretty small compared to other legends, with only Battle Royal High School, Violence Jack: Evil Town, Kujaku-Oh 2, & the infamous Angel Cop, followed by a large hiatus for the most part. Sure, he did the occasional bit of animation direction or "special direction" during the 90s, mainly for Macross-related products, but Itano didn't actually return to directing until the mid-00s, when he headed up Gantz & Blassreiter for Gonzo; after that, he's assisted on anime here & there. The man's hiatus was mostly because he wound up becoming a teacher, working at Yoyogi Animation Academy, "YoAni" for short. It was seemingly while working at YoAni that Ichiro Itano wound up directing what it easily his most unknown & forgotten work. It's so obscure that I never even heard of it once until a few months ago, when a VHS rip found its way online, there's no entry for it at all over at ANN's Encyclopedia, Wikipedia Japan has nothing on it, I can't find any cover art or even an Amazon Japan listing, & I didn't even realize Itano was involved with it until somewhat recently.

So let's see if there's anything special about Star Dust, a 30-minute OVA from 1992 that was seemingly a pet project done by Itano & his very own YoAni students.

Obscusion B-Side: 20 Years of The House of the Dead

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Capcom's iconic Resident Evil, the game that, though inspired heavily by the likes of Sweet Home & Alone in the Dark, is generally considered the father of survival horror; it did coin the phrase, after all. That being said, I'm not talking about that franchise's legacy (at least, not yet). Instead, I want to look back at another horror game franchise that made its debut in 1996, one that may not have the cachet of Resident Evil but deserves its own love & respect.

Happy 20th Anniversary, The House of the Dead!

While Capcom introduced survival horror to the world on March 22, 1996 via the Japanese release of Biohazard, Sega would introduce its own iconic horror game to Japanese arcades on September 13, 1996. At least, that's the only definitive date I could find, others simply say just 1997, so I'm going with that. Developed by Sega AM1, The House of the Dead, no relation to the 1860's Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel of the same name, was a Model 2 arcade light-gun rail shooter that took quarter-feeding players on a journey through a giant mansion which had been taken over by hordes of undead creatures, eventually stopping a mad scientist from unleashing his ultimate creation upon the world. Yeah, the basic plot (& I mean basic) does sound slightly similar to Resident Evil on the surface, and both franchises would end up receiving their own crazy, semi-convoluted plotlines as sequels abounded. Unlike RE, though, HotD would only see so many entries in its life. Still, there are so many spin-offs in Sega's franchise that I want to simply focus on the main, numbered entries for this retrospective; I'll bring up spin-offs & curious ports if necessary, though. Yes, this does mean that I'll be skipping over The House of the Dead: Overkill, so sorry if that disappoints you. Anyway, let's start it all with a frantic phone call for help...

B・B Burning Blood: An Indecisive KO

"Forgotten Works of Legends"... This is a phrase I've thought to myself not long ago. Like it says, there are some people who are veritable icons, or at least notable in their own rights, who have numerous works to their names, and when that happens there are bound to be a small amount of titles that have simply gone by the wayside. With this in mind, let this month be a reminder to both you, my readers, & myself of a couple of OVAs directed by two legendary men in the anime industry, both of which were produced in the early 90s. First up is the late Osamu Dezaki, a man who I've covered to a small extent on the blog before. Coincidentally enough, the titles that I did review that were directed by him, One-Pound Gospel (under his Makura Saki pen name) & Champion Joe 1 & 2, were all boxing anime, so I think it's only right to bookend that by looking at Dezaki's final boxing anime, B・B Burning Blood.

This is actually a composite of two title splashes the OVA uses, one after another.

Osamu Ishiwata made his debut in the manga industry back in around 1981, but wouldn't hit it big until 1985 when he debuted a boxing manga in the pages of Shonen Sunday. Running until 1991 & lasting 31 volumes, B.B Burning Blood (I'll avoid using the proper dot simply for typesetting purposes) occupies a bit of an odd spot when it comes to notoriety in that it wound up running for a good length of time, & even won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shonen in 1989, yet doesn't seem to be championed as one of Sunday's most iconic works... At least, I can't find any real indication that it is, even in Japan. Hell, it even spawned a 30-volume sequel, LOVe, than ran from 1993-1999, & followed the daughter of B.B's main character as she took up tennis, yet you'd be hard pressed to find much info about it outside of Japan.

In fact, even this very three-episode OVA hasn't seen any sort of new release ever since the initial VHS & LD release back from 1990-1991; even Wikipedia Japan has barely any info on the anime, simply listing a staff & cast list. Considering that this was directed by the late, legendary Osamu Dezaki, was animated & produced by his older brother Satoshi's studio Magic Bus, & had Akio Sugino doing the character designs & animation direction, it simply astounds the mind that the B.B Burning Blood OVA has become as unknown & forgotten as it has. Consider that Dezaki's 1973 TV series Jungle Kurobe, a very early & obscure directorial work, has seen a DVD release in Japan. Hell, even Sword for Truth, often considered one of Dezaki's worst titles, has DVD releases around the world! Therefore, let's see where B.B falls in the annals of Osamu Dezaki: Is it a sort of lost gem in his catalog, or is it anywhere near as bad as Sword for Truth, which came out during B.B's release in Japan?