The Land of Obscusion's Hot-Blooded Ranking of Masami Kurumada's Manga! #14 to #8 (Kurumada's Short-Run Works)

I normally don't really bother to do rankings here on The Land of Obscusion, and that's mainly because there's always that feeling of definitiveness to them, that the order one gives to rankings should feel more or less final. However, I will make an exception this time around for a simple reason: I have now covered all of Masami Kurumada's "major" works in his catalog of manga. Ever since debuting in 1974 Kurumada has made a wide variety of manga, and here on this blog I most recently reviewed Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, which was the last remaining long-running manga left for me to write about. Of course, this doesn't mean that I have covered literally every single manga Kurumada himself has ever made, but at this point all that remains are seven, made up of a trio of one-shots (Mikeneko Rock, Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru, & a teaser for the Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen movie), a trio of short-run Saint Seiya midquels (Episode Zero, Origin, & Destiny), & the Fuma no Kojirou midquel (Asuka Mumyou-cho) that he's still currently in the middle of making (but I doubt will go for more than a volume), plus whatever future manga he'll eventually make.

Therefore... how would I rank all of the "major" Kurumada manga?

It's like some bizarre, (mostly) bishonen,
likely violent Brady Bunch!

So, to begin with, a few of ground rules to establish. First, one-shots are not included in this ranking, which therefore DQs Mabudachi Jingi, Shiro Obi Taisho, & the Jitsuroku! Shinwakai quartet from contention; everything being ranked is a multi-chapter run. Second, only manga drawn by Masami Kurumada himself count, so no spin-offs (especially since I've only fully read two of them). Finally, the reason why I feel fine doing a ranking now, despite still missing seven Kurumada manga, is because the remainder are either one-shots (so they'd be DQ-ed regardless) or they are supplemental works (namely to Saint Seiya & Fuma no Kojirou) that arguably wouldn't be able to stand on their own. Sure, this ranking includes two sequel manga, but both of those are long-runners, so they have more than enough content to them that they can both stand on their own as individual works. With that in mind this results in 14 different Kurumada manga eligible for ranking (in chronological order): Sukeban Arashi, Ring ni Kakero, Fuma no Kojirou, Raimei no Zaji, Otoko Zaka, Saint Seiya, Aoi Tori no Shinwa - Blue Myth Overture, Silent Knight Sho, Akane-Iro no Kaze -Shinsengumi Keppu-ki-, B't X, Evil Crusher Maya, Ring ni Kakero 2, Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, & Ai no Jidai -Ichigo Ichie-. While this allows me to split this ranking up evenly across two parts (#14 to #8 & #7 to #1), it also coincidentally enough results in the lower half being all of Kurumada's short-run works, while the upper half is all of Kurumada's long-running works, so it also effectively acts as separate rankings of both his short-run & long-running manga.

So, without further ado, here is how I personally would rank Kurumada's "major" manga, starting with his short-run work:

Obscusion B-Side: Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete: It's Not Hammer, It's Not Michael... It's Diamond✡Yukai!

With this blog being focused primarily around anime & manga, there's no surprise that I've covered a variety of anime that were released straight to the home video/rental market, i.e. the Original Video Animation, or OVA... but what about the live-action side of things? Interestingly enough, while the OVA got its start back in 1983 with Dallos, & the concept of "direct-to-video" seemingly started in North America with 1984's E. Nick: A Legend in His Own Mind by CineTel Films (so, yes, technically anime was the first to do it!), it wouldn't be until 1989 that Japan started to give (live-action) direct-to-video a go. In the late 80s the Japanese film industry was hitting a bit of a slump, only releasing around 250 films per year on average, while rental stores were becoming really popular... which included ones that were operating illegally & renting out pirated copies of films. Wanting to "make a legitimate business" out of this market, Toei Video decided to launch what it called "V-Cinema", a line meant solely for direct-to-video movies aimed specifically at the rental market, which by then was starting to see a decline in popularity but Toei felt could still support a niche market reliably. The first Toei V-Cinema film would be Crime Hunter: Ikari no Jyudan/Bullets of Rage on March 10, 1989 & was a notable success, prompting Toei Video to produce more & more titles. This resulted in V-Cinema becoming an iconic & influential part of Japan's film industry throughout the 90s, giving many actors, directors, & the like their first big breaks in the industry, including Riki Takeuchi, Show Aikawa, Takashi Miike, & Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose infamous Sweet Home I reviewed back in 2018); it's even the origin of some iconic franchises, like Ju-On. Though it's slowed down heavily since the mid-00s, V-Cinema is still produced by Toei to this very day, while the term itself has since become associated with the direct-to-video market in general over in Japan, despite still being trademarked by Toei, similar to terms like digicam, scotch tape, aspirin, jello, etc.

Taken from the PV, as it's much more interesting
than either of the actual title slates in the movie.

Come 1992, V-Cinema's success had created a direct-to-video boom that led to other studios producing their own similar movies, with Toei Video producer Kazuo Kato later stating that the market had become so inundated with content that it got hard to tell what was what & (outside of V-Cinema still being a Toei-trademarked label) where it came from. This wasn't helped in any way by the fact that, by & large, most of these direct-to-video films were either action-heavy, yakuza flicks, or relied on lots of nudity & erotica. Therefore, some efforts were made to offer something different for the V-Cinema label, and one of those was a film titled Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete/From Love with a Bullet; there seem to be conflicting reports on whether it came out in 1992 or 1993. Instead of what had already become a "standard" V-Cinema this one went in a completely different direction by being a bit of a mystery film featuring, and I quote, "an all-musician cast & MTV-influenced hard action"; yes, this was a "dance action movie". Not just that, but the entire musical score for the film was composed by a young artist named Akio Togashi, who would shortly re-debut under a new moniker, m.c.A·T ("Microphone Controller Akio Togashi"). In fact, the first song Togashi would release under this new moniker would be a little song he first made for Heart Breaker, "Bomb A Head!". Now, if you're of a certain generation of anime fan (like me) you might be familiar with "Bomb A Head!" via m.c.A·T's 2004 self-cover, "Bomb A Head! V", which wound up being the OP theme to the TV anime adaptation of Tenjho Tenge & is, quite frankly, one of the coolest anime OP themes ever.

Yes, this is a rather silly reason to want to watch & write about a film... but Heart Breaker is actually considered a cult classic in Japan. In 1995 Kinema Junpo (Japan's oldest film magazine) ranked it #5 in the All Time Best Ten Japanese Movies' "Original Video" category, & in 2014 Toei Video itself considered it one of the 25 best titles in all of V-Cinema for the label's 25th Anniversary (alongside the likes of Ju-On 1 & 2, Crime Hunter, & Lady Battle Cop [i.e. "Female RoboCop"]), with Toei Video seemingly keeping it in print on DVD to this very day because of that. I was able to buy a brand new copy off of Amazon Japan just last year for around $15, and the YouTube channel FulciZombie's Film Grave uploaded it with English subs (via the captions) just last year; amazing that Toei Video didn't already copyright claim that yet. Therefore, what started off as an amusing little bit of amusement has turned into legit curiosity, so time to see if Heart Breaker truly is as good & memorable as it apparently is.