Hon ran

This magnificently trashy OVA based on manga by Masahik Takajo, the screenwriter of the renowned gory martial-arts comic book Riki-Oh, comes across as the bloated essence of anime pulp. Perhaps it lacks only mecha robots and tentacles, but it otherwise has everything that belongs to cheap VHS animation targeted at adolescent boys, all in one bizarrely recombined and tremendously entertaining mix with a proper sense of humour. In addition to the basic blend of violence, nudity, sex, supernatural martial arts and blood spatter, there has to be exaggerated mysticism with an overlap into sci-fi, history and the present. The formula of the chosen cool, young protagonist, at whose feet a fair maiden falls, is combined with would-be involvement in a rebellion against the system. While the viewer isn’t exactly surprised by the phantasmagorical twists and transitions from a globetrotting adventure to a paranoid conspiracy, as well as cyberpunk and fantasy, the variable quality of the animation offers no small amusement. Crimson Wolf provides an overview of classic cost-cutting techniques, from shaking thunder sheets (to simulate the effect of an earthquake), through sharp turns of the camera across a static image, to repeating shots in flashbacks, as well as occasional surprising shots where the budget tap was opened up a bit more. And when you think that this trash can’t in any way surprise you or you ask yourself how its creators intend to bring this chaos to a conclusion, it will pull a trump card out of its sleeve ten minutes before the end by revealing the protagonists’ main adversaries, who will take your breath away with their inane, exploitative and bombastic nature. Much wilder and more extreme trash has been created on the far fringes of anime, but this particular example tops them all as a list of 101 attributes of the whole sphere of cheap and properly exalted OVA genre movies. (27.01.2021)