Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police
Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police
aka Zebura Minisuka Porisu no Gyakushuu aka ゼブラミニスカポリスの逆襲
2010
Directed by Nishiumi Kenichiro
Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police is a spinoff prequel to Zebraman 2. In the future of 2024, Tokyo is a crime-ridden cesspool, but Governor Kouzo has just come to power and has turned the town into Zebra City. He’s formed Zebra Police to clear the streets of criminals (and anyone else) with lethal force during Zebra Time, and just because we need to get 1000% more fascist, now Governor Kouzo is setting up his personal bodyguards, the Zebra Miniskirt Police!
The Zebra Miniskirt Police are three chicks in identical miniskirt uniforms that are way more fetish-driven than the normal fascist police military industrial complex uniforms used by the rest of the Zebra Police. Their black skirts are so short you see their white panties when they kick, because the black uniforms with white panties are zebra stripes…I guess. It’s hard to say that it’s symbolism, because Revenge of the Zebra Miniskirt Police is way more black and white than Zebraman 2 (pun both intended and not intended), but the uniform designs are probably from the parent film Zebraman 2 and not this spinoff. In any event, I’ve mentioned white panties often enough I’ll probably get some weird Google referrals. Hello, pervos, welcome to the site!
This is an origin film for the Zebra Miniskirt Police, because that is a story that demanded to be told. By someone. His name is Jerry. Go bother him. The three actresses chosen to star got the roles through a reality television series where Zebraman himself, Show Aikawa, choose the three women from 776 applicants. Thus they are mostly unknown models who have done little and will probably continue to do so.
Being a low budget direct to video affair, it shows blatantly. The makeup and production values are not up to par to the original film. The video even looks different, as it was shot on a different type of camera. Most of the money seemingly went into the action choreography, which is never a bad thing. The film is helmed by Nishiumi Kenichiro – Miike’s assistant director on Zebraman 2, but while Miike could have turned this low budget affair into something fun and excessive, Nishiumi Kenichiro plays it more straight and similar to a lot of the low-budget Japanese flicks I’ve seen in tone and in content. I don’t know if that was the order, or if Kenichiro just hasn’t learned enough from Miike. It basically turns into one of the hundreds of direct to video Japanese films produced each year for specific fetish audiences, this one for those who like seeing women beat up and have large bruise makeup all over them. That’s the only reason I can figure for the excessive bruise makeup. The tone is a mix of the depressing Cool Dimension and the blatant exploitation of Sukeban Fighter Misaki.
And once again, at TarsTarkas.NET, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!
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Zebraman 2
Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City
aka Zeburaman: Zebura Shiti no gyakushu aka ゼブラーマン ゼブラシティの逆襲
2010
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo
Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City is Miike’s followup to the 2004 film Zebraman, and like Zebraman before it, the sequel takes what could have been a straight story about a guy dressing up as a tokusatsu hero to find himself and takes it in unexpected directions. Zebraman 2 goes far beyond its predecessor, and has so many things going on it that you will be blown away by the result. Miike takes inspiration from the black and white stripes of the zebra and spins it into a yarn about the duality of man, good and evil, but sets it in a futuristic dystopia with fascist imagery and an MTV sensibility. The film is just frakking crazy. And brilliant. Brilliantly crazy.
Miike has a lot of fun inverting color schemes while still keeping up the black and white dichotomy. Governor Aihara Kouzo dresses in an all-black version of Alex the droog’s costume from A Clockwork Orange, his footsoldiers wear mostly black (with a stylized white zebra face on their masks – both showing their zebra origins and showing where George Lucas got the design for General Grievous!) as they stomp their way through town. In contrast, the hospital that serves the victims of the Zebra Police is the White Horse at white horse, all white, everyone dresses in white. Zebraman becomes whiter and whiter, beginning with his hair, while ZebraQueen becomes increasingly blacker in costume as the film commences, even commenting on how she wants more black. As their powers develop and they become more of a threat to each other, the characters are threatened with becoming more striped, a sign of weakness as they strive for their more purified forms.
The video direction is great, the pop star videos of ZebraQueen are indistinguishable from the stuff that should be playing on MTV (if garbage like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom wasn’t polluting the airwaves and forcing us to retreat to YouTube to watch actual videos!) Zebraman 2 is like a hyperactive music video at times. The songs aide you in throwing you right into the crazy world of the future, making you just as disoriented as Ichikawa as he wakes up in a world he doesn’t know. The violent imagery of the video matches the violence he encounters in the street.
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Categories: Bad, Movies Tags: Guadalcanal Taka, Japan, Kankuro Kudo, Masahiro Inoue, Mei Nagano, Naoki Tanaka, Riisa Naka, Show Aikawa, Takashi Miike, tokusatsu, Tsuyoshi Abe
Zebraman
Zebraman
aka Zeburaman aka ゼブラーマン
2004
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kankuro Kudo
If you know anything about cult cinema, you know Takashi Miike is awesome. Miike is always firing with all cylinders, and even on his weaker efforts he never does a half-assed job or sleepwalks through a film. Miike hops genres like Q*bert down a pyramid, able to make the most disgustingly violent film you’ve ever seen and follow that up with a kiddie flick. Zebraman is a love letter to tokusatsu heroes, particularly those from the 70s and 80s on Japanese television. Miike takes a fictitious hero and series and turn it into much more than just a simple tokusatsu film. It becomes a tale of finding yourself, of destiny, of belief, and about doing what’s right because you’re a hero. And it also has a guy riding a flying zebra while battling a giant goo monster. Zebraman takes these conventions and has fun with them, turning some deadly serious and others into more ridiculous fare than they’re treated by the real tokusatsu shows.
The fun with Zebraman is how all these different conventions and story bits add up to create a good story, despite the difference in tone and style. It’s a testament to Miike’s talent that he can take so many differently shaped parts and put together the puzzle with no missing pieces. My biggest fault with Zebraman is that the sequel outshines it at every turn. But I’ll worry about that when the review of the sequel goes up. For now, let’s learn about the man, the myth, the hero, Zebraman!
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Akira Emoto, Atsuro Watabe, Japan, Kankuro Kudo, Koen Kondo, Kyoka Suzuki, Makiko Watanabe, Naoki Yasukochi, Show Aikawa, Takashi Miike, tokusatsu, Yoshimasa Mishima, Yui Ichikawa
Erotibot
Erotibot
aka Karei naru erogami-ke no ichizoku: Shinsô reijô wa denki shitsuji no yume o miru ka aka The Great Ero-gami Family – Do Sheltered Young Ladies Dream of Electric Butlers? aka 華麗なるエロ神家の一族
2011
Directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Erotibot is the story of a girl and her robots, and also a cautionary tale of why you should never share an inheritance.
Erotibot is one of the scorwes of direct to video junk Japan films each year. It probably wouldn’t even leave the land of the rising sun were it not for the presence of Asami Sugiura and Maria Ozawa in the cast. As Asami Suguira gained fame in the West after appearing in many of the Noboru Iguchi ultragore films, and Maria Ozawa is one of the most downloaded AV stars, overseas sales are assured.
Despite the “star” power, Erotibot isn’t really a star vehicle for either of them. It also doesn’t fit well into the genre Asami Sugiura is known for. And while Maria Ozawa is well known for being a most prolific star of pornography ranging for normal to beyond frakked up, her more serious acting turns are not that well known. Besides appearing in the most recent batch of Kekko Kamen flicks, she’s also popped up in a horror movie or three. But that’s about it. Erotibot is not exactly a feather for her cap, if you know what I mean. It’s interesting (sort of), but it isn’t good.
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Asami Sugiura, cool robots, Japan, Mahiro Aine, Maria Ozawa, Naoyuki Tomomatsu, softcore
Pachinko Queen Explosion
Pachinko Queen Explosion
2007
Directed by ???
There are lots of shots of pachinko in the film. If you love pachinko, then Pachinko Queen Explosion is the film for you! If you have no idea what the frak pachinko is, you will be fast-forwarding or surfing the web until the sex action happens.
While trying to find more information about this film than just one actress’s name, I discovered that there are a lot of gambling-themed softcore flicks in Japan. It’s like a whole subgenre. And they’re films you will feel better about watching than Train Molester 9 or something similar.
Like me, you’re probably already familiar with pachinko and all the terminology and controversy around it. But for those one or two readers who aren’t down with the kakuhen system, koatari, or even senpuku kakuhen, let’s do a quick pachinko terminology lesson:
Pachinko – Pachinko is a game of chance played at machines similar to a slot/pinball machine, or the Plinko game on The Price is Right. Balls go down a peg board, and if they hit the center a slot machine type mechanism is activated. Players attempt to win more balls, which are exchanged for prizes or tokens. Tokens can then be exchanged for cash at a different location (direct trading for cash is illegal in Japan!) A pachinko establishment is called a parlor. Pachinko is also popular in Taiwan.
Payout mode – If the pachinko machine hits the jackpot on the slot machine portion, payout mode begins, where a slot opens and the player must get as many balls into the slot as possible, because they win tons of balls for each one.
Kakuhen system – After hitting jackpot, many machines use the kakuhen system, which makes the chances of hitting another jackpot much more likely. A string of jackpots is known as fever mode. Another type of kakuhen system is the special time (or ST) kakuhen, where the player automatically gets the next jackpot, but you don’t get a payout unless you hit certain odds.
Jitan mode – If the player fails to get kakuhen, the player enters jitan mode, where the speed of spins increases and the slot size increases.
Koatari – Koatari became popular in 2007, it is where the jackpot slot opens randomly, even when no balls are in play. It is possible to have jackpots that pay nothing. Use primarily to bump up the displayed payout stats.
Battle-type machines – Type of Kaotari that when opening randomly, causes a player to have to “battle” and “defeat” enemies (aka reach specific goals) in order to get the jackpot and reach the next kakuhen. When you fail battle mode, the machine reverts to jitan mode. The excitement from battling has caused this type to be very addictive.
Senpuku Kakuhen - A hidden kakuhen that happens in koatari, the player unaware of the timing, but usually knowing the approximate odds of getting it. Experienced players can score swooping in on machines that have had consecutive loses without a payout, and the senpuku kakuhen encourages players to stay at one machine for a long time to win the payout.
Now that everyone is a pachinko expert…too bad, because you don’t really need to know much of anything about pachinko for the plot! Just know that you win balls. So let’s get started!
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New Manager of the Sumo Club
New Manager of the Sumo Club
aka Sumobeya Shinjin Manager
2004
Directed by Katsumi Nojiri
There is a new manager at the Sumo Club. A girl! Time to freak out! GAAAAAAAAH! Okay, all better now. So let’s have an adventure in the erotic world of Sumo Club management, a subject that demands hundreds of cinema entries a month. People just can’t get enough. They’re weird like that. So let’s give people what they want: stories about female coaches of sumo squads.
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