When I heard about Violence Jack from another reviewer, I thought, “That sounds almost as bad as Game of Thrones.” I’d heard this was one of the worst anime ever, that morality wasn’t a concept that existed in Violence Jack’s world, and that the male characters were all rapists, child-murderers, and worse. Now I’ve seen this piece of crap, I can say that’s all true. Now it comes time to review this thing.
Baiorensu Jakku
Violence Jack (バイオレンスジャック “Baiorensu Jakku”) is a manga written and illustrated by exploitation-horror writer Go Nagai. Of course it was made into an ultruviolent straight-to-video anime, which is what I’ll be reviewing today. It’s just what you’d expect from the title: violence with very little plot. When we get into the details, it becomes clear that Violence Jack is an episodic fusion of the genres of Exploitation Horror and Rape & Revenge. Here we have the biggest problem with Violence Jack; a Rape & Revenge plot doesn’t work in an episodic format. When I say “episodic,” I mean that each episode tells a self-contained story and can be watched out of order. This is great for many types of story, but a Rape/Revenge story needs to have some conclusion (usually the victim murdering the person/persons who raped her). A short twelve-episode series might be able to work like that if the story concerned the victim hunting down and killing all the rapists. Violence Jack doesn’t do this; instead, there’s a new gang of rapists and a new set of victims in every episode.
Considering that the supporting cast is different in each episode, we would expect the main hero, Violence Jack, to be compelling enough that we’d want to see more of his adventures. Instead Jack is one of the least interesting characters I’ve ever seen. In all honesty, though, people don’t watch Violence Jack for its deep plots and characters (of which there are none); they watch it because it’s violent! I watched it because it’s my job to warn my readers about shows like this. I couldn’t stop jotting down notes for this review as I watched this pathetic show. We’ll start with the first episode, called “Harem Bomber.”
Harem Bomber
After watching thirty minutes of the first Violence Jack movie, I came to the conclusion that this show is stupid. None of the characters are interesting or even especially likeable. Violence Jack himself is especially flat. The plot thus far seems to be that a demon king has taken over a post-apocalyptic Japan, and the immortal Violence Jack just screams and fights people.
Two women, named Yumi and Mari, get captured and conditioned for work as sex slaves, and we get some gut-churning scenes of women being whipped and raped. Then it’s revealed that Mari’s boyfriend is one of the guys whose job it is to capture women and force them into sex-slavery. He discovers that Mari’s been captured and tries to free her by killing Violence Jack, but he fails since Jack’s immortal.
Jack Kills People And Screams
As a town of innocents is slaughtered in the background, Violence Jack kills a bunch of bad guys, but Yumi drops dead for an unspecified reason, and I think Mari’s boyfriend hits his head and dies. Then something odd happens with an eagle, and I think the eagle is supposed to be Jack, but it’s quite surreal and confusing.
The whole thing is stupid violence-porn. Even the animation is shit. I got the feeling it was going to get worse, and with hindsight I was right. The score is the worst I’ve ever heard in an anime. With the first episode over, I was pretty sure this was worse than Sword Art Online. Then I moved on to the second episode, called Evil Town.
Evil Town
The second episode is even more of a nonsensical abomination than the first. This was without a doubt the worst anime I’d ever seen. Episode 2 begins with a peeler shooting a little kid in the head. Then the peeler and a few miners dig up the still-living Violence Jack, just as dull a character as ever. I mean, he’s invincible so he can’t be challenged, he has no connections with any of the other characters so meaningful character development is out of the question, and he just plain doesn’t have an interesting personality! Just imagine if Saitama (from One Punch Man) weren’t interesting. In fact, imagine if Saitama were the most boring piece of shit you’ve ever met, make him a psycho, and give him a jackknife; there you have Violence Jack. We do learn why he’s called that; he doesn’t remember what his name is (because we’ve never seen an amnesiac protagonist before), but he loves killing people and carries a jackknife, so he’s called Violence Jack.
Sections A, B, and C
So the assholes what dug him up ask for his help in defeating some other assholes, but then a bunch of professional models (yes, really!) who survived the apocalypse arrive out of nowhere and reveal that all the men in the story raped them, and that the peeler who shot the kid at the beginning raped the leader of the models. Of course we get a graphic flashback to all of this, and I nearly threw up.
Violence Jack decides to switch sides and help the models escape to the surface, not out of compassion, but because they offer him sex in return. He finds a way out almost instantly, but the models’ leader Aila refuses to leave till they’ve rescued all the rapists. Meanwhile one rapist faction exterminates the other rapist faction with help from the main peeler, who’s turned traitor. A guy gets shot in the head but still manages to get his last words out just fine; this isn’t the last time this happens. We get a grotesque scene of the ruffians slaughtering all the children—why am I not surprised in the least?
The Obligatory Second Gang-Rape
The rapists from Section B, having killed all the rapists from Section A, catch up with the models from Section C. They kill the few that pose even the slightest threat and proceed to rape the rest of them while Jack is busy fighting Mad Saurus, the kyōjin leader of Section B. The chief peeler once again rapes Aila, but he’s killed by a hermaphrodite who proceeds to rape Aila. Jack finally arrives to slaughter everyone from section B in the most gruesome manner he can. He kills the hermaphrodite with a cry of “Die, you deviant!” Nice to know this abomination hates hermaphrodites as well as women.
Section B’s leader, having survived the battle, finds his hermaphrodite friend’s beheaded corpse, kisses it on the lips, and proceeds to eat it and all the other corpses, absorbing their power. More utter bullshit follows. Jack defeats Mad Saurus with his jackknife. More crap happens I don’t care about. The ending is an insult. This anime is awful. I can’t wait till I’ve finished this whole thing and never have to think about Violence Jack again. It was by far the worst anime I’d ever seen.
Hell’s Wind
Hell’s Wind is even stupider than the other two, if that were possible, though it’s not as bad as Evil Town. This anime is unbelievably stupid. The worst part—apart from the rape—is that Violence Jack himself is not an interesting or compelling character.
Hell’s Wind begins with a young couple being overtaken by a motorbike gang called Hell’s Wind, who torture and kill the boyfriend with a chainsaw before raping the horrified woman, named Jun. We are then abruptly introduced to a schoolteacher and her student who seems to have a crush on her, and of course their town is attacked by the bikers. The bikers torture and kill many of the townspeople for fun, and then they tie the teacher to a tree and begin raping her. Jun, who’s been practicing archery with the intention of getting revenge, surprises the bikers and drives them back. Jack arrives and allows himself to get shot for no reason.
The bikers succeed, however, in kidnapping the teacher. While Violence Jack’s wounds heal, Jun goes to try and get her revenge, and Jack soon follows. Jun, being a woman in a fucked up snuff-anime, is easily captured. A particularly sadistic biker proceeds to cut her clothes off and carve up her chest with his knife, babbling on about how he’s creating “a work of art.” Hell, this anime isn’t even good enough to be considered art! Jack arrives and kills everyone, and it’s bloody easy since he’s invincible. The rest is kind of a blur, as I really don’t care about anything in this piece of shit.
The only thing in this episode that did surprise me was that the little kid didn’t get his throat slit, but it’s hinted at that he and Jack might meet again, so I assume he’ll die then.
Why Violence Jack Sucks
What is there to say that’s not obvious about this show? Violence Jack is a mess. I know I should be appalled by the rape and gore, and I am appalled by it, but that wasn’t what made me hate this show so much. Nor was it the horrid animation, the rotten soundtrack, the lack of a working moral compass, or the near-non-existent plot. Rather, there were two things that convinced me that this anime is one of the worst. Firstly, there’s the formulaic nature of these stories: a gang of bikers gang-rapes at least one young woman; Violence Jack comes too late to stop any of the torture or otherwise suffering, but he’s not too late to kill all the rapists; fighting ensues. That’s the plot of every episode of this thing.
Secondly, there’s Violence Jack himself. Not only is he not fun to watch—a result, I think, of his total lack of personality outside of that he likes killing rapists—but he’s essentially invincible. The rest of the characters are bland enough as it is, but Violence Jack’s life isn’t even at risk. Even when he gets shot full of bullets, he usually recovers almost instantly, and the only time he took even a few days to get better it was only because he’d let himself be taken down. Violence Jack is never challenged by the threats he faces. Granted, he’s always too late to prevent the suffering of the innocent. In fact he states this in one episode, saying that if he’s here then that means it’s already too late. However, he doesn’t really seem to care about preventing suffering—only avenging it, which he does effortlessly. One Punch Man has since proven that a character who’s pretty much unbeatable can still be compelling, but Violence Jack is not Saitama.
When I watched this crap, I couldn’t imagine any anime being worse. It’s shallow even for a crappy ‘80s exploitation-fest, and everything about it is terrible. I think it’s proportionally just as bad as Game of Thrones; the production is certainly far worse, but the latter is longer and is pretentious enough to balance the scales. I’ll just go with “Violence Jack is more boring, and Game of Thrones is more pretentious” and leave it at that. Baiorensu Jakku makes Sword Art Online look like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. But I’d heard this was the second worst anime ever so I knew there was probably something worse. After several days of recovering from this bollocks, I forced myself to watch what I’d heard was even worse than Violence Jack. Yes, it is worse than Violence Jack, and yes, I will be reviewing that next.