There’s something indelibly 80’s about well known Madhouse Studio director Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s anime. I don’t know; maybe it’s the tendency towards big hair, or maybe it’s just that it was during the 80’s (well, actually more like the early 90’s) that titles like Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and this three part series, Cyber City Oedo 808, were among the few anime titles available here in Australia. It’s therefore hard not to look back on those VHS experiences now – sitting in front of the TV, mouth gaping as the player whirred through (and sometimes chewed) a good few hours of tape – without bringing to the new, shinier DVD experience something in the way of a touch of guilty nostalgia.
While a title like the original Ninja Scroll can’t be surpassed for the typical Madhouse madness; violence, gore, misogyny and impossibly mutated baddies aplenty, Oedo 808 leans a little more to the other side of the studio’s signature style – violence, gore, drag-queens and somewhat mutated baddies aplenty. In a futuristic dystopia patched together from numerous recognisable cyberpunkian sources, it’s almost charming to find that mullets, lip gloss and high heel boots just won’t quit. Dated badly? I beg to differ; Cyber City’s been around so long, it’s practically in again.
The premise is fairly simple – three nasty fellows with multiple life sentences, wallowing away in some high-tech jail, are given another chance. Use their elite skills to work for the police, wear collars that’ll take their heads off if they don’t solve their cases in a timely manner, and for every criminal they bring in, they get a few years taken off their sentence. When their records show a 0.008% chance of parole in their lifetime, one wonders why they said yes to the offer, but catching other bad guys has to be better a better way to go than cooling their heels in a cell for 300 years, so perhaps it’s not all that hard to work out after all.
The structure is fairly straightforward as well – three characters, three episodes. Each gets to star and no one has to pop a cap in anyone’s ass or scratch anyone’s eyes out. Lucky; Benten, the star of the third episode, is a typical Kawajiri androgyne with absolutely no issues about his masculinity, and he’s got the nails to prove it. The other two home boys are also fairly typical examples of Madhouse men, one a cocky brawler, the other a serious bruiser, each with their own gung-ho logic and nothing much to lose. Each gets involved in cases that would no doubt be the death of lesser men, but are just another day on the job for the super criminal-turned-cop.
Again, lucky, because without a little collateral damage, without some cars crashing at speed, buildings falling down, people getting shot and heroes bleeding profusely, Oedo 808 would likely find its angsty narrative a thin and awkward burden to successfully carry. Yes, it’s slightly psychologically darker than its other Madhouse contemporaries, and (dare I say it) a little more thoughtful, but it unfortunately lacks any real depth; probably a characteristic of the era in which it was made rather than any unintended flaws on its part. Gumshoe detective rather than chambara action, the mysteries it serves up in each part are hardly challenging and the character development is hardly complex. Of course, that’s probably not the point; it’s merely entertaining to watch our anti-heroes trying to beat the clock before they get their blocks nocked off.
But it’s also a shame that the producers at the time didn’t think to invest a little more what’s good about this OAV series – the idea of the anti-hero, the criminal element leashed, the naturally wild dog that will sooner or later only bite the hand that feeds it. By unconfirmed accounts, that was actually what was initially intended in the first part until a show of interest inspired the second and third parts and the detail was taken out. It’s a shame that same interest wasn’t enough to see the series continue so long that the backgrounds of the characters could be explored further, or the ‘Running Man’ tension built up a little more, but in the end there’s no use wishing for what isn’t. And besides, Cyber City Oedo 808 might be far from perfect, especially compared to the majority of series today, but with that retro style (not to mention those great high-heel boots) there’s still something to be said for the power of nostalgia. And I for one refuse to feel all that guilty about it.