I have long prided myself on being a lover of the best and worst that the visual medium has to offer. I don't limit myself to watching anime and movies that people, critics, or my friends think are great. I love watching things that just plain suck sometimes. So bad it's good, so bad it's HORRIBLE, I don't care- I think you can get something out of anything, even if that's "I want that hour of my life back and a bag to puke in".
I've seen a good number of godawful 80s and 90s OVAs that exist solely for exploitative purposes- tasteless, shameless, filthy, or just plain obscene things that have no good reason to be out there but for some T&A, but are cult hits regardless. Mad Bull 34, Violence Jack, Angel Cop, the list goes on and on. The "trashy OVA schlock" is basically a genre of its own, and if it's not, I'm coining the term now, Bob Saget!
I had thought that this was a dying breed, the anime equivalent of a late night titty movie- something with such a barely functional plot that served only to push you from one pointless sexual scene to another bare body. I was very, very wrong. In 2008 and 2009, studio Arms (the animators of Kite, Elfen Lied, Queens Blade, and hentai galore), perhaps the most famous tasteless anime-trash producer of all time , dropped another bomb on the world: Master of Martial Hearts.
Since this is a 5 episode OVA, there's not a whole lot that can be said regarding the plot and characters that the viewer shouldn't just see for themselves. Master of Martial Hearts is, at heart, a panty fighter in the vein of Ikkitousen and Butt Attack Punisher Girl (yeah, go look that one up). Every episode features the MC, Aya fighting against various fetish stereotype girls- the little sister, the maid, a priestess girl, flight attendant, sexy nurse/cop, and Shenhua from Black Lagoon. (cheongsams, whaddup?) PS, be on the lookout for a FOTNS reference.
Every gut busting, throat crushing, bone cracking blow from our pugilistic sadist of a MC also destroys her opponent's clothes- another note straight out of Ikkitousen. One chick takes a knee to the face, and her bra shreds into tiny pieces like paper. Another girl gets punched so hard in the stomach that her butt comes bursting out of the back of her panties and skirt. No article of clothing is safe! It's like Soul Calibur out here! Expect a lot of exposed titties to keep you glued to the screen, because it's certainly not for the personality anyone exhibits.
The next bit is the plot twists. It would be criminal of me to reveal anything, but dayum, there's so much over the top, out of nowhere melodrama that a telenovela would be jealous of Martial Hearts. If you've ever seen the SNL skit "The Californians", IT'S THAT, IT REALLY IS!
Finally, we put the icing on the crap cake that every shameless OVA Schlock must have to achieve legendary status: the dub. Staples in the OVA Schlock genre have historically consisted of the venerable Central Park Media or Media Blasters. No more. Funimation stepped up to the plate (and why they licensed this odious turd is beyond me) and immediately started swinging for the fences. It's hard to believe it, but they actually pulled out all of their A list ladies for this one- Trina Nishimura, Alexis Tipton, Cherami Leigh, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Caitlin Glass, Brittey Karbowski, Monica Rial, and they even got Luci Christian in on the action. It's an ensemble of various action girl voices, and boy, does it ever make it more fun to imagine the other characters they voice going at it in a trashy, half naked death match. I mean, the show is already about some disgusting fetish wish fulfillment, so why not imagine that the blank slate characters are replaced with ones from other series??
In all seriousness, these ladies actually didn't do a gag dub. If anything, the English version is vastly improved over the completely emotionless, robotic Japanese. It adds so much more color when they get really into it, which brings this into that special level of schlock: Shoji Sato class. High School of the Dead was a terrible anime pandering to people with swollen cow udder fetishes, as was its stablemate Triage X. But what makes them so special is how they're the perfect amount of schlock and trashy, tasteless titty movie with some super hammy and overplayed melodramatic moments. They're hilarious in how utterly ridiculous they are, (not to mention that the HOTD dub is 5/7 perfect). Shoji Sato is a man who knows his target audience, and makes manga that appeals to them. It sells. It was a shock to me that Mr Sato didn't make Master of Martial Hearts, because it's so perfectly in line with his style.
Seriously, I'm giving it a 9 for the same reason I gave Mad Bull a 9. Just plain ridiculousness. And if you manage to make it to that 5th episode... the ending will leave your sides as shredded as the girls in the show's clothes. I promise it's worth waiting until the end. You might die laughing at the sheer stupid craziness.
Oh, and if you value your eardrums, mute the opening song. It's like a tonedeaf gazelle trying to mimic the shrieks of a dying whale mixed with Eddie Vedder and nu-metal.
"Just forget about that, and act stupid for a while!" -Natsume
