Shin Karate Jigoku-hen

Based on a manga written by Kajiwara Ikki, well-known for Ashita no Joe. What most western people have no idea is the fact Ikki was a revolutionary gekiga artist on writing absurd works depicting harsh reality, with poverty and cruelty on focus. I have no idea how this OVA adapted the original manga, since these rental-VHS-only releases are specially awful, but the results are such of a masterpiece of ultimately trashy anime. It starts very idiotic then gets over-the-top brutal and nihilist, without losing its cheap charm. You have a cheesy karate and yakuza plot conflicting with WW2 and italian/nazi political themes. Eventually you'll find ... suicide, abuse, racism, the exploitation of minors and natives. If you think you had enough of those themes.. well, you don't know how those are presented in here. What about an old fat grandma into BDSM creatively leading your torture, humiliation and rape, finding a way to roast you alive beyond medieval? I mean, the grandpa whipping scene is already strange enough. Now imagine this same grandma naked and tied to a boat. Can't believe I lived enough to watch a scene like that. With psychological/physical violence and shitty artwork hand in hand, the level of cheesiness x background social commentary x gross vileness is way out of balance. Top notch shitty OVA, a forgotten classic among anime nasties.
Highly reccomended for anyone else looking for media of the worst quality.

This is pretty dire.

Watching the protagonist slip from one group of horrible people to another, witnessing brutal acts of sick violence and desperate vengeance, starts to feel a little nihilistic. Suicide, murder, torture, sexual assault, racism—this OVA plumbs the depths of the worst things humans can do to each other, so much so that our karate champ often wonders why humans can be so depraved. As a viewer, I started to wonder what the moviemakers were trying to get at. Why tell this story in this way? It's certainly not subtle. In some ways the OVA seemed to bump against the edge of exploitation, ... as if the viewer should get some perverse thrill from watching a naked, screaming woman roast inside a cage perched on a burning tree.

Story and themes aside, the animation is pretty crude. The characters are dully designed and the animators did not work too hard to maintain any faithfulness to the style sheet. Music is forgettable and the sound effects are from the standard anime bank of sound effects heard a thousand times over. There were several false brand names and logos to avoid copyright infringement (e.g. PanNam airlines), but the novelty of spotting those did not make up for the OVA's other shortcomings.

Honestly, I only finished it so I could feel legitimate when writing this negative review.