Heavy

Sometimes, you go into an anime knowing it’s a classic. Sometimes, you accidentally stumble upon buried treasure. Heavy from 1990 is solid gold that has somehow been buried until now. The hero of our story is Noburo Ishiguro, best known for directing Legend of the Galactic Heroes. In 1990, he took some time off from directing LotGH and decided to direct one of the greatest “so bad it’s good” anime I’ve ever seen! Heavy is basically Ashita no Joe meets Mad Bull 34 and I loved every minute of it!

Our story starts in New York City, where a great boxing coach has been diagnosed with ... cancer. Due to a brain tumor, he has developed psychic powers and keeps dreaming about a great Asian American boxer that God intends for him to train before he dies. Using his 6th sense, he manages to track the boxer of his dreams to the “Highschool Championship Fight”. In order to reduce gang violence, the mayor of New York City sanctioned official bouts where representatives from different high schools beat the living shit out of each other for bragging and territory rights. These have the blessing of the schoolboard and are attended by cheerleaders, many students, and faculty. The first match is between Japanese American Guy Hyuga (somehow not a Naruto character), and some wrestler. Guy easily beats the shit out of the wrestler, but then the wrestler tries to hit him after the bell, so Guy curb stomps him and nearly kills him! He gets a light scolding from the referee and Guy’s school is announced the winner. The coach begs Guy to become a boxer, but Guy dreams of becoming a certified public accountant. God this anime is a masterpiece! They then hear the sounds of a woman being raped, but Guy is uninterested in seeking help because “Stuff happens in New York.” However, coach scolds him for his cowardice and charges to the rescue saying, “A real American fights for justice!”. Coach gets his ass kicked, but Guy busts through a concrete wall like the Kool-Aid Man and then punches a dude so hard his eyeballs fly out of his skull!

That’s all in the first 15 minutes of this 1-hour masterpiece! That’s not even touching upon Guy’s personal trainer. Guy is trained by Lucky Roman, who was the light heavyweight champion of the world. However, he had to retire due to catching AIDS and now runs a drag bar. This anime never stops being melodramatic for a second. It’s just non-stop campiness. There are at least 10 amazingly over the top scenes I didn't describe because I don't want to spoil this whole thing.

Heavy was animated by Nippon Animation and Artland, both of whom are highly respected studios that have produced many classics over the years. However, this was definitely a low budget project and often looks pretty rough. Then again, it looks absolutely Godlike compared to its rival boxing anime Kentoushi, which was also released in 1990 and also about a Japanese American heavyweight boxer.

The soundtrack is fine. It's not the greatest thing ever, but it gets the job done. The composer was Gorou Oumi, who is mostly known for his work on Silver Fang. So at least Scandinavian anime fans will be familiar with this guy's music.

This anime was the most entertaining 50 minutes I've experienced in a while. I had a great time watching this one and if you like cheesy OVAs from the 80s and early 90s, I'm sure you'll love Heavy as much as I did!

A very interesting and yet unknown Ova from the early 90s, the designs were made by the same guy who do the "Bounty Hunter" Ova, so it really haves a good looking style. Story is kind of basic "underdog goes for the top" type, but it really has is own ideas, specially depicting the ghettos or bad neighborhoods from that era, and the sort of hard life that people have back then, you know the tale: prostitutes, drunks, extreme poverty and boxing as this sort of chance to make out a leaving, more than a sport.

What it surprise me the most was how this ... Ova decided to show off very "hot topics" for the time it was released, despite being a seinen it wasnt the most common thing to do for Ovas of that time period (that tend to be more focused on showing of gore and sex that in developing a story) and the limitations of this tipe of format, specially the AIDs stuff, and how it affected the boxing world, if you are interested on this topic in real life, search for the story of Tommy Morrison, it kinds of remind me that.

The story ends up with the first pro fight of Gai, and showing up some flashbacks from his childhood. It continues in the manga, but as far as i know, it was never translated, or seen the light outside of Japan.

It was short but really enjoyable, hope the manga see the light someday, somehow.