Bounty Dog: Getsumen no Eve

Bounty Dog dives right into the deep end with surreal, near psychological drama imagery and is guaranteed to confuse the sh*t out of you within its first 5 minutes; but what a beautiful 5 minutes it is. The anime starts with an absolutely beautiful montage of its moon city setting set to some slick city pop music and sets such a powerful tone of a false utopia beset by impending doom that will permeate the rest of the ova. It will take your mind off the plot confusion until the anime finally explains its premise; our main characters are secret agents and the mysterious girl ... is some clone of a moon goddess.
Show not tell is great except when it is used before viewer has even been given any story details to begin with! A 2 episode short ova generally does not have any business attempting a complex plot anyhow.
Even with the premise established, I still couldn't make sense of the themes and full story of this ova. It is another one of those ambitious sci fi ovas like Big Wars, Megazone 23 and Dallos and indeed borrows many sci fi elements and tropes from them. On a more superficial level, the moon setting recalls Dallos while there is a great hovercraft vs military chase sequence ala Megazone that is easily one of the ova's highlights.
Big Wars shares far more than a passing similarity to Bounty Dog. Both use a plot about cosmic deities monitoring and then suppressing humanity to explore themes of human civilisation developing too far. Both also share a very murky, saturated colour palette and have rather poor, overambitious execution of their stories.
The murky palette may have saved up on production costs but its oppressive, clinical look lends heavily to the surrealist and ominous atmosphere that I earlier mentioned. The execution of the story on the other hand is unsalvagable, it really is too much concepts and not enough time to linger on any details.

Ultimately Bounty Dog is forgettable if not for the absolutely rich mix of sci fi concepts and tropes it represents, resplendent with gorgeous futuristic art oozing with the passionate vision that dominated retro sci fi anime. Its not as high production as something like Venus Wars, Dragons Heaven, Five Star Stories or Bubblegum Crisis but if you like beautiful anime sci fi art, watch this one.

Though I doubt any of you misguided bastards will notice, Bounty Dog: Getsumen no Ibu is pretty good. Not that it's that intelligent or subtle that you're missing something. Not at all. It's just that you're too used to seeing this stuff, done better. But the year is 1994 and anime had yet to fully crawl out of it's depression and start booming again.

Then what exactly are you missing? I'm gonna be really vague and say I can't really tell you. Just the general spookyness and mindfuckery, the reason why we're all still watching Chinese cartoons as adults. There's something about this anime, a kind ... of vibe created by the combination of the sci-fi setting and the possibility of supernatural elements that I don't recall feeling in any earlier thing, but is present in later anime. Ergo Proxy comes to mind. I can't really put my finger on it.
Also any naked boobs are small, which is basically a sign of the makers' confidence in the story.

Come to think of it, this ova could've been either great or horrible. There's a lot of potential in the story for awesomeness, but also for a cheap, pulpy boobs-and-gore anime.
Thankfully the boobs were small and the bloody stuff was presented the way it should be, in moderation and at the right moment so it hits you in the gut. I guess the gut feeling is why I consider this underrated.

8/10 might be a bit much. It could have been better written. I was confused in a few instances I think I shouldn't have been confused. The animation was fairly cheap and bleak compared to other ova's of the time, although there were some nice character designs and movements on the freaky girl character. Also, due to its short running time, the characters never really got fleshed out apart from the focus on the main character's backstory. But it does deserve a hell of a lot more than the 5.whatever it's getting now. Which is basically the same score as your average early 90's hentai. Come on people, show some love.

Overall, it could've done with more action in the opening scenes and maybe some more episodes to spread out the action of the latter part and flesh out the characters, but I guess it's fine the way it is.

Final judgement on Bounty Dog: Getsumen no Ibu: better than you'll think it is.

I got into anime at a very odd time. Anime like Dominion Tank Police, and Akira were still big and being kicked around, and hence some of the earliest stuff I saw. Dragon Ball Z , Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and Cardcaptors were on TV and I watched in amazement (well can’t say I even liked Cardcaptors but hey I wasn’t picky back then). I saw a few episodes of Robotech (although they were reruns of course I’m not old enough to have seen it’s original airing), I even was lucky enough to catch Serial Experiments Lain on TechTV. This was a magical time when people ... still thought Jungle De Ikou was funny (well I still think it is but I’m probably the only one). During this time anime seemed mystical and could do no wrong. I ended up both watching the older stuff on VHS (but only borrowing them from friends I really had no idea where I could buy this stuff nor did I have the money) and the “newer” stuff on TV. I should not need to point out that the tones of both of these types of anime are vastly different. I can define the tones easily, the stuff I saw on VHS was mostly ultraviolent or in some way crude, and the stuff I saw on tv was usually more child friendly or at least of a less violent nature. There was no such thing to me as a “bad anime”, it was all good. During the late 90′s I heard Bounty Dog mentioned once or twice, but paid it no mind. By 2003 however my attitude toward anime was changed, I now was a full fledged anime fan and understood not all anime was good. This is also the year Bounty Dog was released on dvd, a title that seemed familiar to me, but when I read this review of it I decided to stay clear of it. By then I was buying DVDs quite frequently (We got a DVD player in 2000 and I spent all my money on either anime dvds or video games from that point forward). I vividly remember reading that review when it was published. What’s the point of all this? Well I finally got to watch Bounty Dog, and it most definitely fits in with the stuff I watched on VHS back in the day, however it is not nearly as violent as other stuff I remember from that time. I was half expecting this to be a total disaster of a movie, much like the god awful Psychic Wars (I am going to destroy this in a future review), but it turned out it was a decent sci-fi story. Sure it’s nothing groundbreaking, but I enjoyed it. I might have liked it a lot better if I saw it in the 90′s, but it’s still worth a watch today. Sure is yellow though…

Yoshiyuki Otomo is a member of a group of freelance spies committing industrial espionage against the Constans Corporation, on orders from a rival corporation (that we never learn the identify of this rival corporation is probably for the better considering the short running time of this two part OVA). The Constans Corporation is primarily in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the first lunar city (encased in a glass bubble). Yes this is a tale about the colonization of the moon. Yoshiyuki’s team includes his boss the very serious Shoko, and Kei. Yoshiyuki seems very preoccupied, his girlfriend died some time in the recent past and this still weighs heavily on him. I can’t tell you much more about these characters, because the anime simply didn’t tell me much about them either. I figure Kei is some type of mechanical export, but that’s just speculation. I just love the opening scene of this OVA and the song that plays afterwards. It sets up the story pretty well and just excited me. The three spies are on a spaceship to the moon (that looks much like an airplane) and Shoko is trying to blend in. She’s all perky, cheerful, bubbly, and teasing. If there’s one aspect of her character that is explored (I admit very lightly) it is the great acting ability she has, to pretend to be an obnoxious tourist so well. Yoshiyuki is way to preoccupied by his laptop, and Shoko warns him that he doesn’t look much like a tourist with his nose buried in his work there. Kei just seems to sit on the plane and not do much, just like he does for the rest of the anime. Anyway the three spies are on the moon investigating Constans Corporation, with the approval to commit sabotage if necessary. Their client believes the Constans Corporation is currently arming the moon (weaponizing space has been outlawed), and this could give Contstans a giant advantage if it is true. The spy trio’s client has detected an unusual amount of “electro magnetic electricity” (surely that’s a thing) coming from the moon. But as the plot unfolds we learn that the truth may be much stranger and involve ancient alien ruins discovered by the company and possibly a surviving alien or two (à la Total Recall). While investigating the cause of the high levels of ”electro magnetic electricity” and the Constans Corporation, our heros run into goons sent from the corporation. These mooks, and the company itself are not evil, and the show makes a very big point about this. In fact it does so so strongly that at times I feel like the spy trio are really the bad guys. The thugs sent from the company are ordered not to kill the spies, and try to capture them alive. Their multiple entanglements with the spies over the anime put this to the test, and they never resort to killing anyone, even when their own men are killed by the spies. While investigating the company the spies learn many secrets, all much larger then the industrial espionage they are committing. Personally I like how the mystery of the true explanation of where the moon came from, the source of the strange ”electro magnetic electricity”, the engrossing spy story, and the story of Yoshiyuki’s girlfriend all intersect. There isn’t one explanation but many things going on, all grander then the characters involved. In addition to all this there is a cute girl who keeps appearing to Yoshiyuki and then quickly disappearing, almost magically.

There’s plenty of cool tech to go around in this 90′s sci-fi OVA. A favorite of mine is the really cool laptop Yoshiyuki uses in the first scene, that puts out tablets to shame. There’s also plenty of cool spy gadgets, like secret tape recorders in pens, tiny hidden explosives, and really cool cars. Not to mention the really neat monorail system. The story being told is very 90′s, much of it reminiscent of the original Total Recall film staring Arnold Schwarzenegger (which is a film everyone needs to see). In fact I’d say significant parts of the plot are lifted straight from that movie and the original novel it is based on, with anime twists, and these are the very best aspects of the movie. I must say there’s something about 90′s sci-fi, even the less than stellar ones that resonates with me. The story is well written (mostly), as I mentioned the way all the plot elements intersect is quite satisfying. Toward the end of the anime however things start to fall apart on the writing side. Some of the mysteries are still unanswered and so are dealt with in a sloppy exposition by a character while on the move . Now exposition in between action scenes, when the characters are on the move is not impossible to do well (After all that’s pretty much how Terminator explained everything to us). But here it just seems lazy and well frankly poorly thought out. The characters, as I mentioned before don’t have much to them. They’re pretty shallow creatures. In fact I found myself being attached much more to the corporation then the spies, because they seem like a nicer group of people.

The main problem of this anime is none of that though. The major thing wrong with Bounty Dog is the color palette. What the hell happened here? Everything in this entire anime looks all washed out. It is all piss yellow or puke green shaded. It all looks ugly! The art designs look good, in fact I love the technology and the character designs are good. The animation is alright, although minimal at times. But the color of it all is garbage! Did they run out of other colors? Were they trying to save money? Are they trying to make the show look cool by coloring it all yellow? Whatever the reason for it, it looks horrible. I hate this piss yellow colored stuff. It doesn’t help that the video quality on Manga Entertainments DVD is terrible (and as I’m sure you all know I’m never one to complain about that). Even Manga Entertainment’s DVD menus are this ugly yellow. Eww keep it away from me!

The music of this anime is a huge strength. The soundtrack is quite good, it seems somewhat inspired by Total Recall and other early 90′s sci-fi, and I must say it is all very catchy and listenable. The dub for this anime is another Manga Video job done in London, England (with American accents) and directed by my favorite, Michael Bakewell. While this dub is not his very best work, it lives up the high standards I have for Mr. Bakewell’s dubs. While there are a few curses in this, they are used very rarely and are entirely fitting. Peter Marinker plays one of the important corporate big-shots, and once again does a magnificent job. Whenever he speaks it’s like a lesson to other actors as to how to act. He makes the corporate big shot seem likable, realistic, human, and understandable. Yet he still makes you get the feeling that this guy is working on some morally grey projects for the company. Stephen Grat plays Yoshiyuki and he seems a little bored at times. But he fits the character well enough. He’s great during the more subdued emotional scenes, but does overact a bit during the more in-your-face scenes. I liked his voice, and thought it matched the character well. Shoko is played by Toni Barry, who I’ll always remember as Leona Ozaki from Dominion Tank Police. Just like her performance in Dominion, she does a top notch job. Toni Barry is perky, cheerful, excitable, and fun when she’s pretending to be a tourist and does this wonderfully. It is all an act, and you figure this out quite fast however as the real Shoko is deadly serious, and firm. And Toni Barry captures this aspect of her personality perfectly as well. Teresa Gallagher (the President’s daughter Sayaka Rama,in Demon City Shinjuku) plays Ines, the girl who keeps mysteriously appearing and disappearing over the course of the OVA. Teresa Gallagher again gives a great performance, interpreting this mysterious girl as cute sounding, odd, adorable, shy, but knowledgable person. I really like how perky and playful she can be at times too. She’s even better in this then in Demon City as I liked the American accent she put on here as opposed to her real real British accent that she used in Demon City. I also recognized Bob Sherman’s voice as one of the executives at Constans Corporation, and again he does a terrific job. Some of the minor characters seem bored and this is a problem. Many small roles seem a little cheesy, but never enough to ruin the dub. I liked the small sci-fi touches they added like computer voices on the phone, in the backgrounds, futuristic news reporters and such. There’s also a few jokes early on, one involving an 87 year old women who is rather eager to let you know that she “remembers when Clinton was President” (which was probably a funnier joke in the 90′s). The dub also seems a little liberal, making references to very American things a few times (the Superbowl being one of them). I can’t confirm this though because for some reason there is neither a Japanese audio track or subtitles. I do not understand this. What the hell Manga Entertainment

No one else seems to even like this anime a little bit. And I understand why they hate it. But it’s not that bad is it? I’ve tried to sit through MD Geist but could not, I barely finished and totally regretting the train wreck that is Kai Doh Maru (how did an anime so bad even end up on US television multiple times?). I watched some of Night Shift Nurses at my friend’s house once and that was so bad from time to time I get vietnam vet-like flashbacks. Although I came home that day, a part of me is still fighting the battle in that forbidden hospital ward. There were eggs…Oh god why where there eggs?. Usually eggs don’t go there, but there they were, oh please tell me why did she have eggs!? ….uh…As I was saying…Garzey’s Wing is one of my favorite horrible anime series (a great DVD to pop on when you have people over and play in the background), and I saw Psychic Wars 3 times now, an OVA so bad I want a refund and I have’t even purchased the damn thing yet. I am convinced on each time I watched it I lost more neurons then if I had spent the time sniffing airplane glue and then following that up with a bit of binge drinking. So I think I know what I’m talking about when it comes to god awful anime. I know I’ve been pretty harsh on this at times, but I still think it’s central story is solid and really worth a watch. It has major problems that’s for sure, but there’s plenty here to like too. Some of the problems like no Japanese audio and the yellow color scheme just boggles the mind. Other problems like a rushed final act with cheap exposition, and undeveloped characters are easier to overlook. I think this anime is a good way to kill an hour. It never wanted to be more then that either. This is an anime that if it had more time to finish off the story in a proper way, and develop the characters could have been really good. They even could have added some more interesting themes. Instead it just sort of lies there. Well at least it is entertaining. Much like Total Recall you’re never sure how far the conspiracy goes, or if there is one at all. What is really going on on the moon, and how are aliens involved? This aspect is the part of the movie that works the best. One important thing to mention is that while most of this isn’t very violent or sexual, there is one or two brief scenes of nudity. Also the one scene that is violent is pretty horrible. At one point in the anime Yoshiyuki beats the living crap out of 2 girls with his bare hands. He ends up punching one of them to a bloody pulp, and then smashing her head into a wall until she slowly dies in agony. The other one gets beat up and then violently shot to death. This is a little tough to watch. I mean I’m all for violence but the way in which he beats the living daylights out of a girl seems abusive. The dvd for this is still easy and cheap to buy off Amazon. For the cheap price it’s worth it. Just don’t spend too much on it. Why did I end up writing so much about Bounty Dog?

(review originally posted: http://predederva.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/bounty-dog/ )