Riki-Oh: Toukatsu Jigoku

I watched a very low quality sub. The res had likely been truncated/adulterated even further down to 480x360 to create a small file size. (appropriate low quality badness. this aint no rolls royce OVA) no idea where i got it or who made it.

The story and realism is farfetched and over the top but it's stylish and everything is presented in a way that communicates a cause/explanation. (It's kinda like American wrestling actually...) It's one of those things that might not 'make sense' because its over-exagerrated but it does an excllent job fooling you into going along with it and being believable because of it's ... presentation. I've watched a lot of 'great' stuff that was very hard to interpret and left me scratching my head wondering WHAT THE F~! and as rediculous as this gets, it never left me with that reaction.

Visually this is a mixed bag but overall i thought it was good. While a few things are well drawn some things are a bit sloppy and lazy, however the whole thing is done at really good angles or 'directed' well. There's a whole lot very sensationalist type visual violence and motifs and more than makes up for the weak bits. It has a very lurid feel and seems proper with themes and subject matter, so feels cohesive with what you are seeing. this is older style animation so its not as clean or smooth, and there is less detail.

Music is sparse but it's not bad. like the rest of it thematically on point. voice acting was pretty nice however. I enjoyed this as a sub (though a few spelling and grammar errors)

Characters are perfect designs and concepts but the runtime here is a bit short to really dig into them. The protagonist alone is an A+ idea as he feels like an inspiration of all kinds of american action heros as well as jesus christ! there's lots of various bad guys, thugs and villains who resemble james bond type criminals/dick tracy type oddjobs, not just in appearance but slightly in behavior or their stylization. there's a lot to like. the sunglasses of the prison director. the charles bronson harmonia man kinda leaf the antihero plays, the various outfits and clothes people are wearing. it seems all the major characters have some kind of signature to them.

the story idea, characters and presentation of this feel like a mix of anime and american 80s crime movie type thing. it communicates a lot of stuff rather well (such as backstory).

Hard to critcize as its better than I had expected. I went in blind and had no idea where this would go in the first 15 minutes but expected something likely awful. The art itself is medicore and story is almost a stretch to call good but its all well presented and was quite entertaining to watch. The anime is very good at suspending one's belief but it almost takes the licesnse a bit far (such as these fight scenes for instance) you simply dont know what will happen next and at times the results are a bit jarring: a fist fight could result in a gruesome and outrageous death, or our hero might just jump out of prison in a single bound and move on to greener pastures whenever he feels like it and the gaurds might not even stop him.

In many ways this feels like a bunch of american action movie from the dirty 1980s Which was inspired some guys into making this anime who were probably fans of the manga themselves, fits the bill just perfectly of exactly the kind of thing I often look for. Hardly a masterpiece but very much a guilty pleasure and fun time. Even though it's nothing special I am genuinely curious as to the source material after watching this. I'd not seen anything in this style or theme and will likely look for more "Street youth warrior dramas' now. XD