This fantastic short story comes from Hirohiko Araki, the creator of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, my all-time favourite manga/anime series, so naturally I had super high expectations going into this, which were lowered due to the 6.12 rating and the other reviews making fun of it. Was it anything like JoJo? Absolutely not. Did it deliver in terms of the initial high expectations? Absolutely yes.
Don't trust the mediocre rating! Baoh is an extremely entertaining short film. Since it is above 45 minutes it's technically long enough to be considered feature length, and well, it gives you everything that a sci-fi thriller you would see in theaters even today would give you, but only in a fraction of the time which for me makes this far superior to 90% sci-fi movies.
Story: 8/10
The story is the typical tale of a secret government/organisation scientist creating an ultimate weapon that ultimately kills him and endangers the world, however it is brilliantly executed here. It makes me think that this was in a way Akira, before the Akira movie was even released (the Baoh manga is from 1984) Baoh's tragedy is that Ikuro, a 17-year-old teenager who was experimented on and had a parasite placed in him, must confront and control his demons and use his superhuman abilities, that he can tap into with the parasite, to stop the hitmen sent after him. The scientist and his organisation will stop at nothing to capture him, even endangering the lives of the innocent by setting a gas station on fire or capturing and torturing a nine year old girl who was with him. The ending sequence is also great however I won't spoil it.
Art: 8/10
Given that this was made in the 80's I was not expecting anything jaw-dropping, but kind of got it in the end. True, the animation is quite choppy at times by today's standards, but "art" encapsulates more than just the fluidity of animation. For it's time it's relatively smooth anyways. The firey effects, the violence, the people's faces melting from Baoh's ability, the visual effects when it comes to the destruction of walls and buildings, though - amazing! This movie was not afraid to get graphic with it's gore and they animated it well. That is to be expected of Hirohiko Araki, since he likes to make even mundane injuries look really gory, which strangely appeals to me. As a result, all the fighting scenes looks great and are constantly tense, also due to the fact that Ikuro is vulnerable when he is in his human state.
Characters: 8/10
There aren't too many characters in this anime as it is only 48 minutes long, but the main two, Ikuro and Sumire were quite nice and wholesome. Sumire was cute, and Ikuro's struggle of taming Baoh and escaping from the mercenaries sent at them, while protecting her, was what made him so very likeable. I was very attached to these characters and even felt sad for them multiple times during the movie. Also, the hitmen were cool as you would expect from hitmen in a badass action anime, plus the last one had extremely cool abilities.
Enjoyment: 10/10
You won't believe what a blast I had watching this. First off, I'm usually not the biggest fan of old shows or movies since they are usually very slow-paced, however Baoh was not like that. I already explained how Baoh achives what most sci-fy moves do but only a fraction of the time, cramming as many sci-fi thriller tropes as possible in a short amount of time while still remaining original in its execution. I also already spoke about how entertaining the gore and destruction effects are. However, most importantly this movie flew right past me along with the time I spent watching it. At some point during the film I moved my cursor to see roughly where I am and I was at the 35 minute mark. I could swear I had been watching this for only about 10 minutes maximum. The truth is I was so sucked in that it felt like it past by too quickly for me to notice how much time had truly pased. I can definitely see myself rewatching this soon, even though I rarely rewatch anime.
The only major criticism I have for this is that it cuts off a LOT of content from the original manga. Really, it's an adaptation of the beginning, hook, and end of it, while leaving the three chapters in the middle completely.
