The story that holds all the excitement together is surprisingly actually a fairly decent affair: In a post-apocalyptic world there are two brothers who have been trained in a powerful martial art which uses semi biological armoured suits, one of the brothers decides to use his power to create his perfect world and the other to protect the innocent civilian population. This all sounds very similar to a much more famous series from around a decade earlier and Apocalypse Zero makes no secret of its inspirations as we are greeted by the image of a lone flower in the opening scene, a character repeatedly sings about allowing nature to come back to the planet and one of the brothers throws his defeated sibling down a crevasse in the back story.
Of course you don’t really watch something like Apocalypse Zero for a deep and engrossing story and as I mentioned in the opening paragraph where Apocalypse Zero really shines is the level that it takes the expected violence in this sort of OVA to. Make no mistake about it Apocalypse Zero is spectacularly violent even by the standards of where it draws some of its inspiration from and furthermore the manner in which it goes about its business is really something else. It throws a giant naked cannibalistic female at you in the first minute follows this up with a blue giant rocker who uses his genitalia as a microphone. The break between the two OVAs gives you a time for a breather before it comes back even harder with a sexual deviant of a nurse whose bodily fluids melt flesh and who transforms in a giant nymphomaniac with a bearded man’s face in her midriff and finally hits the home run with a geriatric old man whose genitalia transform into a dragon. You really couldn’t make this up and the sheer level of bizarreness Apocalypse Zero throws at you is what makes it really stand out either in a good way or bad way depending on what you’re after.
The art style of Apocalypse Zero is really rather pleasing bringing to life the destroyed world it takes place in very much to the same standard Fist of the North Star or Violence Jack does. The character detail on the strange range of creatures is also rather good and when something goes pop, gets sliced in half or melted the artwork keeps pace without missing a beat. The sound design is a bit of a let-down but surprisingly the dub version isn’t actually appalling and is very watchable, the Japanese voice work is top notch hardly surprising since it features some great talents in Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Ogata as the two leads however the localisation does result in some absolutely hysterical phrases for some of the move names on display.
In short Apocalypse Zero is either a must see or something to completely avoid depending on whether or not you want to watch an utterly bonkers piece of work. Make no mistake about it Apocalypse Zero will leave you crying with laughter, doing double takes as you try and work out what it is you’re watching and just generally grinning as the madness plays out or you’ll watch the first ten minutes and turn it off thinking what a load of rubbish!
