I guess I’ll begin with the story. I don’t really want to explain it, but luckily, Wikipedia has:
“Daizaburo "Eddie" Ban, a Japanese-American, joins the New York City's toughest precinct, the thirty fourth. On his first day he is partnered up with John Estes, nicknamed "Sleepy" by his friends and "Mad Bull" by his enemies, a cop who stops crime with his own violent brand of justice. Mad Bull makes no qualms about executing common thieves with shotgun blasts, even if they pose a minor threat. He often steals from prostitutes and does incredible amounts of property damage while fighting crime. Mad Bull's unpoliceman-like behavior often puts him in hot water with his partner Daizaburo and the 34th precinct. However, despite how reckless or illegal these acts are, a good cause is always revealed (for example, Sleepy uses the money he steals from the prostitutes to fund a venereal disease clinic and a home for battered and raped women). Perrine Valley, a police lieutenant, joins Daizaburo and Sleepy later on to help them tackle more difficult cases involving the mafia and drug-running.”
Now, you might think that with a story like this, it would make some kind of sense...but it doesn’t. Within each episode, the story becomes a jumbled, chaotic, and psychotic mess. There might be something that makes sense one moment, then something else will come along later and destroy any sense the previous scene made.
If the story bounces all over the walls, then the voice acting bounces on those same walls, and breaks through them. Some voices sound okay, but just about everybody else sounds like the bottom of the voice actor barrel was scrapped. It also doesn’t help the fact that many of the voices sound racially stereotypical (New Yorkers, Asians, & African Americans are just a few that are stereotyped), and even with the accents they don’t sound good. There are only a pinchful of characters that sound alright, but even then their voices sounds like nails against a chalkboard.
Next up on the chopping block is the animation quality. Let’s me say that this show is ugly, plain & simple. It doesn’t look like a lot of work was put in, and this is especially noticeable when the misuse of the English language is plainly in front of the watcher’s eyes (I forgot, but I swore I saw Engrish words at least 5 times). The most ugliest of the episodes is the third one, as everything has a yellowish tint to it. There’s a piss joke in there somewhere, but I can’t find it for some reason.
As we can already tell, the structure of Mad Bull 34 is rotten like a cesspool, but I’ve got more pain in suffering for you! In addition to the story, voice acting & animation quality, Mad Bull 34 has the distinction of being one of the most sexist shows on the planet. There is really only one female character (The cop) that isn’t fully treated like crap, but all the other females are put through hell. Case in point: in the first few minutes, we see a girl about to get raped by two men, and a girl soon after getting accosted by two robbers (To tell you what happens afterwards would cause you to have spasms). One odd factor about the women that get in danger is that they have blonde hair. There’s a Nazi joke in there somewhere, but I can’t find it for some reason.
Mad Bull 34 is not only one of the most sexist anime, but it’s also one of the most racist. We’ve got a black gun with a stereo-typically low/deep voice, and is prone to having his way with women (He kills a girl about halfway through episode 1). We’ve also got New Yorkers with partially stereotyped accents, and Asians with fu-manchu accents round out this crap Sundae.
Now we come to the difficult part, and that’s finding anything redeemable about this show. With SiN, there was at the very least some glimmer of goodness swimming in that sea of shit. Finding something redeemable about Mad Bull 34 is like trying to find a honest Republican, but somehow, I was able to find a little bit that wasn’t stained by everything else. There wasn’t that many things, but I did find something.
For starters, Mad Bull 34 is a high-octane action show. There are very few moments where things are slow: just about every other scene is some form of action, whether it’s Mad Bull getting it on with a random woman (This happens a few times, by the way), or when he’s taking out the bad guys. Speaking of taking out the bad guys...
Mad Bull 34 is also one of the most violent shows out there. Back during my SiN review, I said that it was a gory show, and this one is no different. In the first few minutes, we see a black guy have his head decapitated by gunfire (He was one of the two rapists that I mention a moment ago. The other one was a white guy, if you’re curious), and another guy have his head taken off piece by piece with shotgun blasts. There’s plenty of violent scenes in the other episodes, so if you’re a fan of bloodshed & carnage, you’ll enjoy this.
For those who’ve seen this show and hate it, you’ll enjoy these two things. Since the show hasn’t been released on DVD, finding the tapes for Mad Bull 34 is incredibly difficult. I’ve only seen a tiny few over on Amazon, and prices fluctuate all over the place. As for the episodes themselves, there’s only four, with one on each of the tapes. The episodes themselves last about 45 minutes each, and would make for part of a great (bad) anime marathon.
Mad Bull 34 gets a 2.9 out of 10. The story is god-awful, the voice acting is equally bad, the animation quality looks like Michael Jackson’s face, it’s incredibly sexist & racist, it’s hard to find, but the action is intense, the violence is over the top, and there’s only 4 episodes!
See you next time, when I’ll take a final trip to the Burn Up universe, and a scrambled one at that. Until then, stay Otaku!
* If you are even the slightest bit curious about this abomination, take a look below:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqfmmf_mad-bull-34-1-scandal-dub-en_shortfilms?search_algo=1
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqfn64_mad-bull-34-2-the-manhattan-connection-dub-en_shortfilms
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqfnox_mad-bull-34-3-city-of-vice-dub-en_shortfilms
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqfous_mad-bull-34-4-cop-killer-dub-en_shortfilms
**
I somewhat lied about Mad Bull 34 not getting released on DVD. There is a plan for all four episodes to get released together in a DVD bundle, which will be sometime in 2013.
Madbull 34 is so cute very the top with it's stupidity, it borders on so bad it's good . The manga has victim blaming for rape victims which is utterly disgusting.
ReplyDeleteWhat a retarded review.
ReplyDelete