AoY Podcast #33 – Violence Jack Review
Also known as: “THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!… and then he turns into a bird!”
And also: “Jonn, did I just say pot plant?”
Download Episode HERE! (Total Time: 1:54:35)
This review comes with a purpose when Jonn and I decided to take on this unique title from the great Go Nagai. That purpose in mind was to take a stand on the idea of never backing down or backing out of something that certain reviewers hype up to fans for the past couple of years, only to give their fans a metaphoric “blue balls” in the final product. Because of one such review in question, Jonn and I ventured off once again in the Uncut hell of Violence Jack…
Ok, here’s the real”no BS” reason why we decided to cover Violence Jack now: This is a retaliation against one Bennett the Sage/Anime Abandon at ThatAutismWitDemGlasses website, because the dude decided it would be a better use of time to do a 30 minute poor-ass-bad-white-mans-acting-drama video than to actually show any footage or go into any depth of Violence Jack for his so call “review.” So, that gigantic waste of time got me and Jonn fired up to finally sit down and talk about this anime that we have been discussing for over 2 years now (going back to our early Kool Kids Klub Podkast days.) So, its high time we give those people what they really want to hear about old Jack here, the good honest in-depth truth, spoilers, and no BS talk like we do with everything we review.
I’ll be honest, i’m not gonna force anyone to see Violence Jack. That is an anime I will say to watch at your own discretion, where no other human soul is around to view it with you. At least by watching it, you will lose part of our humanity, it just happens. Of course on that note, we mention a bit more on our dislike to the reviewers of TGWTG people, if Jack is somehow related to Wolverine, other people who hate Bennett the Sage, the fans of Bennett, people who make mistakes, birth rates in other countries, Go Nagai anime in general, how AVGN is a cool dude, how you should have gotten Golgo 13 from the RightStuf sale, I say Do Svidaniya to Mikhal Kalashnikov and much more.
Music Selection:
OP- The sound Jonn and I heard once again as we departed to Go Nagai Hell…
ED- The last song you will ever hear before your disembowelment…
This show has:
@AOYPodcast zeonic we should do a podcast about violence jack sometime. If @BennettTheSage can’t do one, we can finally beat him to a show.
— J’onn J’onzz (@jonnjonzz01) December 23, 2013
I believe we have already achieved that…
Meet the tourettes gang leader…
WE MEET AGAIN, CAPTAIN BUTTWIPE!!!!
Its everything you can expect from the dub…
Its people like you I will never understand why you exist…
jonnjonzz01
zeonicfreak
The Anime of Yesteryear Podcast 
Violence Jack was originally a shounen though. Also Go Nagai is not responsible for the adaptations of his stuff despite the fact that western publishers love putting the name Go Nagai big on their dvd covers. Furthermore, the manga isn’t nearly as violent as the anime ovas. For example, the scene where Tetsuya gets chainsawed in Hell’s Wind is completely missing in the manga and rape scenes aren’t as long in Evil Town. Lastly, I just want to say that while VJ is offensive, Nagai wanted to make a point about violence in society today.
These two quotes from two different interviews are quite telling.
1. Interview between Go Nagai and Hideaki Anno
HA : What would be ideal is that kids who watch it start to vomit, but they didn’t even get a small nausea. That should have made them sick. Because if I think it’s better to show repugnant things just as they are. If we succeed to transmit the emotion that atrocious things are atrocious, it’s mission succeeded. When someone tells me “It’s too horrible, too violent”, that pleases me, because it’s a healthy and normal reaction. When they tell me “I cannot watch, it’s too much”, I say “Okaaaaay!” (Laughs).
GN : Actually, that looked very shocking. But when I draw these kinds of things myself, I don’t have this kind of reaction. It’s only when I’m the spectator that it looks horrifying. I don’t know if that’s the case for you and the others, but I have another personality when I draw. In these moments, the desire to provoke an impact on the readers is so intense that I don’t even think of the other effects it could have.
http://gettermario.dynamicforum.net/t974-entretien-go-nagai-hideaki-anno#168349
2. Go Nagai Egypt Interview
Having said this, the war experience surely affected my whole childhood and the formation of my personality. Even if I have not experienced any bombing or fighting, all the adults around me kept telling me horrible stories about the war, so I grew up with [the awareness] that my works should deliver a message of peace.
I was particularly saddened when I found out that in many countries I was considered to be an author who loves to depict battles and destruction just for the fun of it. [] The reason why I depict the effects of war in my comics is because I strongly believe that a person should learn from childhood how war can be destructive and how much people and societies may suffer from it, just the same way I learned it from the stories of adults around me when I was a little child. If we raise a child telling him only the nice and happy things of life, he will be unable to cope with all the hardships he will inevitably meet in his adulthood; if he doesn’t know the devastating effects of violence and repression, he could […] cause incredible damage and suffering to the people around him.
I guess this is one of the reasons why Japanese people, who have been raised for the last 60 years reading comics that some people abroad have labeled as hyper-violent, chose not to be involved in war after 1945 and have stated in their very constitution that they renounce war, as opposed to a country like the US, which has strong censorship against violence in animation and programs for children, but has been at war for most of its recent history.
01/18/2014 at 12:48 am
I guess its too good to be true that Go Nagai just does ultra violence because he some disturbed Japanese man. So at least with these interviews, he has a reason and purpose for what he does.
Regardless of the OVA content and creation, his name is still attached to it, and people like myself and others know its connected or part of his works. I’d figure if anything, the manga would be more violent because usually and adaptation will be more of “insert content” than the anime puts out. But hey, thanks for the comment and the good info you gave us!
01/18/2014 at 1:00 am
I’ve only read the scanlated chapters, but it seems to me that while there’s a lot of violence, it doesn’t seem as horrible due to Nagai’s old cartoony artstyle (as opposed to his newer style). Furthermore, Nagai narrates his stuff trying to provide some context to what’s going on so the manga doesn’t seem to be as mindless as the ovas.
People often attribute his name to works that he had no part in like Shin Mazinger Zero and Devilman Grimoire. Unlike authors like Kurumada, Nagai lets the other authors do whatever they want with his stuff. That’s why I thought it was important to point out. In the case of Violence Jack, Evil Town was directed by the infamous/famous (infamous for directing, famous for itano circus) Ichiro Itano.
Violence Jack is by the way, Akira Fudou from Devilman. He’s pretty much disgusted with the human race after what happened during the witch hunt in the last chapters of Devilman, which is why (I believe) he has little regards for human lives.
Concerning the rapes, Violence Jack isn’t anywhere as rapey as the Devilman Lady manga. There’s a rape scene in almost every chapter. As for the actual chronology, some has speculated it goes like this. Again, this might provide more context to those new to the series.
Devilman > Violence Jack > Devilman Lady > Shin Violence Jack.
01/18/2014 at 1:44 am
Well, Itano did direct one of my favorite Japan-Does-Tom-Clancy-Like-Japanese-Nationalist anime, Angel Cop. Battle Royal High School is another favorite of mine that he’s done, which are both we have covered in the review section (though, there probably gonna be bad, because it was our earlier stuff). That might have been something I remember at one point that he directed Evil Town but have forgotten through time.
At least from what your saying, there’s a reason why Akira Fudou would be Violence Jack than just me hearing through the internet that he might be maybe perhaps. That is something my co-host Jonn would have to read one day down the road since he’s really good at reading manga, where as I am not so much. An Angel Cop translation is something I hope will happen in my lifetime, because I so badly need Angel Cop.
How does Mazinger Z fit on the hierarchy scale with Devilman and Violence Jack?
01/18/2014 at 10:15 am
Yeah, Bennett the Sage of Anime Abandon is awwwful. From what I’ve watched of his content, he seems to just shit on almost every anime he reviews. The fact he focuses on old anime strikes a nerve. I had heard he called Akira “over-animated.” What does that even mean. For Violence Jack, I couldn’t watch all of Sage’s video. I skipped through parts of it thinking he’d say something but it was just 30 minutes of skits.
TGWTG. You’ve got the Nolstalgic Critic guy and then, in my experience, everyone on there pretty much copies his video formula. They love to hate on most things they review, because that’s funny I guess. Of course, it wouldn’t be a complete TGWTG video without the highschool tier drama skits. You know your website has a problem when someone makes a “.TXT” Twitter account.
Great review. Love me some Go Nagai. Those dub clips are hilarious. The Captain Buttwipe line is pretty amazing.
Interesting bits up there in the comments with the interview links and stuff. That’s cool to know. The cross-series continuity is something I hadn’t known about.
01/18/2014 at 11:42 pm
I skimmed through that City Hunter .357 review he did, and all he did was crap on that, when what I saw looked really fun and great to watch. Its like part of me doesn’t wanna watch anything he does anymore, but if he covers like MD Geist and Bubblegum Crisis, then I feel this need to watch what I can till it just ultimately pisses me off. Its like I think I know what hes going to say about both of them, and ignore everything that made both of those anime really fun and great to watch. God forbid the day when it comes. I really did like this guy when he first started out, but over time, he never changed his review style, and it got old and dumb real quick. Plus, wouldn’t over animating something make it so much better looking? I mean for real. I am pretty sure I saw that Akira vid and took nothing he said to heart since it was his “own opinion.”
He’s proud that he made some adult swim text saying “[oldtaku]” that got put up, and he I guess makes shirts off of that. But its so contradictory to what he reviews and what he says about anime. How can you be a fan of old anime if all you do is piss over it and make dumbass jokes. At least anime anime fans back in the day look back and say “yea, that stuff was kinda bad, but it was still really fun to watch and have a place in my heart.” He seems to be the Chris Chan to autistic people, only replace autism with old school anime fan and its people who like to have that title than to forget or change it.
Man, you got me going Cody, hahaha. But hey, I think we one up’d him this time, regardless if the rest of the internet knows it or not.
01/19/2014 at 12:14 am
I PARTLY disagree with SantaBla because in the same interview with Hideaki Anno, where Nagai seemed very honest and open, he revealed that he really does like violence – Mao Dante was made as a self-insert Kaiju fantasy. He liked to project over Godzilla when watching those films: http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/10242/Translated-interview-between-Nagai-and-Anno/
02/27/2017 at 1:07 am
Oh also the Jack manga is legit unironically good. Itano missed a lot of the expressionistic or epic (I know people ruined that word but it really feels “epic” in the true sense of the word) elements that made the manga great. The first arc is also genuinely well-executed horror from an emotional perspective as opposed to an “edgy gore” one – the Barefoot Gen comparison was apt. You might not like everything in it, but there’s a lot that I think you’d love. Wholeheartedly recommended.
02/27/2017 at 2:01 am