Kekko Kamen

Original Title: けっこう仮面
Romanized: Kekkou Kamen
Literal: Nice Mask

Plot Synopsis

Kekko Kamen: The masked avenger who wears a mask (a pair of panty hose, actually) on her head, a scarf on her neck, boots on her feet, and nothing at all in between. At the Spartan Academy, an elite boarding school that uses some decidedly unorthodox punishment methods to beat the best performance out of its students, poor little Mayumi seems to be a favorite target of the depraved teachers. Only Kekko Kamen has the power to save her from the dreaded string of Punishment Teachers... but who is she?

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-11-19

Master of cheese and sleaze Go Nagai sets his sights on the classic action series Gekko Kamen and turns out what he does best: a ditzy, cheap, dirty little romp that has a guilty appeal in spite of how lame it is. The production values are bargain-basement (although noticeably better in the second episode), the character designs range from generic to downright ugly in the protagonist schoolgirl, plot and logic are entirely absent, and the humor is of the most basic sort. As a send-up of classic action anime from a simpler time, however, the lack of quality is something of a nostalgic plus, and it manages to toe the line between cheerful sleaze and outright dirty in a way that makes the series embarrassing without being offensive.

For some late-night, sleazy, stupid, guilty pleasure, Kekko Kamen is a decent choice in spite of bargain-basement production values. If you don't like the sort of thing that Go Nagai specializes in and extremely low-brow humor it's bad anime incarnate, but it's just the sort of so-bad-it's-good shlock that keeps Nagai buffs coming back for more.

US DVD Review

The DVD is a rather basic little deal, combining "all four episodes" (actually two two-part episodes) into one nicely packaged volume. The video transfer looks as good as can be expected for an series like this, and the stereo audio is acceptable in both languages. There aren't any extras past a number of production sketches (with the theme song in the background), although I do give credit to the creative packaging--the box is red, with a design reminiscent of an old-fashioned movie poster. The colorful menus match this look.

Content Guide

Not horrifyingly offensive, but loaded with nudity, sleaze, and rather mild "torture" (provided you take it for what it is). ADV interestingly tags it with a TV-MA (for "VSL"), which translates to an 18-up.

Violence: 2 - There's poking, prodding, humiliation, and a bit of swordplay, but nothing serious.

Nudity: 5 - Untetailed but in huge volume.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - A hard call, but despite some moderately dirty jokes, it's not that explicit.

Language: 3 - The expletives aren't heavy in the subtitles, though there is a bit of dirty-talk.

Notes and Trivia

The original Gekkou Kamen ("Moonbeam Mask") started life in the late 1950s as a boy's comic about a masked, turbaned, motorcycle-riding, pistol-wielding hero written by Kawauchi Kohan and illustrated by Kuwata Jiro. It was adapted into a live-action black-and-white TV serial in 1958 that was eventually cancelled because kids were hurting themselves copying his moves. The more direct inspiration for this series comes from the better-known 1972 anime adaptation.

Kekko Kamen itself has become something of a franchise as well; begun in 1974 with a Go Nagai one-shot parody in Monthly Boy Jump, it was so popular that he ended up continuing the serial for four years, and a number of reprints and other books have also been produced. In addition to the two OAVs this review covers, there have unsurprisingly been a number of live-action photobooks and painfully bad videos produced, with releases as recent as 2005.

"Kekkou", for those wondering, has several meanings, but in this case is an exclamation of satisfaction, roughly equivalent to "That was great!" It comes, presumably, from what villains say after being assaulted by her ultimate technique.

Availability

Available in English on hybrid DVD from ADV. Was originally released by ADV on two subtitled or dubbed volumes, now long out of print.

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