It’s always exciting to see the Police being the central focus in television and film, largely because it always gets you fired up when you see the cops arrest the criminals and bring them to justice while also solving mysteries along the way. Most notably the “buddy-cop” genre is fun because it puts two unlikely law enforcers together under the same badge, work through each other’s differences and eventually work together to where they can beat the bad guys at the end of the story. In anime the portrayal of the police can come in all varieties, from a cyberpunk setting with a serious look at the meaning of life to a light-hearted comedy, plenty to cover and nothing is off limits. However when you take something like the buddy cop genre, throw in a large amount of over the top violence with some black comedy sprinkled in. You get complete and total but entertaining nonsense like Mad Bull 34.
Based on the manga written by Kazuo Koike (Crying Freeman, Lone Wolf and Cub) and Noriyoshi Inoue that ran from 1986 – 1990. The story focuses on Japanese-American Daizaburo "Eddie" Ban who joins the 34th precinct of the New York Police department, once there on his first day he is teamed up with John Estes (Sleepy to his friends, the “Mad Bull” to his enemies). Throughout the story both cops get involved in everything from busting drug smuggling to cop killing etc making the city of New York a safe place to live.
The OVA is split up into 4 episodes covering the chapters from the manga.
Episode 1: Scandal - This sets up the two characters as they work together to avenge the death of a prostitute that Sleepy stole money from at the hands of Curtis, a muscular black man with a rose tattoo on his arm.
Episode 2: Manhattan Connection - introduces another main character to the series, Perine Valley as Daizaburo develops a crush on her. Along the way however we learn that a crook confined to a wheelchair has a grudge against Perine as she investigates a shipment of drugs coming in.
Episode 3: City of Vice - An overeager news reporter gets her life threatened while trying to investigate the release of Morley Edwards, an accused rapist and murderer. However once attempts to stop assassination of the reporter go array, the Chinese mafia become involved and try out the members of the 34th precinct while also trying to kill the reporter.
Episode 4: Cop Killer – A series of police killings happening over New York City at the hands of a mysterious robot like assassin, as the investigation is carried out by the main characters we find out that the assassin has a grudge towards Sleepy as this all carried out through a mafia turf-war.
Episode 1: Scandal - This sets up the two characters as they work together to avenge the death of a prostitute that Sleepy stole money from at the hands of Curtis, a muscular black man with a rose tattoo on his arm.
Episode 2: Manhattan Connection - introduces another main character to the series, Perine Valley as Daizaburo develops a crush on her. Along the way however we learn that a crook confined to a wheelchair has a grudge against Perine as she investigates a shipment of drugs coming in.
Episode 3: City of Vice - An overeager news reporter gets her life threatened while trying to investigate the release of Morley Edwards, an accused rapist and murderer. However once attempts to stop assassination of the reporter go array, the Chinese mafia become involved and try out the members of the 34th precinct while also trying to kill the reporter.
Episode 4: Cop Killer – A series of police killings happening over New York City at the hands of a mysterious robot like assassin, as the investigation is carried out by the main characters we find out that the assassin has a grudge towards Sleepy as this all carried out through a mafia turf-war.
Mad Bull 34 is a rather infamous anime largely because of its reputation for being extremely inaccurate to American culture and its views on the police, with its main characters it falls into a much similar scenario as a majority of buddy cop films of the 80’s.
Daizaburo "Eddie" Ban is a by the numbers cop that plays by the rules, loyal and dependable and a shining example of what you would expect a police officer to be when following the code of the law. He’s likeable and determined to see justice prevail and keep crime off the streets of New York. Although he is used mostly as the comic relief he is a fun protagonist to follow.
John Estes aka Sleepy (named after the late blues musician Sleepy John Estes) is the complete and total opposite of what you would expect a police officer to be and has all the formula of a corrupt cop. He’s misogynistic, sometimes homophobic as well as a horny maniac. One notable distinction about him while Daizaburo would bring the criminals to justice by arresting them and seeing them put on trial, Sleepy goes out of his way to murder the criminals in the worst ways you could possibly imagine. Not just that he steals money from prostitutes after he is done having sex with them while he‘s on duty, however as a character he is nothing if not entertaining to follow. Nothing to do with him being likable or anything like that but the character is a walking hard-on of alpha-male action movie cliches all stitched up and holding on.
Perrine Valley (named after the actress Valerie Perrine) despite being one of the few women in New York police force, she serves as lieutenant as well as helping Sleepy & Daizaburo on missions. Very little about her character is fully developed in this series but she manages to serve as a good female presence in a series that is mostly centred on men.
John Estes aka Sleepy (named after the late blues musician Sleepy John Estes) is the complete and total opposite of what you would expect a police officer to be and has all the formula of a corrupt cop. He’s misogynistic, sometimes homophobic as well as a horny maniac. One notable distinction about him while Daizaburo would bring the criminals to justice by arresting them and seeing them put on trial, Sleepy goes out of his way to murder the criminals in the worst ways you could possibly imagine. Not just that he steals money from prostitutes after he is done having sex with them while he‘s on duty, however as a character he is nothing if not entertaining to follow. Nothing to do with him being likable or anything like that but the character is a walking hard-on of alpha-male action movie cliches all stitched up and holding on.
Perrine Valley (named after the actress Valerie Perrine) despite being one of the few women in New York police force, she serves as lieutenant as well as helping Sleepy & Daizaburo on missions. Very little about her character is fully developed in this series but she manages to serve as a good female presence in a series that is mostly centred on men.
Apart from its main cast of characters, Mad Bull 34 is a series that is complete and total nonsense. Much like the manga the anime is based on Mad Bull 34 is insanely violent mostly due to the murder of criminals all carried out by Sleepy, characters will be murdered in gory and bloody ways and any form of death or mutilation is displayed here in the most over the top way pictured, it’s depiction of women is highly misogynistic. Almost all the women in this series are victims of near attempted rape as well as murder at the hands of burly, muscular men as well as being occasionally having sex with Sleepy (and then having their money stolen). The men in this are stock characters that are that of your average action movie, falling into the category of rapists and thugs. However the series is nothing if not highly amusing and hilarious to watch, action scenes that rely heavily on the two main characters being shot or beat up in ridiculous ways and then having the story go a completely different turn in trying to be serious by having the character of Sleepy fleshed out despite being corrupt cop. This is a series that is not heavily focused on character development or even in storytelling, it’s made for pure entertainment. What’s more is that because of it’s setting this is a series that is a product of a bygone era, set in the USA, most notably New York City at a time when the Twin Towers were still standing, the city as well as the people and how women and racial minorities are treated and portrayed. It’s told purely from a Japanese perspective, purely by having cops or criminals be as corrupted thugs or rapists. In many ways Mad Bull 34 operates under the same level of over the top violence like buddy cop films of the 80’s like Tango & Cash or 48 Hrs or at least a Cannon film where depictions of people and ethnic groups are fictitious and highly exaggerated.
So despite the series as whole being extremely misogynistic and violent, production for this seesaws back and forth between passable to awful at the worst of times. Animated by Studio Magic Bus (Riki-Oh, And Yet The Town Moves, Big Wars) and directed by Satoshi Dezaki, despite the city of New York as portrayed as nothing other than a breeding ground for rapists and violent murderers, from a design viewpoint New York in this looks exactly how it looked in the 80’s. From the buildings, the alleyways, the run down interiors of the houses as well as even the cars and weaponry, Mad Bull 34 has a rather ambitious production going for it’s designs of what’s featured. Character design work by Keizō Shimizu (Emily of New Moon, Legend of Basara) does what it can to look as close to Koike’s manga as best as it can while blending in some degree of realism to the look of the characters. Animation wise it’s a mixed bag, largely because trying to capture the look of Koike’s manga is difficult without making some minor changes to it, most notably the expressions of the characters and how they interact with each other as well as the scenarios they are placed in. Often times the animation moves at a brisk pace but then at times production quality drops with each episode so it’s hard to really look at this when at times it can be quite jarring.
From Audio perspective in both English and Japanese, there is actually a lot to offer which makes this entertaining but at the same time awful. The soundtrack for Mad Bull 34 is different in both English and Japanese; the score composed by Katsunori Shimizu for the Japanese audio is a mix of heavy synth beats while incorporating some jazz to it in some scenes. It does a pretty good job at being mellow for some of the quiet scenes of character interaction while also being hard-hitting and busy for the action scenes and does a good job of getting to jump with the jive. Lyrical insert songs for the Japanese audio (mostly for the end credits) are rather good picks, For episode 1 you have “Time to get Busy” performed by the late James Brown and for episodes 2 to 4 you have songs by Maizurah which are while strange to listen to for a production like this they give it it’s charm.
The score for English dub done by Donald Ross Skinner & Markus Williams is heavily scored through progressive guitar through some elements of synth beats to it while dropping in some sultry jazz for the “comedic moments” I.E Sleepy having sex with anyone he possibly can. So both scores on both sides are rather good to listen to and really make this stand out in both good and bad ways, however for the end credits songs it features some smooth jazz.
The English dub is both a hit AND a miss for a wide variety of reasons. Done by Manga UK, as you’d except with something like this that is heavily reliant on violence and sex the Manga UK dub goes at great lengths to remind you that it’s vulgar and non-existent of any kind of restraint, so characters are constantly dropping the F-Bomb left, right & center as well as throwing out homophobic and racial slurs as much as it can, so you can clearly tell that the voice actors are having the time of their lives by being as vulgar as possible with the lines they are saying. For the voice acting you have Alan Marriott as Diazaburo Eddie-Ban, his attempt at giving the character a really thick New York accent while trying to make the character come across as likable is both amusing and kind of funny because of how awkward some of the line delivery is. Allan Wenger as John "Sleepy" Estes is a very strange voice and it doesn’t really work, from what voice work he has done Allen Wenger has mostly played older men so for example a teacher or grandfather, Sleepy is designed to appear like a huge and powerful man. In contrast to his Seiyuu Akio Ohtsuka who gives the character a booming and commanding voice it works because it matches the character, for Alan Wenger it sounds like he is trying too hard to be dirty and vulgar while also being violent and vicious and it’s an odd fit. Lisa Ross as Perrine Valley is nothing really that special and just falls into the background a lot of the time. Other voices such as Toni Barry, Sean Barrett, Vincent Marzello, Sean Barrett etc. are just okay in this, nothing really about their performances really stand out other than you can get a feeling that the direction is bad because of how badly the voice acting is in this. However what’s amusing about this dub is how unintentionally funny and racist it can be, most notably in the 3rd episode when we are introduced to the Chinese Mafia known as the Xiao-Liu-Mang, the Chinese characters portrayed in the English dub all speak with these faux Asian accents, talk in the third perspective and have broken English. Weather that was intentionally or not for the portrayal of a Chinese character in an anime its unknown, but it’s hilarious and at the same really bad to listen to because their dialogue you can’t help but laugh at.
At the end of the day Mad Bull 34 is complete and utter garbage, nothing more nothing less. Its characters are stock and very unlikeable or boring, it’s portrayal of women and ethnic minorities are beyond offensive and it reeks of what many would highly consider to be “the worst anime ever”. That said however Mad Bull 34 is pure entertainment, its purpose for existence is for violence and more violence. It’s the kind of anime that you can switch your brain dead off knowing that its total trash and that it’s not trying to be anything else but also it’s a fun and stupid ride full of nonsense and complete inaccuracies to America. At times this is total satire of what America is portrayed as by different countries and it tells you that at face value and makes no attempts to hide it, it’s stupid and very ridiculous but it has a lot of charm to it which it’s why it’s held in high regard for its infamy.
Despite being the equivalent to a rancid dumpster fire, Mad Bull 34 is dumb fun and needs to be seen to be fully believed.
Highly recommended because it's so bad it's good.
Despite being the equivalent to a rancid dumpster fire, Mad Bull 34 is dumb fun and needs to be seen to be fully believed.
Highly recommended because it's so bad it's good.
Sami Sadek is a lifelong Transformers and Anime fan, and can often be found propping up bars or appearing in the background of Auto Assembly vids. He has also talks on Youtube, Tweets on Twitter, doodles on Deviantart and is a regular co-host on this very site's Cyberritz. He has never had a swordfight atop a church whilst a crow watches. Honest.
