Over the years, Anime that makes its presence as a film, TV series or OVA often comes along and leaves its mark on the industry and changes what the medium is for future generations. Some however often never get that chance and end up being lost and forgotten, never to be discovered until it’s too late. One such title, while it was never that popular has at least managed to leave some small impact in a different form of adaptation in the years, as violent and as gruesome as anime of that time would be however the quality shifts from promising to absurd. That would be…Riki-Oh.
Based on the manga written by Masahiko Takajo & illustrated by Tetsuya Saruwatari that ran from 1988 to 1990, set in a post-apocalyptic future where upon the world has gone under terrible chaos due to Global Warming and Economic Depression, the story focuses on Riki-Oh Saiga, a young man with a scar in the shape of the Star of David on his fist, blessed with super inhuman strength (similar to that of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star) as he uses his power to extract his revenge against the Yakuza for the death of his girlfriend. What makes this particular manga well known today is the live action Hong Kong martial arts-thriller film from 1991 – Riki Oh: The Story of Riki, which is a much violent, gore soaked, over the top film which always falls into the category of “so bad it’s good” which follows more close to the manga in how violent and absurd it was. However the anime while it does go gory and over the top in parts is somewhat restrained in its violence.
The OVA is split up into two parts which covers two arcs of the manga.
The Wall of Hell – Riki-Oh serves a 3 year sentence for assault in a high risk maximum security prison managed by a strict, totalitarian rule. Whilst there he manages to antagonise “The Four Emperors”, four powerful prisoners that control the prison and keep the rest of the inmates in line, so now it’s a fight to survive in a harsh and violent environment.
Child of Destruction – We see a bit more of Riki-Oh’s past, the death of his mother as well as how he was taken away from his brother Nachi. Upon arriving in a town ruled by a religious fanatic military organisation called "God's Judgment" He is then forced to fight in bloody gladiatorial matches.
Child of Destruction – We see a bit more of Riki-Oh’s past, the death of his mother as well as how he was taken away from his brother Nachi. Upon arriving in a town ruled by a religious fanatic military organisation called "God's Judgment" He is then forced to fight in bloody gladiatorial matches.
As a series both on paper and on screen, Riki-Oh is a very violent and very martial arts laden series. It focuses heavily on gore and blood and doesn’t shy away from it whatsoever, however compared to the manga and even the 1991 film the anime is quite toned down in its violence. We don’t see nearly enough gore, body explosions and even evisceration like we would expect, but however dialled down the violence is that the entertainment factor of this series still remains.
When it comes to the characters they aren’t heavy in development or even have that much personality they help push the plot forward, Riki-Oh Saiga is a character that possesses a strong sense of justice and displays a fierce sense of kindness to the weak and threatened but also a fierce display of brutality and power to the cruel and violent that challenges him. But the character is very much a blank slate and it’s hard to really get invested in anything he does, when the violence appears on screen however that’s when things start to become interesting. Other characters that appear through the anime act as opponents for Riki to fight as well as demonstrate much similar and crazy super human strength and martial arts, large hulking brutes like Bandou and vicious tattooed thugs like Narumi. Even characters such as Atomic Robo (while not leaving much impact on the screen) manage to leave something strong for the main character to fight.
Production however for both of these is abit of a mixed bag in terms of quality and how they present themselves. Directed by Satoshi Dezaki and animated by Studio Magic Bus (Grey: Digital Target, Big Wars) the first OVA manages to look like the manga and while quality is somewhat sparse bare some similarity to Tetsuya Saruwatari’s illustrations. The detail in terms of the set pieces and how everything from shadows to texture looks well-presented and while the fights often do reuse some of the same shows with a little bit anime speed-lines thrown in they are decently animated. The second OVA is a nose-dive in quality compared to the first and it shows it's age considerably. The tone and style looks all messy and unfinished at times, character models look poor in terms of quality and body proportions and the violence while it promises over the top and violent, it’s nowhere near as neatly presented in terms of what the first ova or even what the manga attempted.
Audio for this is pretty okay for what’s there. The music by Yuuki Nakajima is forgettable but it manages to move the scenes forward, on point with where each scene comes in and how the story progresses. As for the voice acting, this doesn’t have an English Dub. So what you have is an anime just to watch with the subtitles, but the Seiyū they picked for this are actually well picked for each role. Bin Shimada as Riki-Oh Saiga is both quiet but also very imposing. Tesshō Genda as Narumi is threatening and comes across like as violent as the character is designed. Ryūzaburō Ōtomo as both Bandou and Washizaki while both have different tones of voices are captured well in sort of over the top way a villain would be. Additional Seiyū such as Ken Yamaguchi, Tomomichi Nishimura, Minoru Inaba, Sho Hayami, Takeshi Watabe etc. each play their parts well as over the top and stupid as this OVA wants to be.
As the years have gone by, Riki-Oh’s legacy as both a manga and anime have largely been forgotten and the one thing that has remained was the Hong Kong film from 1991. It’s been mentioned in many Youtube videos and talked about how absurd it is in its gore and violence and always regarded as being the “worst film ever” thanks to the awkward dubbing courtesy to Omni Productions.
Overall though the anime while it’s very stupid is fun to watch, the characters are superficially stock and there isn’t much to the story in any way at all. But the violence while it is slightly restrained is pleasing to look at as well as enjoy and the anime itself gives off that feeling of just your typical B-movie schlock to switch your brain off and enjoy. Enjoy the violence and expect nothing else.
It’s worth maybe just one watch, apart from that however this one is rather forgettable.
It’s worth maybe just one watch, apart from that however this one is rather forgettable.
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.
