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[ a parent's guide to anime ]

[ rated m ] BAOH

A Parent's Guide to Anime
Rated: M
Recommended for Mature Audiences

Review by David Bingham:

Baoh is an OAV, and the version I watched was dubbed. I don't know if it is available subtitled.

This movie does have a plot, but it's not particularly important. Instead the movie focuses on beautiful animation and developing a truly interesting superhero.

The movie begins on a train with a little girl (Sumire) running from agents of a secret organization known as "Doress." In her attempts to escape, she also releases an experiment: an augmented young man they call Baoh. Both of them escape and begin trying to figure out what the organization wants with them. We soon find that Sumire is a psychic, and the young man (Ikuro Hashizawa) has been implanted with a worm-like parasite that gives him great powers. When he's attacked, he changes into a powerful, blue-skinned fighting machine with all sorts of neat abilities like electrical discharge and shooting needles I like to call "killer dandruff."

Naturally, Doress doesn't want its prize science fair project running around, and sends progressively more dangerous assasins after Ikuro, eventually kidnapping Sumire and luring Baoh to one of their laboratories for a showdown with Walken, a huge Native American who is also the most powerful (and violent) psycic on earth. The explosive climax (literally) ends with Doress crippled or destroyed, Walken dead (finally) and Baoh at the bottom of a lake in suspended animation. Still, all is not lost, and Sumire predicts and Baoh will return when she's sixteen.

The point of this movie is not the plot, but rather the stunning animation (on par with Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell) and well executed fight scenes. The movie is extremely violent, but if you are willing to put up with the blood just to see the animation, it's a good movie to watch.


Parent's Guide Rating:

red (recommended for mature audiences)

Profanity: I don't remember for sure, but I don't think there was much.

Nudity: None

Sex: None

Violence: Lots of it, and all of it very graphic. This movie is mostly about the fight scenes, and the fights are *very* detailed. Blood goes everywhere, people are melted and burned, limbs are removed, and one or two have their heads cut into multiple pieces. Not a movie for the faint of heart; it's one of the most violent I've ever watched.


Additional review by Alex Mackenzie:

The evil organization known as Doress has captured a young man to use for their evil experiment(gasp). What is their evil plan,you ask? Well, Doress is planning to put a worm-like parasite in the boys brain. The worm feeds on the kids brain, while at the same time, allows him to transform into a big, blue superhero, (WOW!), that can shoot needles out of his head, big blades from his arms, and other abilities that mostly end up cutting up heads. Anyway,he meets a little girl with psychic powers,who helps him escape from the evil organization Doress. But when the little girl is captured, The boy must use Baohs amazing power to defeat Doress and save his friend. Did I mention the boy has amnesia?

If you didn't notice from my description of "Baoh"s story that I was being sarcastic, I will say upfront,BAOH IS AN AWFUL ANIME. Quite honestly,I could find hardly anything decent about it besides the animation. Not that the animation was that good. Sure,the animation was very detailed, but it was not very attractive. The textures were ugly,and took away from the overall experience. The story was fairly unique,but the plot was pretty bad. What bothered me most was the extreme(and I mean extreme!) violence.I'm talking almost X level, almost as violent as "Fist of the North Star" . "baoh"s violence was almost unbearable, mostly involving heads. Honestly,I have never seen so many ways to destroy a head. Heads explode ,are chopped off, get needles blasted into them, are cut into multiple pieces, smashed, melted, the list goes on and on. Yeech!

Another flaw this movie has is its embarassing dubbing.It's some of the worst I've ever heard. Sometimes it is overacted,and sometimes the voices sound like the actors are half asleep. And sometimes,they combine both bad and good dubbing into one sentence.

This anime has so many problems I can't name them all. Don't torture yourself.This garbage won't appeal to anyone. Even if you like the graphic violence, chaotic and excessive gore and blood, The film will still provide you will another bad point. Just please,for your own good,stay away. You'll be glad you did. And for those of you who make the fatal mistake buying this trash, I can only laugh and pray.

warning: Profanity: several instances. Sumire gets called a b***h while getting beaten by a bad guy.

sex: none

Nudity: BAOH comes out of his tank at the begining of the anime wearing a speedo.

Violence: BAOH contians continues images of grotesqe violence. It was so gruesome, that, in fact, I actually covered my eyes (I've never done that before!) BAOH is easily comparable to the infamous Fist of the north star. Besides the gore, a little girl is tortured by a certain kind of light. The violent content is unbearable. There is not even a second without even implied violence.



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