This article is part of a web-original series
Marco Cian (Hyogo)
Let me tell you a tale.
My first exposure to anime was my father’s VHS tape collection. Japanese media was very hard to come by in the 90s, when my pops became a weeb, not to mention quite expensive. And as such his collection was comprised of stuff he either was desperate enough to fork over the money for (like Akira or Macross Plus) or stuff he only accepted because he got it for free (like Ranma ½ or Okoge). Meanwhile, like any parent, my father had to suffer the crushing disappointment that comes when your child quite simply does not have the same tastes as you. For instance, I was bored out of my skull when I tried watching Ghost in the Shell with him at about 2 or 3, but I was constantly asking to watch the Ranma ½ tape he had because it looked fun. Then by the time I got old enough to watch Ranma on my own I found the manga at my library, so it became a moot point.
Another tape in my dad’s collection (of the desperate-enough-to-pay-for-it variety) was Black Magic M-66. He got it because as a cyberpunk weeaboo, my dad adored Ghost in the Shell, and since this was based on a manga that was by the same guy who did the GitS manga, he naturally assumed it would be a similar work. I assumed the same, if for no other reason than my father not complaining about it like he complained about Ranma. And when I first conceived of the idea of a cyberpunk summer, I thought what better opportunity to finally watch the movie myself?
Come to think of it, I still haven’t seen Okoge. Maybe I should get onto that too. Or not. I dunno.
Whatever the case! When I finally sat down and watched Black Magic almost mumblemumble years after first learning of it, I expected it to be a Very Serious Anime, with none of those sweat drops or anger veins or silly super-deformities that still make my dad groan. So let’s pop this bad boy into the VCR (or, y’know, use the internet) and see what kind of work this is.
Black Magic M-66
Sybel is a freelance journalist yearning for the big scoop that will finally put her on the map, when one day she picks up a signal on her ham radio that piques her interest. The military is congregating in a nearby forest for some reason, and it doesn’t seem to be for a lad’s holiday. When Sybel investigates she learns the horrifying truth, that not only have two prototype mankilling robots accidentally been let loose in the area, but that nobody was able to reprogram their default target, Ferris, the granddaughter of the scientist who built the robots, before their escape. That scientist. So absent-minded. Sybel now must find and protect Ferris at all costs as the military does its best to eliminate the killer robots. But when such robots have been explicitly designed to take on human armies, that’s easier said than done.
To my intense surprise upon watching it, Black Magic M-66 is quite unlike the somber, philosophical musings of Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. The whole thing is really just a sort of PG-13 farce. There’s violence and blood and explosions and such. People definitely die in this, and their deaths are taken seriously. But the whole thing never dwells too long on anything too dour, preferring to be a balls-to-the-wall, frenetic thriller, as our protagonists stammer and bumble their way to escape from the titular killer robots that want them dead. It’s all like a Saturday morning cartoon if Bugs Bunny could bleed, and not come back from a gun to the face.
Which, when you keep in mind that this is a 45-minute OVA, makes sense. There’s not enough time to do very much deep introspection or character development, so the filmmakers simply don’t bother. This is basically if Terminator was a romp, and if you go into it with that mindset, you should have a good time. Think of it like the lighter, softer cousin of Ghost in the Shell.
Now then
Is this a Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is about the little people – Yepyep. Even if Ferris is the granddaughter of an important military scientist, our protagonist who rescues her is a nobody reporter, who is always chasing ambulances to get the hottest scoop about corruption and exploitation of the smallfolk, and who finds herself in way over her head when she runs into the runaway killer robot the military lost.
Cyberpunk is pessimistic – Surprisingly, yes. You’d think, given the tone of the story, it wouldn’t be, but Sybel not only doesn’t get to disseminate her story, but everybody who lives pretty much ends the story in the same positions they started in. The military is still building killer robots. Sybel hasn’t come up in the reporting world, and she hasn’t really changed or grown or learned anything. Even after our damsel Ferris is eternally thankful for Sybel saving her life (even making sure she isn’t carted off into a black van by military intelligence), Sybel admits that she never responded to any of Ferris’ later letters. It all made me feel weirdly bummed out after enjoying myself for so long.
Cyberpunk isn’t about changing the world – Afraid so. Sybel likes to present herself as an intrepid reporter and all, but she starts and ends the story largely as a joke in the reporting world. Nobody takes her seriously, and the system continues unhindered by her when the credits roll.
Cyberpunk is set in today, turned up to 11 – Yes, but it’s more subdued than in Bubblegum Crisis because most of our focus is on a single killer robot and the military, so we don’t get too large a look at wider society. What little we do see though is very much an 80s kind of future.
Cyberpunk wants to look cool – Again, yes, but in a more subdued way than BGC. As a tech geek, Masamune of course wants you to marvel at the cool robots and military tech that he came up with for this story. But I don’t think this is any cooler than a good UNIT story on Doctor Who (I kept thinking to myself “Chap with the wings there. Five rounds rapid.” whenever the Major showed up). Then again, maybe that’s why my father, a military engineer, liked this so much.
I wonder if I should do the vampire dick one next…? Or, perhaps, something else.