2005. Anime was trendy, cool, hip. At the time, it was known for being edgy and dark, like the punk alternative to American media, thanks to over-the-top violence and sex with cool-looking character designs. Shows like "Afro Samurai," "Black Lagoon," "Hellsing Ultimate" and "Gantz" were all the rage ("Gantz" in particular is appropriate here). "Speed Grapher" was one such anime series that, at the time, was heavily marketed as the next big thing. Fast-forward to 2019, where I wander an anime convention, and overhear one random person say to his friend: "... hey, you guys heard of 'Speed Grapher?' Man, that show's borderline hentai..." I guess it made it's mark as a cult classic.As for calling it a 'hentai'-like show, I immediately thought it was an over-statement. The word is used to refer to anime or manga porn. You know, with explicit sex. Often, also depraved violence to better market it to a certain audience. In Japan, I understand the word specifically refers to excessively-depraved fetishes, and often doesn't classify 'regular' porn in the country. But after finally sitting down to watch the show, after years of putting it off, I understand. 'Hentai' might be the perfect word to describe "Speed Grapher." There's no genitalia on screen, but even in the first episode, there are fairly hardcore depictions of sex and violence. You know, to be 'edgy,' and to market itself to a certain audience.The story is about excess in modern-day Japan. In this society, money and power can buy anything in the center of Tokyo. Even your darkest fantasies have a price, be it sex, slavery, or being allowed to commit murder without consequence. In this pulp-fiction setting, Tatsumi Saiga is a famous photographer / investigator, and his trail for a new scoop leads him to a secret underground club, where famous celebrities and politicians gather to partake in these acts, behind a mask and black cloak. Here, a beautiful 'Goddess' is said to grant any one wish to those chosen; Saiga arrives in time to see the girl, under 15 years of age, dressed in revealing angel-cosplay, descend on wires to a fate middle-aged man in a speedo, ready for the kiss that will grant him his wish. Saiga interupts, is kissed instead, and gains the unusual ability to make anything he takes a photo of explode in front of his eyes. Using this to escape, he learns the girl (Kagura) is the daughter of a high-ranking family, being used against her will, and does his best to do what's right and help her escape, while the criminal underworld of superpowered characters sprial around them. Studio Gonzo found success with "Gantz," and tries to replicate it with their original story in "Speed Grapher." For the most part, both are similar in tone. The seemingly unnecessary explicit material paints a dark picture, and all characters involved, even the heroes, aren't without their flaws. If able to stomach the violence and sex, both have interesting character stories at their center. During most of "Speed Grapher," it reduces to a "new enemy every 2-3 weeks" type of show, where Kagura's would-be father, Suitengu, hires a new specialist to find them, each with a unusual (and violent) fetish and superpowers (bestowed by a past-kiss from Kagura) to make them like monsters. This, as well as Saiga's own silly ability to 'shoot' explosions out of his camera, can be a bit goofy or junvenille, and make the story feel like it's running in circles, perhaps for twice as long as it needed to. The interesting story elements come from the individual characters. Saiga is torn internally, dealing with having a fetish for taking photos of hardship, something that physically manifests in his new power that makes him now unable to take photos without destruction. A secondary character works for the police, and forcefully uses Saiga as her lover, causing her to become even more unstable when she learns he is rescuing another woman. Kagura's mother despies her daughter, jealous of her youth and beauty, constantly relying on Suitengu to convince her of her worth (often through passionate sex) while still holding power as the head of Tokyo's largest company. Suitengu runs an underground mob to fund the secret club, coming after members to collect their debts, often taking their lives if they fall one penny short, and then circulating the money back around to collect more victims. He wants to marry Kagura's mother for... money? To take over her company? His motives are a mystery, slowly revealed from the middle of the show to the end. Other third-party characters have their reasons for picking a side, leading to a few twists, and the show is clever to make their fetishes the cause of their demise. Surprisingly, the show morphs to be pointly political, and not subtle about it, with both Japanese and American governments in the crossfire.
I think it's the antagonists that make the show's story at all successful, rather than just a platform for dark episodic thrillers. Suitengu is cool, but not invulnerable. His motivations make him fascinating and compelling, while still evil in his calculating actions. And with a show like this, it's never certain that he will be stopped, and the show is able to provide a relatively satisfying conclusion. It's hard to write a good villain, let alone several, and "Speed Grapher" manages to have some of the best villains in anime. It's not unusual to claim a show is worth watching, if you can stomach some of the harsher content. But "Speed Grapher" is a really tough sell because of that content. More so than usual. Even an angsty-teenager will think "...ew..." when watching this show. Even I felt a little disgusted with it, and wouldn't want to watch it often. If the science-fiction elements were taken away, the thriller might even be too real, a thought I don't want to embrace. The way it portrays gay men is noticably outdated today, even if the surrounding characters are accepting of it in a rare way. The show manages to be funny between darker scenes, but it doesn't completely save it from being a little too shocking.Aside from explicitness, it would have helped if "Speed Grapher" had decent production values. And it doesn't. Visually, the cityscape isn't detailed, although it's mapped consistently enough to feel like a real place. The character designs are the highlight, cool-looking and distinct enough to make the show look stylish. But the animation is atrocious for 2005. Not usuing 3D CGI for anything (despite using it liberally in other works), Gonzo's output looks horribly cheap with it's buildings and cars. A car's animation might look like something a high-school student did on their first attempt at animating, or might be a single static image moving across the screen. Character animation is also often non-existent, and when it is there, it's limited in frame rate and inconsistent and off-model. A quote online claims the studio focused on the story to stimulate the audience, but that's a weak excuse for one of the ugliest-in-motion anime I can think of. Aside from a bad American DVD transfer (colors are often ruined with compression issues), there are several cases of a character being drawn at a lower resolution than the background art, and the entire show looks to have been produced at 360p (that is, lower than standard DVD resolution). I can only imagine what a modern team would create with the action scenes, should the show ever get a reboot.The music isn't much better. The show has a cool jazzy (non-vocal) opening theme, but an out-of-place ending theme that sounds like it starts somewhere in the middle, cutting off a piece in a jarring way. It's as if the ending was literally a last-minute thing, put together with concept art images in the background when they realized "oh... the first episode broadcasts tonight and we have no end credits." During the show, I was certain the music was barely present, and when it was, the same five or six tracks would be used over and over. Good tracks, yes, but the whole soundtrack felt like an afterthought, when for this type of show, it should have been at the forefront. The English dub is good, and feels appropriate for the tone of the show over Japanese. "Speed Grapher" deserves a cult-following. Both because of a strong story, and because of how far it goes as a genre example of shocking erotic-horror-thriller. That explicit material will likely turn EVERYONE off in varying degrees, and the low production values don't do it any favors. If you feel adventurous to try one of the genre classics, don't say I didn't warn you.