Kekkou Kamen

Publisher
East2west
Director
Nobuhiro KondoNobuhiro Kondo, Noriyasu Kogawa
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
30 mins per episode
Year
1991

The Return of Kekkou Kamen VHS

By John Huxley
19th May 04

She's back! The heroine of minimal clothing has returned to protect the innocent and punish the perverted. Well, she never left, actually. I've no idea why East2West films decided to call the third and fourth episodes in the series 'The Return of Kekkou Kamen' when they are a continuation of the first two. That aside, what's going on?

Well, principle Toecheese is back up to his old tricks again, terrorising the young female students of Sparta College. They have male students, also, but he isn't interested in them. You see, Toecheese is a self-proclaimed pervert, and he likes nothing better than to punish an underachieving student by chaining her to a wall and torturing her until all her clothes fall off. And that underachieving student is usually one Takahashi Mayumi, who consistently gets the lowest grades in the college. Who will save the day? You guessed it. Kekkou Kamen. Clad in nothing but a red mask, boots and gloves, she defeats the male of the species by destroying their will to fight (she sticks her pussy in their face until they pass out from the excitement).

In the first episode on this tape we are introduced to a lesbian android created by principle Toecheese to help inspire the students to better grades. Of course, everything doesn't go to plan and soon enough she and Kekkou Kamen are going toe to toe (or maybe tentacle to breast would be a more accurate description). The second episode features a samurai photographer (with what sounded like a Scottish accent) hired to humiliate the underachieving students by taking polaroid photographs of them naked and posting them around the school for all to see. The samurai, however, claims to have only accepted the job in order to fight with legendary Kekkou Kamen. When her 'wide spread attack' fails against this expert warrior, what is she to do? Don't worry, I'm sure she'll think of something.

If you haven't guessed already, Kekkou Kamen is a pretty crude comedy. Almost every joke revolves around schoolgirls underwear, and that you get to see plenty of. As with the previous two episodes, the whole atmosphere is so over the top you can forgive it for being so juvenile. Some of the subtlety (I can't believe I'm using that word to describe Kekkou Kamen) of the humour is lost in the dub, but you'll still get a few laughs regardless. Sure, you might not find the jokes funny in themselves, but when placed next to the whole ridiculous scenario I'm sure even the most grimaced amongst you will raise a smile. A special mention must go to the end theme, which was written by Go Nagai and contains such great lyrics as 'Look at the arse on that - got to be Kekkou Kamen'.

The art style isn't dissimilar to Go Nagai's own, but neither is it an exact replication, as was the case with the Devil Man OVAs. The artwork is certainly not good enough for the drawings to appear erotic. The animation, however, isn't quite smooth enough to make the fights exciting. Yet, combat is not the focus here. Fights in Kekkou Kamen are nothing more than an excuse for a few more jokes. Besides, we all know that Go Nagai is more than capable of producing excellent combat sequences. Devil Man is proof of that.

Your enjoyment of Kekkou Kamen really will depend on you sense of humour. But, are these two episodes better than the previous two? Yes, but only by a slight margin. I preferred the two bad guys on offer, I thought the animation was slightly smoother and the characters were expanded upon from the introductory early episodes. Having said that, I still think there are better alternatives. Ultimate Teacher is all this and more. Project A-KO is funnier, if less crude. If you are a Go Nagai completest, I can't recommend this enough. Everyone else has been warned.

-- John Huxley 19th May 04

Kekkou Kamen Images