Lion-Girl

Go Nagai created Cutie Honey, Devilman, Mazinger Z, the first erotic manga with Harenchi Gakuen, Getter Robo and Violence Jack. At one point, he was drawing and writing five weekly manga publications at the same time. He also created the characters and did the designs for this movie, Lion-Girl, which is directed and written by Kurando Mitsutake (Maniac Driver). Meteors hit the Earth and one out of every thousand people survived. Only Japan wasn't sunk -- an inversion of Submersion of Japan and the parody The World Sinks Except Japan -- and as war rages endlessly, the meteors transform humans into demonic hybrids known as Anoroc that kill humans, all while a new Bushido code emerges and samurais rule the lawless lands. There is a hero and that is Botan (Tori Griffith). Her parents died from being transformed into Anorocs on the day of her birth and she was raised by her Uncle Ken (Damian Toofeek Raven) to defend the weak. She's also Lion-Girl, the rebel who Shogun Fujinaga (Tomuki Kimura) wants to destroy. Botan and Ken are asked to deliver Herbert (Matt Standley) and Mayumi (Shelby Lee Parks) to a safe area where Ogi Agan (Stefanie Estes) will protect them. Joined by the cybernetic Marion (Joey Iwanaga), they battle Anorocs under the command of Kaisei Kishi (Derek Mears, who has played Swamp Thing, Jason and a Predator). I have to confess that I totally loved this movie. I realize that it's a mess and the CGI is goofy but it feels like reading a whole bunch of manga all at once while you're on drugs, which I think was the idea, and it just hammers you with ideas, fights, blood, nudity -- male, female and trans -- and even some moments of humor that made me laugh out loud, such as when Lion-Girl stops the exposition and says, "We'll get into that some other time." There are also some definite mentions of the pandemic and Trump, which this was made during. If they made another of these, I'll definitely watch it. It's long but I split it across a few days and ended up looking forward to each section even if the story makes less sense, but sometimes, you just go with it when you have a heroine with a gold lion mask going all scanner -- they literally call the battles scanning and reference Buckaroo Banzai's "Wherever you go, there you are -- instead of being hypercritical. Don't let yourself get in the way of a good time.

Can't decide if it is trying to celebrate anime and manga, or if it is making fun of it. Too long and boring either way. Whatever the point is, it takes WAY too long getting to it. LOTS of gratuitous nudity, a little gore (could have stood to swap that) and a disappointing amount of fight scenes. Film spends a whole lot of time gazing at our heroine in, and out, of her superhero costume and literally tells us how she has been trained in all forms of martial arts and fighting styles, so you really feel like it is building up to an epic fight scene SOMEWHERE in the movie, All you get is some glowing special effects and everyone staring at one another until one of their heads explode! Overall I found the premise and the general idea great, but I was really disappointed in the execution.