- Mad Bull 34 (1990-1992: Magic Bus) 4/4 eps.
Oh boy, Mad Bull 34. This is one of those OAV series that pretty much everyone has heard of and it certainly does live up to its reputation. For this one I obviously had to go with the dub, this is really one of those shows where you have to watch it with the hilariously bad dub. The show is based on a manga of the same name written by Kazuo Koike with the art by Noriyoshi Inoue. Inoue hasn’t really done anything else of note, hell he only has 3 credits to his name. Koike on the other hand is a name you’ve probably heard of. He is fairly prolific and has been a story writer for manga such as Golog 13, Crying Freeman, Lady Snowblood, and even the Hulk manga. So Koike is pretty good, but he definitely falls into that 80’s man’s man type of writer, which the Mad Bull anime also shows. The OAV series was directed by Satoshi Dezaki with Yoshihiro Ueda as an episode director. Ueda seems to be a pretty solid, if unremarkable, episode director having had the same position on shows like Dragonball, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and One Piece. Dezaki is more of a mixed bag. He has done some good stuff having directed Grey Digital Target, They Were 11, and Urusei Yatsura Movie 5. However, he has also directed some absolute stinkers. He certainly isn’t as good as his brother Osamu Dezaki, who’s directorial credits is just a hit list of some of the greatest anime ever created (seriously just go watch everything that man has ever made). So the staff behind this certainly aren’t the greatest in the world and Koike’s influence very much roots this late 80s Japan.
The OVA series follows the titular Mad Bull and his partner Daizaburo as they patrol the streets of New York serving out justice and police brutality. There is also a lady cop by the name of Perine introduced in episode 2 and she sticks around. The 4 episodes of this show are unconnected outside of featuring our main characters. Episode 1 tells the story of Mad Bull and Daizaburo first joining up and then defeating a crime boss who has come back into town. This episode is alright I suppose, at least the story makes sense. It does clue you into the shows very misogynistic tone as I think there are about 3 or 4 attempted rapes/actual rapes in this one episode, also there is a bunch of consensual sex that is fairly graphic. Episode 2 revolves around Perine’s arrival. Things start to go off the rails here, the beginning of this episode is about the level of episode 1 but the ending is super weird. Episode 3 is about Perine’s reporter friend and her dealings with rich guy who is also a serial rapist. The train is off the rails and tumbling down the mountain at 
this point. The reporter randomly falls in love twice, there are Chinese assassins with accents that are interesting (I still have no idea what they were even attempting), said Chinese assassins have tanks for some reasons, and it tries to have an emotional ending that doesn’t work. Finally, episode 4 is about the predator hunting down the police and the mafia, yep you read that correctly. Of course it isn’t actually the predator, just a power armour that looks exactly like the predator. Things also get super weird with plot holes like the bad guy knowing the police codename for them even though there is no way they could and again people falling in love after 5 minutes. The ending once again tries to go for something emotional but the sheer lunacy of what went on this episode meant I was just laughing the whole time. So, if the plot doesn’t make this show watching then what about the characters? No, just no. The characters are about as one-dimensional and ridiculous as you can make 
them. The women are only in the show to fall in love with the MCs, be raped, to have gratuitous sex, or all 3! As for Mad Bull and Daizaburo, they are about as deep as a saucer. No, the reason why you would watch this is that it falls into that bad movie drinky drinky zone of being so stupid, offensive, and silly that you can’t help but sit there and laugh.
On the audio-visual side of this it isn’t good. The animation is pretty piss poor most of the time and the character designs are super bland. At least, because the manga is from the 80s, the females are actually grown up women and not school girls or lolis like they would be if this had been made nowadays. The voice acting in the English dub helps
make this watchable. It is one of those UK dubs where the actors can’t really do the accents, as a fellow Englishman who can’t do accents I can sympathise. The 3 leads all have hilariously bad attempts at New York accents, which are fairly funny. However, it is the side characters that are truly special, Bobby Wong and the police chief in particular are just amazing. The script has been fifteened within an inch of its life, which works pretty well with the schlocky B movie feel. The music is there, I don’t remember any of it which I suppose is better than it being so God awful I can remember it.
Overall, Mad Bull 34 is what it is; a hyper violent foreign take on the classic American cop show, with a healthy dose of 80s misogyny. It isn’t good but it is watchable, it is the kinda show that is great to watch with a crate of beers and a bunch of mates. The whole of the show can pretty much be summed up by this video
(NSFW and spoilers), if that seems like fun go on and watch the show. Also, this article on ANN is worth a read too.
3/10
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