Yôjû sensen: Adventure Kid

The intriguing set up for this three-part cartoon series cleverly combines the World War II Hiroshima bombing with modern-day computer hacking and (of course) demons from another dimension. The tone is an unusual mix of hardcore horror with light, humorous interludes. Unfortunately, it also feels the need to punctuate a fascinating tale with out-of-place sex scenes (some played for laughs), and completely gratuitous acts of violence, giving the whole thing an unpleasant aura, despite the excellent visuals.

Fans of "Ninja Scroll" and other exploitation anime will love this, though it really pays most homage to the Canadian anime "Heavy Metal." "Adventure Kid" has an intriguing, if nonsensical, storyline and is evenly paced so as to explain things that need explanation. Of course, as always with these kinds of movies, "Kid" will beseech you to abandon cognitive reason and suspend belief. It's a sci-fi story about a kid named Nori who finds a supercomputer from WW2 in buried in his backyard. Implementing his skills as a computer genius, Nori figures out how to turn the computer on. It shocks him and he becomes trapped (much like Neo in "Matrix Revolutions, the crappiest movie ever) in a computer simulation that is actually-this is really bizarre-controlled by the GHOST of a WW2 era scientist who became evil after he witnessed his wife's rape (which she enjoyed-Noooooo!) by evil scientists who tried to steal his inventions. Eventually, Nori is joined by his friends in the simulation, and they all go to a virtual 'hell,' where there are all kinds of freaky demons and monsters who want to nail Nori's girlfriend. I don't want to give anything else away because the ending is actually pretty clever and justifies the wackiness that precedes it. All in all, a lot of fun for anime geeks and there's plenty of nudity and sex and even female masturbation. But if you're going to see it, see it for the story because it really is pretty decent.