Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman

There is a reason a show with a name as memorable as Butt Attack Punisher Girl that comes with a wild enough concept to match has been lost to the passage of time. Despite setting out to be a wacky, sexual and crazy parody show, it’s strangely not at all very funny.

This set of two OVAs–each running at about 45 minutes each–centers around a religious school which sets out to teach youngsters how to be fine members of society. There are a number of religious schools of thought gathered there, and among them is an evil religious cult known as the Black Buddha. When recently transferred, good-ol’-Christian-girl Tenchi Mari transfers in, she gets shouldered with the task of setting these wrong doers right when they capture her Hindu roommate Minami Saori. When praying to Christian divinities for help, only Buddha manages to come to the rescue, and gives Mari the power to transform into Gautaman–a turban-wearing supergirl sporting a hot fundoshi that runs right up her (Terasawa Buichi approved) ass. What ensues is a rancid tale of copyright infringement, love, violence, and lots of humour that’s not terribly well paced.

On paper, this show sounds incredible. And at times, it is rather incredible. However, what kills it is its pace. Each episode of this thing is 45 minutes long, and of those 45 minutes, about 15 minutes (that’s generous) are spent on actual jokes. The whole tone of the piece is very tongue-in-cheek, but that’s not enough to really elicit laughs. Blatant infringements upon copyright laws such as the masked sumo wrestler “Dark Vader” and The Terminator himself are charming, but the concept of them existing in a Japanese cartoon is funnier then when the creators of this show put it into practice.

Sure, there are some funny parts. There are a fair amount of good jokes spread throughout, but the aren’t shot at Pani Poni Dash/first season of Hayate no Gotoku rapid fire speed to make the show itself seem like a comedy over just some weird show with weird things happening in it. That’s really the big problem here. The show can be as depraved as it wants, but you need to throw some humour in there if you want to make people laugh. The show won’t win many points for animation either, so the whole thing just comes off as a little boring by the second episode.

That said, it’s not altogether bad. It has its charm simply as an obscure oddity, and watching it is a window into just what kind of shit was being produced during that OVA boom all those years ago. If you do hold some interest in old, strange and obscure anime from years ago such as I do, I’d recommend checking it out just because. It’s nothing special–especially now in this age where the parody show has evolved to a point where there needs to be a joke in every second of your runtime (see: Pani Poni Dash)–but it’s just kind of a neat thing to see. It’s not like it’s super long, or anything.

Oh, and it’s called Butt Attack Punisher Girl because she rams her ass into some of the baddies like once or twice.

4 Comments