Sukeban Boy

Seen for the first time in October 2011.

“Sukeban Boy” is a strange movie, and it’s strange in a way that is uniquely Japanese. There is something extremely infantile about the humor of this movie that is markedly Japanese. In a lot of ways this feels like a PG-13 movie, but for all of the tits and perversions. And that’s the other thing that is strange about this movie in a particularly Japanese way. It’s not just full of nudity. It’s full of pervert Japanese style perversions. The kink is out in the open in that culture in a way that it isn’t in America. Like it’s not just nudity. There’s a lot of European nudo (this is some slang I just made up) movies. But the Japanese often make a nudo movie to a much more twisted result. It’s like they go ahead and publicly indulge the fantasies that most of us would be embarrassed for other people to find out about. Though it may not be tasteful, I kind of admire it.

I don’t even think titillation is the raison d’etre of this thing. That’s part of what makes this movie so strange, even by Japanese standards. I was sort of put off by most of the movie. There’s too much androgyny in the main character for my taste for half-clad whimsically violent frolics. But there’s a pretty feel good ending. It’s kind of sappy, but it’s a strange Japanese sap that’s really enthusiastic and reminds you of little kids and their irrational joys for simple things and it just kind of makes you happy. All in all, it turns into this weird transgender love-story, made more weird because the lovers not just a minute before were engaged in a Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker style fight to the death. Like the hero and the villain decide to stop fighting and become lovers instead. And both of them having accidentally taken hormones are rendered permanently transgendered. Also, the main character’s father is accidentally killed in their melee, and while that’s sad, no one really cares, because… shrug, it’s otherwise just such a gushingly cute happy ending.

I honestly don’t know how to rate this thing though. I’m not really even sure if I think it’s good or bad. Like the plot is paper-thin. And they just keep throwing up comic book style sects of villains for no discernible reason. It really is just all about topless women, goofy often scatological jokes, and silly violence until it’s all wrapped up with a silly moral about gender. Like this movie is the equivalent of just dangling shiny objects before an idiot for about sixty minutes, and most of those shiny objects aren’t really even that shiny. The violence in this movie for example, is actually really poor. There’s never any tension or thrill either, and it’s more appalling than it is funny. And some of the women in this movie might benefit from doing some extra squats at the gym. But still, I pretty much enjoyed watching this. And if someone with the right sensibility was looking to enjoy a “bad movie” night, they could do a lot worse than to pick this one. I’m emptying my mind and looking into my heart, and I find myself giving this a grade B.