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AKA: 臀撃おしおき娘 ゴータマン ゴータマン誕生編 (Dengeki Oshioki Musume Gōtaman: Gōtaman Tanjō-hen)
Genre: Comedy
Length: OAV series, 2 episodes, 45 minutes minutes each
Distributor: Currently unlicensed.
Content Rating: R
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: Golden Boy
Notes: Based on the manga by Masakazu Yamaguchi.

I'm reviewing both Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gōtaman and it's sequel, Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gōtaman R, as there isn't enough material to review them separately.
Rating:

Butt Attack Punisher Girl Goutaman

Synopsis

Mari's dream is to grow up to be a famous missionary like Mother Teresa, so she is attending the famous Perfect Religion private school, where the future leaders of the world's religions are trained. Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Muslims; everyone mingles together peacefully. But a new and evil cult called the Black Buddha have been plotting to force everyone to convert to their religion, starting with the students of PR. When Mari's new roommate Sari is kidnapped by the evil cult, the Buddha appears before her, telling her she must become his most holy warrior, the Gōtaman, in order to save her.

The Buddha neglects to mention that His Most Holy Warrior must wear a skimpy sumo cloth, an ugly sports bra and some eighties-tastic shades to hide her identity, or that the Gōtaman must defeat her enemies by using her ultimate attack, THE BUTT ATTACK.

It does exactly what it sounds like.

Can Mari defeat the evil minions of the Black Buddha cult, or will she die of embarrassment first?


Review

A few weeks back I wrote a review for the short 80's OVA Call Me Tonight, where I called it a show that sells itself on its crazy premise and then fails to live up to it. You don't even need to read the premise to know what Butt Attack Punisher Girl is about: the title pretty much says it all. But unlike Call Me Tonight, neither the title nor the premise do any justice to the two hours of deliriously crass insanity it contains.

But before we do that, I need to make something clear: this is the kind of anime you do not bring up in polite company. In case the tasteful title wasn't enough to clue you in, Butt Attack is like a pile of dry kindling, just waiting for some sensitive, easily offended soul to set it on fire in disgust. Across two OVAs and nearly as many hours, it packs in it enough nudity and crude humor to give Golden Boy a run for its money, while carelessly tossing around and mangling every major sacred religion. When people ask you at work if you watched a movie over the weekend, do not bring this OVA up. Talk about that new Sacha Baron Cohen movie instead.

So with that, let's crack open a beer, and talk about how much fun these OVAs were. Since a small digital source group dug this title out of obscurity just in time for the Easter holiday- hur hur- the anime blogosphere has been buzzing about it. The best description I've heard for it so far came from Clarissa of the podcast Anime World Order when she said, "Butt Attack is not a very good OVA, but it is very entertaining."

And the reason this a bad OVA doesn't have a lot to do with how classless it is. There is a way to do dirty comedy right- Cohen's Borat and George Carlin's stand-up are two great examples- and Butt Attack doesn't do it. Its parodies are blatant and dumb, it has a messy story that's a wee bit repetitious and then ends abruptly, and it depends a bit too much on our inner twelve year to make us laugh. In fact, it's not hard to imagine that this was written by a gaggle of pubescent boys. "Cuz you see, she jumps in the air, right, then takes her butt, right, then she slams it into his chest! And y'know, the funny part is, it leaves a butt-print on his chest! Butt-print!"

But who am I to talk about being juvenile? I like writing about cartoons. And on top of that, I liked this OVA.

Explaining how I liked it is difficult, though. I blame the nature of comedy- if you give away the joke, it's not longer funny anymore. That goes doubly so for Butt Attack: a lot of the fun comes from watching the OVA steadily try to up itself by always ramping up the stupidity, the insanity, and the fanservice. And it succeeds wildly; I thought I had seen it all after finishing the first half... and then I clicked "play" to watch the second half. The entertainment value just keeps multiplying as it cultivates into a parody that is so perfectly bad, it might be brilliant. Even though some parts of it were dumb and, frankly, creepy, I ended up really enjoying the ride.

I have to two explanations for this. Maybe my sense of humor stopped developing after I turned fourteen. Or maybe, because the anime is so dedicated to being as crass and silly as possible, it ended up becoming charming. Either way, it made me smile. And reader, if you cracked a grin or let slip a giggle while reading this review, then I think it might be a good watch for you too. It might just leave a smoking crater where your brain once was.

The nice thing about Butt Attack is that its title is the perfect acid test. Do you think it sounds funny? Then you should probably watch it.Bradley Meek

Recommended Audience: Nudity, comedic violence, more nudity, crude humor, even more nudity, and lesbian fanservice. Hooray.



Version(s) Viewed: Digital digital source
Review Status: Full (2/2)
Butt Attack Punisher Girl Goutaman © 1994 ANIMATE, Bandai Visual, Studio Bankai
 
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