ANI-MOVIES, *Harmagedon

Kazumasa Hirai created several manga mainstays such as 8-Man, Wolf Guy, and Spider-Man: The Manga, but his series of Gemna Wars from 1967 became a major groove in the history of anime and manga fandom. The original manga went on for only two volumes but was adapted into extra-sized full-length animated movie titled Harmagedon, and yes, that is how it is spelled. Harmagedon's plot follows the story of people with superpowers uniting to stop a demonic force from destroying the world, something that has been reflected in series like X/1999 and Dragonball. Madhouse and Kodokawa were the studios behind the film which premiered in 1983 and was directed by Rintaro who had already gained a huge success with his work in the Galaxy Express 999 duology. The huge draw to Harmagedon was that character designer was a young Katsuhiro Otomo, and the story of apocalyptic psychics played in a major influence in his later legendary manga, the iconic Akira. The anime movie became the bestselling animated film of that year, even with a genuine conclusion to it as the manga weirdly ended on a cliffhanger. The manga continued in several different other remakes involving an over overabundance of time travel which created an entire multiverse, one of which got its own television adaptation in the critically panned Genma Wars. Most Americans became aware of Harmagedon from the laserdisc video game Bega's Battle that was translated in English into Bega's Battle which was quickly phased out of arcades with the wild number of games being hammered out in those days, the game itself used footage from the anime movie. The film itself didn't get an English release until Central Park Media put it out on LD and VHS in 1992, and then later a number of DVDs some of which were special editions featuring commentary by director Rintaro. Despite all that history, the anime never really caught on with American otaku, not even a Blu-ray release.

The movie starts out in the early 80s with a Transylvanian princess named Luna having her flight to America getting destroyed by a extension of the evil cosmic force known as Genma whose sole purpose is wipe out all life everywhere. Luna is saved by the will of the universe that calls itself Froy who awakens the princess' psychic powers and teams her up with the last remaining members of a different alien race decimated by Genma, the retro-cyborg Vega who has spent the last few millennia in stasis waiting to be awakened. Vega and Luna then seek out other espers around the world to help form their own Avengers team so Genma won't kill all life on Earth. One of these espers is the main character Jo Azuma, a typical Japanese teenager with a big sister complex. His powers get activated after an encounter from one of Genma's agents who can possess other people. Jo then teams up with Luna and Vega to stop a Genma hunting another esper in New York which creates a psychic shoutout to the rest of Earth's espers. Genma's essence begins to create disasters all over the world like engulfing Tokyo in a sandstorm. Jo and the others psychic warriors converge for a final battle with Genma who has merged with Mt. Fuji to become a colossal multi-headed dragon made of lava.

Harmagedon did managed to have a somewhat satisfying conclusion as opposed to the original manga, although the 135-minute long movie stretched out scenes of minor characters one time too many. There is way more attention dedicated towards Jo's incestual feelings toward his sister than there should be, while a great number of the other psychic warriors barely get any screen time, like they were all the other X-Men that weren't Wolverine. The movie has a bad habit of dragging the story on to the point you start to wonder where exactly the plot is going, Harmagedon is a necessary watch for anime fans of any stripe just from the history that the movie left in its wake.