I've been looking for something to help me through the hot 'n' humid summer months and what better way to beat the heat than to stay indoors watching questionable anime and playing questionable games based on said anime? For a rundown of this little project, check out the first episode.

The Property

Kikou Keisatsu Metal Jack, localized as Armored Police Metal Jack, is an anime TV show about three heroic men cut down in their prime attempting to foil the criminal organization, Id, from assassinating the scion of the Zaizen corporation (great, so they're cops and bootlickers). These three individuals are revived through the use of cutting-edge cybernetic technology and become the Metal Jacks, the newest line of defense against rampant crime in a Tokyo City of the far-flung future of 2015.

I might've had RoboCop on the brain lately thanks to Blight Club and a recent Film & 40s on the original film, and you don't need to go too far to find an anime ersatz (I may even cover another one later based on a certain Masamune Shirow manga, depending on my mood). It's another property that started as an anime—we'll get into that in just a moment—and later saw a brief run of novelizations and, of course, a couple of video games. This show is also about as obscure as I dare get; beyond this point it starts getting tough to dig up a sufficient amount of translated episodes floating around out there.

The Cast

• Ken Kanzaki: A cocky, laid-back police detective who's an expert marksman and a bit of a wiseacre. After protecting Jun Zaizen from an assassin robot, he is blown away by an errant missile and is reborn as Red Jack. Like his human alter-ego, Red Jack largely focuses on ranged attacks with a powerful side-arm and is the de facto leader of the Metal Jacks, insofar as he's usually standing in the middle of the three and is the one yelling the most. Is friends and partners with the more serious Eriko.
• Ryou Aguri: A suave but snobbish Formula 1 driver that leaps in to protect Jun and Kanzaki for unexplained reasons, getting himself nearly killed in the process and reborn as Silver Jack. Recognizing that driving a fancy car is basically the same as swinging a fancy sword, Silver Jack fights up close with a lightsaber (or non-litigious equivalent) and tends to use his speed to outmaneuver his robotic opponents. Despite his youthful looks he's the eldest of the Metal Jacks at the ripe old age of 23.
• Gou Gouda: Champion pro wrestler with the ring name of Gonzales Gou, despite having no lucha libre affiliation, Gou becomes the most physically imposing of the Metal Jacks, Blue Jack, after also taking a missile to the face. A big dude with a big heart and usually the salt-of-the-earth comic relief of the team, as is tradition for the heavy guy in any superhero ensemble.
• Masanao Daigo: Scientist type who is in charge of the Metal Jack project and commands them during missions and their training. Is always wearing shades.
• Eriko Yoshizawa: Ken's no-nonsense if occasionally reckless partner. The Anne Lewis of the show.
• Jun Zaizen: The son of the now deceased CEO of the Zaizen Group. Brilliant but sheltered. As of the end of the third episode he's still in intensive care after the same explosion that almost killed the Metal Jacks.
• Megadeth: The tyrannical leader of Id, the terrorist organization threatening the peace. Seeks nothing more than a symphony of destruction, with plans to transform Tokyo City into a dystopia due to his "conquer or die" ethos. With an enormous army of robots and cyborgs, he's a veritable master of puppets (wait, that's Metallica).

The Anime

The Kikou Keisatsu Metal Jack anime was created by Sunrise studio and credited to their amalgamous pseudonym Hajime Yatate, which is actually the studio's collective writing/production staff. Sunrise is one of the most famous anime studios currently active, possibly even more than last episode's Madhouse, having been behind many famous original works like Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, and Armored Trooper Votoms as well as adaptations of novels/manga Inuyasha, Outlaw Star, and Gintama. Perhaps (though there's no perhaps about it) their biggest contribution to the world of anime is the mecha megafranchise Gundam. Needless to say, we're going to be bumping into them many more times depending on how long this feature goes. They're officially known these days as Bandai Namco Filmworks, and have subsequently worked on animated cutscenes for many of Bamco's video games including most recently the post-apocalyptic action-RPG Scarlet Nexus as well as the new opening animation added to the Zone of the Enders HD Collection. They've even lent their talent to western productions, contributing to Batman: The Animated Series (tying in this episode with yet another Blight Club property) and, a personal favorite of mine growing up, the bizarre French sci-fi anime Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. (I still struggle to explain what that show is about. Star Wars vs. mutant plant alien monster trucks? Theme music still slaps though.)

The credited writer for the Metal Jack anime is one Hiroyuki Kawasaki, who also wrote the scripts for many video-game-to-anime adaptations (the reverse of what we're covering here on Game OVA) including those for Sakura Wars, Tales of Eternia, and Wild Arms. He also contributed to that Halo Legends anime anthology DTV show, writing the "Homecoming" segment. The director for the episodes we're covering is Hiroshi Matsuzono, who also directed the Tekkaman Blade anime and was a storyboard artist for both the Sakura Wars and Arc the Lad TV anime adaptations. (Really did not anticipate how JRPG-heavy we were going to go this time considering this is a sci-fi mecha action show about cyborg cops.)

As for the show itself, it aired on TV Tokyo between April and December of 1991 for a total of thirty-seven episodes. It's got some violent moments but I believe it skews closer to a pre-teen male (or shounen) audience with its tokusatsu (superhero) elements and straightforward, black-and-white storytelling; its slot in the schedules was late-afternoon (5:30pm) which tends to fit that demographic. Considering the slightly more adult fare I've been featuring with Game OVA Season 2 so far, it'll be nice to cover a show that doesn't go topless every five minutes.

(Since I got a little carried away with the previous Game OVA, we're only doing three episodes.)

Episode 1

A perfunctory pilot that plops down all the exposition it needs to so that it can get it out of the way of the final five minutes of cool dudes in exosuits blowing up cool robots. Cops Ken Kanzaki and Eriko Yoshizawa, racecar driver Ryou Aguri, and pro-wrestler Gou Gouda are all in attendance at the 10th birthday party for Jun Zaizen, son of the CEO of the Zaizen Group corporation: the former two as police bodyguards and the latter two as celebrity guests. Kanzaki learns that, while Jun is a child prodigy, his sheltered upbringing has made him lonely and socially awkward; Kanzaki cheers him up with a brotherly pep talk while the two take a break from the party. After the lights in the room are brought down so Jun can blow out the candles on his cake, a three-meter tall mech is able to somehow quietly arrive and mingle with the crowd before it starts shooting up the place. It eliminates its first target, the CEO of Zaizen, but is thwarted by Kanzaki who damages its camera with his revolver before it can finish off Jun as well. Despite this, it's able to fire off a missile before escaping, apparently killing not only Kanzaki and Jun but an assisting Aguri and Gouda as well.

While mourning Kanzaki, Eriko and the police chief find themselves called into action when Id, a flamboyant and well-funded terrorist organization, takes over a bridge and starts firing indiscriminately at a major public building. Their rampage takes the lives of many Tokyo City citizens and the cops are underequipped to deal with Id's overwhelming firepower and high-spec mechs. Enter the Metal Jacks: a clandestine police force consisting of Kanzaki, Aguri, and Gouda along with a cybernetic dog, Bladewolf Lander, who quickly take care of the first group of Id robots before they're able to kill an imperiled Eriko. However, the same mech that crashed the earlier party proves too much for the trio to handle and they're forced to switch from their standard Jack Suits into their mecha Jack Armors with the unfortunate battlecry of "Jack On!", adding a significant boost to their offense and to my second-hand embarrassment. With this upgrade, they're able to take down the assassin robot, though the two Id lieutenants at the scene manage to peace out amidst the chaos. Sworn to secrecy about what happened to him and his companions by the Metal Jacks project lead, Masanao Daigo, Kanzaki mysteriously reappears full of jokes and no worse for the wear in front a surprised Eriko and the police chief as they watch over a comatose Jun, Kanzaki promising him justice for his father.

I can already see the show settling into a recurring pattern of the heroes getting beat down and having to pull out their trump card, borne from the many tokusatsu shows Armored Police Metal Jack draws its inspiration (particularly Super Sentai/Power Rangers and its "deus ex mecha" Megazords). After all, the anime was originally meant to be a sequel to a live-action tokusatsu show that nonetheless ended up an unrelated anime from what I can only assume was a significant lapse in communication. Since this show has 37 episodes (and was originally meant to have 50) I wouldn't expect any plotlines to be resolved any time soon. This first episode also spends almost zero time on Aguri and Gouda's characterizations, so I suspect (vainly hope) that's what the next few episodes will focus on.

Episode 2

Ah, that delayed characterization has arrived for Aguri and Gouda, albeit not with a whole lot of specificity just yet. All three of the Metal Jacks are required to go through brutal endurance training, and both Silver and Blue have grown weary of all the hard work and secrecy around their new roles and decide to bail. Kanzaki, as Red, tries to convince them to stick with it as they'll lead much more meaningful lives as anonymous superheroes than they would in boring, unfulfilling jobs like "internationally-famous racecar driver" or "pro-wrestling champ beloved by millions". They're still ready to bounce even after Red makes his impassioned case, bizarrely, so instead Red insults their decision and they just kick his ass and leave. I'm already into this team dynamic, long may it continue.

The city is about ready to host a peace treaty delegation at the expensive Crystal Tower building, but the cops are antsy about a mysterious report from some random hobo who claims he saw a man disappear into a column of light down by the docks. This column turns out to be the work of an evil scientist Id has recruited to take out the Metal Jacks, using a combination of... you know, I wasn't really able to follow what this was. It's like glass, but also metallic and able to be remote-controlled, so the user can call down a shower of shards from anywhere and cut normal people to ribbons (which is what happened to the docks guy). Red Jack was shrewd enough to figure out that the Crystal Tower is made from this T-1000 nanoglass shit (again, somehow) and convinces the peace treaty delegates and nearby cops on security detail to stack themselves into their vehicles so they'll be protected. However, the glass shards—which eventually become a floating demonic head JRPG monster at some point—prove too much for him to handle alone.

Fortunately, both Blue Jack and Silver Jack have a change of heart after watching Red Jack on the news laying his life on the line and come help, despite Red being a pain in the neck. Silver even has an epiphany after a "course out" while racing that his "whole life has been a course out"; it'd almost be poignant if I could make heads or tails of what it meant. The three together—after summoning the Armor Jacks of course, since that's two minutes of runtime in which nothing needs to be written—then proceed to overwhelm the regenerative powers of the glass-summoning floating goblin head and destroy it for good. The episode ends in much the same way as the first: all three of the Metal Jacks watch Jun Zaizen's recovering in a secret underground hospital ward having resolved to work together and put themselves in harm's way for the sake of some rich kid they met for five minutes at a party they were contractually obligated to attend. That kind of camaraderie just doesn't come along every day. I think the second episode was a mild improvement over the first, even if the show's already become hopelessly formulaic (the bad guy was defeated by the exact same "Metal Crusher" punch from Red Jack from the last episode), but we still don't really have any idea who any of these characters are just yet without a spotlight episode. I'm also not sure the show's done enough to earn us caring about the rich kid in a coma, beyond the fact that he's rich and that he's in a coma. Still... glass shards monster face, huh? I guess that's something. (I almost forgot to say, the bad guys killed the scientist after he failed by stabbing him in the back with a big claw and it was kinda brutal for a kids' show. I'm not quite certain who the audience for this is supposed to be.)

Episode 3

The third episode quickly introduces us to a new character: Sayuri Kanzaki, Ken's kid sister. She's visiting Ken ostensibly for a visit but soon reveals the real reason she's there: to drag Ken back home to safety after suffering serious grief after the greatly exaggerated reports of his death. Kanzaki's too busy being both a cop and a Metal Jack so he tells her to take a hike, only to run afoul of this episode's monster of the week. OK, so, as far as I can tell the deal this time is that a scientist has worked out a way to build a robot that feeds on negative energy, in particular feelings of panic, and has set up a large vine-like robotic being to move through the innards and take control of a major subterranean public venue, in this case the train station and surrounding shopping mall that the Kanzakis are visiting, and deprive it of electricity while causing its structural stability to rapidly deteriorate, through which he can use the terror of the trapped civilians to feed his monster. This is, of course, with the supervision of one of Id's recurring lieutenant characters, who is fascinated by the murder potential of this biomechanical emotion vampire roboplant.

The other two Metal Jacks arrive once the commotion starts and begin looking for a way to get into the building to rescue survivors before it collapses, with Blue making the shrewd decision to start breaking down random load-bearing walls. Meanwhile, both Kanzakis are trapped inside along with two other kids and an adult couple who basically trampled the kids while looking for a way out like a pair of George Costanzas. The adult man, who we'll call George (because it's his actual name, no joke), starts demanding the others follow his lead despite Ken's insistence they stay put and wait for the rescuers to arrive; George instead berates him for being a useless cop while continuing to harass the tiny children he almost stomped all over earlier before he notices an air vent and starts making his way over. Ken spots that there's a bunch of robotic tentacle-vines in the way, and theorizes that these metal tubes will attack any panic-stricken human being that gets close. I'm guessing this isn't his first run-in with empathic sentient robot cables of death. In what has to be one of the most "WTF" moments of the series so far, the moment George inevitably gets dragged away by the tentacles towards a metallic pitcher plant (???) and Kanzaki reaches for his revolver to rescue him, Sayuri's all "why are you trying to save his life, he was rude to us". To properly correct his traumatized kid sister with all the tact the situation requires, Kanzaki slaps her right across the chops and tells her she's an idiot. Even if the guy is a prick and deserves to die, Kanzaki rationalizes in earshot of the dude's distressed significant other, a policeman is supposed to save people and not kill them, probably. I had to watch this scene twice to take it all in, as I was still reeling from Kanzaki's instant read on how these barely visible metal tentacles must be reacting to specific psychological responses to empower themselves like that was a scenario right out of his police handbook.

Once George becomes independent from the tentacles, Ken has all of the survivors head toward the air vent while he fends off the roboplants, aided by the sudden appearance of Lander who made his way down the vent from outside. With no-one left around to discover his secret identity, he transforms into Red Jack's suited mode and starts weeding out the place, but it turns out to have been in vain: the robot has now absorbed enough negative emotions (I guess?) to evolve into a stupid-looking giant monster and all three Metal Jacks switch to Armor Jack mode to defeat it, with Red Jack once again applying a decisive Metal Crusher to tear a big hole through its head. Oh, and the scientist behind all this gets killed by the Id dude's giant claw because he dared to be disrespectful. (How many mad scientists do they have on their payroll that they're this expendable? Are these guys the anime version of Black Mesa?) Anyway, not only is the show getting dumber but the animation quality is starting to take some serious dips. Characters often appear off-model, continue to move their lips even after their lines are finished (I'm watching subs, so it's not a localization issue), and much of the Armor Jack sequences are recycled as I'll demonstrate shortly. Three episodes in and I'm not quite sure if the show's just yet to find its robot feet or if it's running on fumes already. Either way, I think I have a pretty decent impression of what Armored Police Metal Jack is all about by now, and since the annoying kid sister will be a permanent cast member (she's in the intro so I figured) it's probably a good time to call it a day.

So that's the anime. I suppose that means we should do whatever the opposite of "Jack On" might be now that we're all finished here. Fairly typical tokusatsu stuff, from my limited experience with the genre, though from watching the show's quality deteriorate in real-time I'm not sure Metal Jack was one of Sunrise's higher priorities. I can imagine a studio that large probably has any number of B-teams working on lesser properties, but then I recall the general quality of western animated kids' TV in 1991 and maybe this show isn't too different.

That its original run was curtailed due to low viewership might've been a red flag, or possibly a silver or a blue one, but if anything can engender two tie-in video games after it had finished airing it couldn't have been that widely disliked. Speaking of which...

The Game(s)

I found two Metal Jack video games, both released in 1992 a few months after the show wrapped up its original run. The one we're going to cover here in detail is the second chronologically of those two games: Kikou Keisatsu Metal Jack for the Super Famicom, released on July 31st 1992. It was published by Atlus and developed either by Atlus themselves or an anonymous contract developer. The game was fortunate enough to receive a fan translation from one MrRichard999 back in 2018, though there's not a whole lot of text involved with an action game like this. Regardless, I'm going to use it.

You could generously call it a brawler but it's more akin to something like a side-scrolling action game such as Kung Fu or Rush'N Attack: you're mostly just beating down fodder enemies that endlessly spawn from the sides of the screen and die in one hit, with a mild bit of platforming to break things up along with a tougher boss fight at the end of each stage. As with the show, the moment a boss arrives the protagonist(s) are compelled to switch to their Armor Jack form to fight it on even ground, giving you a few other commands to work with. Fun fact: There were plans to localize this overseas with some truly wild westernization name changes. For instance, Ryou Aguri was due to become "Billy Crash", an incredible name for a racecar driver.

Does it do right by the anime? I guess? The show was as much of a mindless brawler as this game is, though this really does feel cheap and quick. It's like they started work on the game when the show was at its peak, watched any interest in it peter out in real-time, and then decided to quickly put the game out the door before the Metal Jacks left the public consciousness completely. It's not bad looking for a 1992 game but as a brawler it's very rudimentary. It's also quite short and easy: the Longplay for this is something like twenty minutes (and, just to confirm, Longplays are not speedruns by any means) and apparently taps out after six levels, meaning I just got past the halfway point here. I suppose that's a nice change from all the other brawlers on SNES, since they tend to be obnoxiously difficult without the potential endless continues offered by an arcade cabinet (provided you have the coins to spare).

Before we're done here, there's the matter of the other Armored Police Metal Jack game. The same-titled Kikou Keisatsu Metal Jack is a Game Boy turn-based strategy game from KID Corp and Takara, released on January 8th 1992. KID (an acronym for "Kindle Imagine Develop") was a long-lived contract developer behind many anime licensed games and later their own range of visual novels while Takara is the giant toy company that later merged with Tomy and frequently dabbled with game development, KID being one of their more frequent contractors. In a weird coincidence, Takara briefly owned a controlling stake in Atlus, the publisher of the other Metal Jack game (though I'm guessing Metal Jack was not the reason since it happened in 2003, and also why would anyone even care).

Put simply, it's a no-budget Fire Emblem with the Metal Jacks and pals as your combat team, which tends to be the case for many mecha anime game adaptations (e.g. the Super Robot Taisen franchise). No fan translation for this one so I only got as far as deciphering the menus, which were mostly kana. Trying to write kanji with the Game Boy's resolution sounds like a nightmare.

Does it do right by the anime? The show never exhibited much in the way of what I would call "strategy", so I'd say this made a little less sense than Atlus's primitive brawler. There's not a whole lot of tactical depth to it either, possibly given it's a 8-bit GB game with not much room to breathe, but I could see a fan of the show slowly hacking away at each of its maps during a quiet moment in their commute or something. Maybe there was a way to have the Metal Jacks combine with their vehicles to go into Armor Jack mode with some kind of limitation (like you could only be in that mode for three turns at most) to make things interesting, since I don't think I could've survived fighting that many dudes if they're all packing SMGs. Not a genre I have a lot of patience for at the best of times, though.

And that'll do it for the Metal Jacks and our guided tour through the mean streets of Tokyo City, a location I'm sure Game OVA will never revisit. Even if this show and its games were perhaps a tad underwhelming and esoteric, I've enjoyed the process of researching what I could about it. Jeff Gerstmann once played the SNES game on stream and had some curiosity about its origins, so in the back of my "what to blog about" notes I'd always pencilled in an excuse to dig a little deeper into this silly action franchise. Next time I'll probably check out something a little more celebrated, but until then keep watching the skies for sapient glass robots with mischief on their mind and always, always, remember to Jack On!