Mad Bull 34

Mad Bull 34 is one of my favorite bad OVAs. It's stupid as hell, a very inaccurate representation of what New York is like, it's CRAZY, over the top, makes one go WTF, but about all else, it is NOT boring. I'll attempt to explain why Mad Bull is a work of bad art. Oh & btw, there will be massive spoilers in this review. Read at you own risk

Story:

The "plot" of Mad Bull basically consists of Sleepy & Daizaburo going around New York "upholding the law". There really isn't an overarching plot to Mad Bull, rather it's an episodic 4 episode OVA. But honestly that was for the best, as the episodic format helps lead into the crazy shenanigans that ensue throughout Mad Bull 34.

Episode 1 is the set-up episode, it gives us some establishing shots of New York, introduces us to Daizaburo Dipshit, nicknamed "Eddie" (except they never call him that). The next shot that actually matters showcases a girl tied-up & about to get drugged & raped. Suddenly Sleepy nicknamed “Mad Bull” (except they rarely call him that) bursts into the room, & in an encouraging display of Police Brutality, blows the perpetrators heads off (in a way that doesn’t happen in real life might I add). Several bouts of introductions & exposition later we come to the supermarket scene. Robbers (wearing Jason masks & Rollerskates) come out of a supermarket after robbing it. The police cruiser then glides onto the scene & Sleepy, in yet another encouraging display of Police Brutality goes in & blows one of the robber’s head off. With Daizaburo Dipshit giving the appropriate reaction of “He’s blown his head off”. Also on the scene, was an innocent bystander, a woman no-less, a woman who pissed her pants because of course she would. Sleepy then tells Daizaburo “She’ll thaw out if you stick ya finger up her ass” & being the dipshit that he is, Daizaburo proceeds to do so, & gets chewed out by the woman for it. We then cut to a scene of Daizaburo & Sleepy sitting in the police cruiser. Sleepy eyes a prostitute & after Daizaburo says he’s not interested, Sleepy says, & I quote “Huh, you don’t mean your a faggot?” Yes, that is an actual quote. After this, we then cut to a scene of Sleepy trying to get Daizaburo some pussy because he’s such a “good friend”. He gathers a punch of prostitutes in one room & goes “Well girls, I was hoping you could give this one for free, as this man is a 100% certified virgin, & is in desperate need of some pussy”. A series of still images later, Daizaburo says he has a fiance to get out of getting some pussy. He then tells Sleepy that he knows that he meant well & was only trying to do a good thing for him (which isn’t how that works irl btw).

That’s all in just the first 10 minutes and 21 seconds of episode 1? Does this sound like the kind of fun, trashy, unintentional comedy you might enjoy? If it does, I can only tell you that you’re in for one wild ride of crazy shenanigans, appaling racism & sexism, hilarious inaccuracies to not only New York but life in general. Mad Bull 34 has it all.

Characters:

The characters in Mad Bull are some of the most unlikable yet likable characters at the same time. Sleepy is fucking INSANE. He does whatever he wants, no matter how wrong or inaccurate it is to how a police force would actually operate in real life. But that doesn’t even matter, because to quote sleepy “In the 34th precinct I’m the law. AND NO SCUMBAG IS GONNA GET AWAY WITH SHIT WHILE I’M ALIVE”. Sleepy also is just swimming in plot armor throughout the entire anime. So much shit happens that should get him killed. In the first episode, the tires of his police cruiser are doused in oil making the car slip & slide, then fucking flipping over and crashing into a wall, an event that nobody would survive, but Sleepy walks it off like a fucking champ, basically unscratched that’s how much plot armor he’s doused in. Sleepy also has creative “strategies” (for lack of a better term) such as crotch grenades. These just add to how awesome Sleepy is.

“Daisaboro Eddie Bannnnn” is our next character we have to discuss. Daisaboro first starts out as a relatively normal being who just wants to be a cop. But he has the fortunate team up of Sleepy as his partner. Daisaboro starts off as very critical of Sleepy’s actions. But once Sleepy tries to get him some pussy from some hookers & Daisaboro chews him out, he then proceeds to become friends with Sleepy at basically the drop of a hat with no character development whatsoever. After the fact he basically becomes Sleepy’s partner in law enforcement. Daisaboro is also swimming in just as much plot armor as Sleepy is, though I’d argue not as much since Daisaboro doesn’t get in as many situations where he should get killed as Sleepy does.

The rest of the cast of Mad Bull is pretty flavorless, vanilla, stock, generic, and uninspired. All of the villains in this show are evil for evil's sake with absolutely no motivations behind what they do or why they do it. But to make up for this the villains allow for just as many ridiculous, stupid, over-the-top, and bat-shit insane shenanigans to play out. So, even though they’re lackadaisical, they at least stay in line with the unintentional comedy of this series

Art & Sound”

The art in Mad Bull is pretty bad & an all around low effort. Character designs for the male characters are usually pretty basic and/or muscular (copying most Shounen manga from the time). The women have more effort put into their character designs than the men do, but because of the really bad art, the effort put into them is automatically fucked over since you can’t even begin to appreciate them. Animation is also pretty lazy. Even in the action sequences there’s barely any animation to go around, they’ll usually just cut to still frames of drawings gliding across the screen.

The voice acting is the best bad voice acting I’ve ever heard. I watched this in the English Dub (which is the only way you should watch this btw) and the voice actors were British. But they try really hard to hide the accents in their voices so that they can imitate what they think Americans sound like (spoilers, this is also an inaccurate representation of New York). But the actors at least sound like they’re having fun with their roles, maybe a bit too much fun. But this at least beats the voice acting of something like Girls & Panzer in Japanese, Sword For Truth’s English dub, and Conception’s voice acting in general. So a little fun goes a long way.

Overall:

Mad Bull 34 is bad. But it’s a fun kind of bad. Mad Bull 34 manages to keep me entertained throughout it’s bat-shit insanity, plot armor ridden main characters, lacking animation, bad art, surprisingly kick ass OST, and many other things. Mad Bull 34 is my favorite piece of garbage that I can enjoy watching without having to torture somebody in the process (though torturing my friends with this certainly helps. My final score for Mad Bull is gonna be a 4/10. But don’t let that rating deter you, this anime is absolutely worth watching because this truly is a once in a lifetime experience