ZEBRAMAN 2: ATTACK ON ZEBRA CITY (2010)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I've only slightly sampled the original manga from which both of the ZEBRAMAN movies were adapted, so I don't know whether or not the source material falls into the literary category of the irony. But the six-years-later sequel supports my theory that director Takashi Miike definitely wanted an approach that allowed for uncertainty and absurdity, even in the midst of real heroics.

Miike's sense of humor might have been stoked by the fact that the first film, released in 2004, took place in the fictional future of 2010, while the sequel was issued in real-world 2010 while the narrative purports to take place fifteen years after the events of the first ZEBRAMAN. In any case, the triumphal ending of that movie is undermined by ATTACK. In that conclusion, main character Shinichi (Sho Aikawa) taps the power of childhood belief so as to transform into the super-powered Zebraman, who then foils an invasion of insidious aliens. Unfortunately, once humankind has learned who the hero is, Shinichi's civilian life goes to hell thanks to the media. Even his small family, with whom he seemed to be reconnecting thanks to his altruistic actions, is simply out of the picture, and his "imaginary family"-- Mrs. Asano and her grade-school-aged son-- is the same. Then a mad scientist captures Shinichi for an experiment that leaves the former teacher depowered and amnesiac for the next fifteen years.

By 2025, Tokyo has got so nutty over Zebraman that the city has been renamed "Zebra City," and in the hero's absence, an idol singer named Yui (Riisa Naka) has taken on the persona of Zebra Queen, keeping the populace happy with bread and circuses. Aihara, the aforementioned mad scientist, has used the public's fascination with Zebraman to institute a bizarre social practice, "Zebra Time," in which anyone can commit a crime, though the local stripe-uniformed cops are also free to shoot down anyone they please. Aihara and Yui plan to extend this improbable method of seizing power to other lands, and supposedly parts of America have already been converted.

The amnesiac Shinichi ends up in a hospital run by a dissident group that opposes the power of Aihara's political reign. Among the group is a twenty-something doctor, who turns out to be none other than Shinpei, the young student who helped Zebraman in the first film. A more important contact, however, is that Shinichi encounters Sumire, a girl who looks like a grade-schooler but claims to be twenty-five years old. It's eventually revealed that one of the aliens from the first movie still occupied her body, not only retarding her age but also giving her special powers, with which Sumire jump-starts Shinichi's buried powers.

Bits and pieces of the big explanation are foregrounded. For instance, Yui/ Zebra Queen forsakes her black-and-white attire for all-black outfits, and when Sumire triggers Shinichi's transformation, he becomes an all-white version of Zebraman. The Reveal: Aihara used a psychic centrifuge to separate all the black-hearted evil of Shinichi into the independent existence of Yui, who possessed many of the same powers as Zebraman (including the signature "zebra kick"). But Zebra Queen isn't as easy to control as her "father" assumes. Not only does she murder Aihara with the help of her costumed female backup singers-- a very fetish-y death, BTW-- she also uses the centrifuge on Sumire in an attempt to gain control over the alien powers she possesses. The process unleashes an alien monster to attack Zebra City-- and all of the villainess' plans to eradicate the undesirables in humankind have to be sacrificed for expediency.

Can the hero's good and evil sides reach a rapprochement? If you've watched the right STAR TREK episodes, you know the answer. But the real novelty of ATTACK is the way the script gives the film an ending that mixes heroism with one of the goofiest visuals I've seen in a Japanese film of any kind, to say nothing of the tokusatsu TV shows that ZEBRAMAN homages.