Original video animation is a phrase that evokes nostalgia from the bygone era of the 80s and 90s, when direct-to-video original anime ruled the industry. One of the rising stars of that era was Yasuomi Umetsu, who found his niche directing OVAs in the early 90s. Now, with studio Shaft, he’s back to bring us Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl, an OVA ten years in the making. Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl is a throwback to the best—and the worst—of classic OVAs.

It’s a bright and cheery day at the orphanage where fourteen-year-old Ubu Kamigori grew up. The kids are enjoying a peaceful afternoon on the playground, giggling with glee as they watch the humanoid robot that Ubu made sing and dance to one of the latest musical hits. All is well with the world—that is, until a military aircraft suddenly descends from the sky bearing two mysterious armed figures. They are bounty hunters; the orphanage director is their target, and within seconds, he lies bleeding to death in the grass. Mr. Elegance, one of the bounty hunters, takes a liking to Ubu; she resists his advances, but he won’t give up that easily, promising that he will have her to himself in a few years’ time.

Fast forward a decade, and Ubu herself has become a bounty hunter—quite a good one at that. But Mr. Elegance hasn’t forgotten about her. Try as she might to outrun him, he outsmarts her, and a brief scuffle is all it takes for her to number among Mr. Elegance’s unfortunate victims.

But this isn’t the end of Ubu’s story. Instead, she wakes up a year later to the sterile beeping of a heartbeat monitor. As she stumbles out of her hospital bed in confusion, she realizes with horror that she doesn’t recognize her own body; she’s been transplanted into an android replica of her fourteen-year-old self, under the control of Mr. Elegance himself. Eleven years after their first meeting, Mr. Elegance finally has Ubu all to himself. But she won’t let him have the final word; she will get revenge, no matter what it takes.

Back in the day, the relatively flexible production and marketing of the OVA format allowed directors to be imaginative both in animation and content, exploring techniques and themes that were too risky or too risqué for television. That pattern holds true for Clockwork Girl, which combines excellent animation with problematic content and themes.  

First, the positives. Clockwork Girl’s animation is phenomenal, and the action scenes in particular are a standout. Umetsu is known as something of a perfectionist, and studio Shaft gave him the room to direct this film according to his creative vision, so it’s no wonder that the animation bears the marks of the OVAs he directed in his prime: fluid camerawork, meticulous choreography, and precise shot composition. Admittedly, Umetsu can be a bit indulgent at times, filling his fight scenes with gratuitous violence or unrealistic scenarios. But that’s a consistent theme in his work that has been picked up by a number of action movies in the West, like Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Besson’s Leon (The Professional). It’s easy to see the ten years of effort that went into this movie.

Another highlight is Ubu Kamigori, the eponymous Clockwork Girl, who you can’t help but root for. Ubu is highly ingenious and resourceful while also harboring a fierce spirit and a deep sense of justice. Given the decadence and moral compromise of the movie’s ruling class, Ubu stands as one of the only voices for good, making her a compelling protagonist.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the film as a whole. Clocking in at just thirty-five minutes, the movie hardly has time to develop all the richness that its characters and story promise. The movie boasts a wonderful cyberpunk aesthetic, but the superficial worldbuilding disappoints. Many of the characters, including Maggie and the other girls whom Mr. Elegance has captured, get little to no development; Mr. Elegance’s only real character trait is being egregiously creepy, and the plot as a whole is made up of a lot of B-movie fluff.

The real problem, though, is that Umetsu is not the kind of director to shy away from objectionable storytelling, and Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl is no exception. It’s no surprise, given that classic OVAs were often direct-to-video for a reason; television had strict content standards, and directors could skirt those standards by directing OVAs, allowing raunchy scenes to make it past the filters. Umetsu’s 90s OVAs, in fact, are a classic example of this trend, with content so explicit that it had to be edited out for international release.

The gore and violence throughout Clockwork Girl are one thing, but what stands out are several scenes of prolonged nudity featuring underage characters. To be sure, the scenes serve a thematic point; they force viewers to feel the discomfort that Ubu and others feel living under the predatory auspices of Mr. Elegance, and they succeed in that regard. Nonetheless, the movie certainly goes too far in communicating that discomfort. At the very least, there ought to be age restrictions for a movie that depicts fourteen-year-old girls in the nude, if indeed artistic expression can be extended to allow such depiction.

Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl successfully captures the spirit of a former era of anime, a time when original anime reigned, experimentation abounded, and explicit films drove innovation. We need anime that transcends the boundaries of what is possible, experimenting with novel techniques or ingenious storytelling patterns. That being said, Umetsu’s approach in this film leaves much to be desired in that regard, and viewers looking for the new horizon of anime would do well to look elsewhere.

Virgin Punk, Clockwork Girl is currently screening in the US, under distribution by Aniplex USA.

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sleepminusminus

sleepminusminus lurks mysteriously in the dark corners of the anime world, occasionally peeking out to retweet something cute or clever. Online, he spends copious hours smashing keys in osu!mania and binging old slice-of-life shows. Offline, he ponders theology, mathematics, and everything in between.

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