Speed Grapher

I watched the entire series of Speed Grapher this weekend. I’ve got to say, this was one weird anime series, totally not what I expected. Right off the bat, it was very adult themed. The storyline worked, but I never really got that emotionally involved. Haha, I make it sound like animes are my S.O. I’m not going to do what I normally do for anime episodes I watch because that’d involve posting 24 episodes worth of information. I’ll give you some links and provide a brief review.

Official Japanese Site
Official English Site
Anime News Network
AnimeNfo
Trailer (Spring 2005 Anime Trailers)

Spoilers: (Show)

The series starts out with the intro of a wartime photographer in the midst of Vietnam War and a Viet Cong shakingly aims a gun at him asking if he’s a soldier. All the while, he’s taking photos. Suddenly from behind, American soldiers appear and shoot down the Viet Cong. Saiga (the photographer) takes the pictures as the Viet Cong’s head gets blown off. The American soldier tells him to be careful, before he notices that Saiga had a boner and then calls him a pervert.

Story fast forwards 10 years or so and Saiga’s taken a job at a weekly Japanese Magazine as their photographer. The editor asks him to investigate a rumored secret club controlled by the largest finance groups in the country. As he tracks a suspect from another case, he finds out about a hidden underground subway. He follows this lead and eventually knocks out the suspect he was trailing and takes on his clothes and mask. This was big, even though everyone was wearing a mask, everyone was easily recognizable because they were all politicians, celebrities, media CEOs, police chiefs, etc.

As he walks around the secret club, it was one big massive orgy. If you ever watched Eyes Wide Shut, it was something similar to that. One of the common quotes of the series is that if you have money, you can buy anything you’d ever want or desire. Apparently that day they were holding a cermony and the angel flying down was something that Saiga finally felt like was worth photographing. He takes a shot and everyone turns around and looks at him. There was a rule against photos inside the secret club. They bring him onto the ceremonial stage. Suddenly the angel decides to kiss him and the saliva apparently causes a big reaction in him. Suitengu (the head of the secret club) orders that Saiga be killed. The executioners come and and try to slay him, but Saiga changed big time. What ended up happening is Saiga now had to ability to point and shoot his camera, and whatever’s in focus, blows up.

The angel was a high school girl named Kagura, daughter of the head of the giant finance company. She’s been having nightmares about kissing gross men every night, but everyone keeps telling her its a dream. However, this day, she wakes up in the middle of that dream.

Saiga is of course shocked at his new ability. Suitengu explains that he carries the Euphoria gene. When activated, ones inner most desires will become reality. Saiga didn’t or didn’t want to believe that his inner most desire was to blow people up with his camera.

Anyway, the story continues as Saiga escapes with Kagura and Suitengu and his men chase after. There were many a times when Kagura switched hands, but Saiga had promised to show her what freedom is. The series also revolved around a shot of a kid obviously from a 3rd world country, who’s lost both his parents in civil wars among the tribes, walks around wearing only a rag, but is still able to smile, a picture taken by Saiga.

So on and so on, apparently Saiga’s not the only one with the Euphoria gene. There was a dancer so absorbed by being able to bend his bodies to extreme measures, he now has the ability to be like rubber. Then there was a woman who loved diamonds so much, she’d eat them and her ability was to turn into a diamond herself. Then there was the dentist who spawn legs out of his back with dental tools. Then there was the spider guy. The only way to kill someone who’s Euphoria gene has been activated is to blow of their head. Wounds also heal very fast.

However, as the quest continues, Saiga finds a doctor who he’s been friends with since the war days and has him take a look at him and Kagura. After the analysis, it turns out that Saiga has a modified DNA structure. There’s nothing wrong with Kagura though, besides the fact she has a tumor in her head and only has about 6 months to live. However, apparently with Kagura’s body fluids, it is able to activate the modified DNA and allow the carrier to become anything he wants.

So I’m zooming past the story right now and not going to even bother bringing in the police lady who has to hold a gun to be turned on. So you see a funny scene where she’s trying to have sex with Saiga and she’s holding 2 guns and he’s holding a camera. Though there was ta scene that was pretty sick where her legs were about to get chopped off, because her chief apparently had a foot and leg fetish. He had an entire collection of it at home, including his wife’s and daughter’s.

So this corrupted society of Japan, where the people who govern the country are into these weird fetishes and abuse their power. It turns out this was all part of Suitengu’s revenge. Suitengu saw both his parents hung because they didn’t have enough money to pay back. The 5 yr old sister was taken away for prostitution and he was sold to some armed forces as a soldier.

That’s probably all that I’m going to reveal. Maybe it might interest you. Maybe it won’t.