I’m not sure what it is about that little island country at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, but Japan has a culture unlike any other. There just isn’t any other country that can produce things as disparate as Hello Kitty, Toshiro Mifune, kabuki, Baby Metal, sumo, hentai, sushi, Godzilla, and Zen. They produce things like Sailor Moon right alongside Ichi The Killer. I think maybe it has to do with late-stage capitalism.
At the end of World War II, America tried to rebuild Japan in its own image. The U.S. government injected a hearty dose of free market corporate ideology into its new ally, and may have jump-started Japan into a hyper-speed journey into capitalism. Perhaps Japan’s bizarre cultural productions are a result of them being ahead of the curve. Capitalism has drained all the meaning from words and images, and left Japan in a free-floating mess of untethered signifiers that freely connect and reconnect in random pairings.
Take, for instance, the movie Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman: The Birth of Gautaman. Without describing anything about the film, just consider the title. We begin with a body part, the “butt". The lead character’s curvy gluteus maximus is prominently displayed on the movie poster, making clear that we are talking about female butts as sex objects. The butt in question is being shoved in our faces because the woman in question is wearing a mawashi, or loincloth for sumo wrestlers. So, we start with sex, objectification, and an ancient spiritual sport. The next two words in the title are “Punisher Girl". This adds a little S&M flavor to the mix, and some pedophilia, too. Our heroine is a chaste and innocent young schoolgirl on the outside, but a lustful dominatrix on the inside. Lastly, we have "Gautaman", which is a reference to Gautama, the worldly name of the teacher who would become The Buddha. If we add all that up, we could translate the title to The Adventures of an Objectified, Underage School Girl Who Forces Buddhists into Sexy Submission. It’s a nifty title, but it doesn’t even come close to covering everything that is in the movie.
In addition to everything in the title, there’s the teenage mutant octopus ninjas to consider, and the Christian imagery, including seeing our heroine naked on a cross, and the obligatory tentacle porn. Oh!... and the sudden non-sequitur inclusion of dinosaurs, and near the end, the Terminator shows up, and there is this guy named Frankenmuscles… I suppose I should begin at the beginning. I won't recount the plot, but I will summarize the premise.
The heroine of the story is innocent-looking Mira. She is a big-eyed Christian school-girl who happens to have a secret identity. When trouble rears its ugly head, she becomes a superhero in the aforementioned sumo wrap. She wasn’t always this way, but one fateful day, she tried praying to Jesus for superpowers, and instead of Jesus answering the call, Buddha stepped in. Maybe Jesus was in the bathroom. For whatever reason, a giant golden Buddha appears in front of her and turns her into Gautaman. Not Gautagirl, which would have an alliterative advantage, but Gautaman.
Her nemesis comes in the form of a group called the Black Buddhists. No, not a bald Al Sharpton in a saffron robe, Black Buddhists as in evil fanatics who want to destroy all the world’s religions and make everyone bow before the Dark Buddha.
As a Christian, Mira wants to fight for religious freedom, which is a strange reversal of history. The Christians were the maniacal imperialists dead set on eradicating all the false gods and dominating the world. The Buddhists wanted to spread the word, but more as a polite suggestion rather than a ruthless crusade, but I guess we’re not talking about Buddhists, we are talking about “Black Buddhists". Still, it’s pretty bizarre to depict Christians as advocates for free speech.
The Black Buddhists keep attacking Mira’s school, and she keeps having to transform into a sexy sumo Buddhist to do battle with them.
That’s the premise, and in addition, there is a heavy-handed theme that runs through the movie. Mira is innocent and pure in her ordinary form, but she is bold and sexual in her superhero form. This is a constant source of dissonance and trauma for the poor girl. Speaking of which, her father furiously disapproves of her sexual form, and during an argument, he rips off her school uniform in protest. He complains that she was once innocent and pure, and the skin on her ass was smooth and supple, but now that she is spending time wearing a mawashi, her cheeks are getting rough and chafed. To drive home this point, he thoroughly inspects, manhandles, and then spanks her naked posterior. This film has everything, even incestuous daddy vs. innocent daughter porn.
So, what about the “butt attack"? Well, there isn’t much to it. Mira doesn’t suddenly yell, “Butt attack!”, and then execute some special move. Mira just sometimes sits on her opponent’s face. Not the most effective move, if you ask me. I don’t recommend using it in your next MMA fight.
The film is short, but it will leave you breathless. It was directed by Hiroshi Yoshida IV. I don’t know for sure, but the fact that he is “the fourth” makes me wonder if he is the descendant of the famous woodblock artist Hiroshi Yoshida (1876 - 1950). Maybe, maybe not, it’s hard finding information on the guy.
Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman was released in 1994. Fortunately, the older Yoshida was already dead when Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman was released. That’s all the info I could find. I don’t know if it was a manga first, or if there is another film in the series, or if, God help us, there is a live-action version. I guess I’ll have to leave it at that. I chose to watch it because of the cover art. It was so badly drawn, I was hoping for a really crappy cartoon, but I got a very entertaining megadose of Japanese insanity instead.
