I've been looking for something to help me through the hot 'n' humid summer months and what better way to beat the heat than to stay indoors watching questionable anime and playing questionable games based on said anime? For a rundown of this little project, check out the first episode.
The Property
This is more the sort of thing I was hoping to discover: an overall so-so yet still somehow fascinating multimedia blitz that included a live-action sci-fi movie, a subsequent anime OVA prequel series, and then a video game based on that prequel. Japan at its most Hollywood. 1994's Iria: Zeiram the Animation, based on 1991's Zeiram (the Not-Animation), follows the adventures of the eponymous scrappy young bounty hunter as she goes on her first solo mission prior to the events of the live-action movie it follows in which she's a little more seasoned and cautious. The animation also retcons a major plot point of the movie, but I'll get into all that in the next section.
Instead, let's talk about that movie because you better believe I watched it first. Gotta be thorough with these things.
Zeiram was directed by Keita Amemiya, who often worked on tokusatsu shows (particularly Kamen Rider) but also dabbled quite a bit in character designs for video games, including Final Fantasy XIV, Shin Megami Tensei IV, two Onimushas, Clock Tower 3, and Rudra no Hihou. The dude clearly loves his bizarre monsters, creating an unpredictable nemesis in Zeiram who frequently shifts forms as a defensive tactic. The movie stars Yuko Moriyama as its lead, Iria, and Kunihiro Ida and Yukijiro Hotaru as the two hapless Earthling electricians drawn into the conflict between Iria and Zeiram. Zeiram himself is played by mo-cap performer Mizuho Yoshida, who later went on to perform as both Solid Snake and Naked Snake (far as I can tell Zeiram does not know the basics of CQC). Even before we get into the Zeiram video game tie-in, it feels like this franchise is already deeply connected to that medium. As well as the anime prequel from 1994, there was another live-action movie released that same year: Zeiram 2.
In the wordless intro, Zeiram is introduced as something between Darth Vader, the Yojimbo summon from Final Fantasy X, and an ominous yurei from a J-Horror as he (she? it?) cleaves through a hallway filled with disposable space-goons in EVA suits. It's shot in monochrome - a trick to avoid a harsher rating, perhaps, since those Amogus dudes got real messed up - and you occasionally get glimpses of what looks like one of those ancient Japanese nobles with the white faces and black teeth, which turns out to be Zeiram's "main head." There's a bunch of ominous religious chanting throughout the whole scene, juxtaposed with the gunfire and the viscera gloops created when the spacemen bought it. It was trippy as hell overall. Spoilers for the rest of the movie but this chanting follows Zeiram everywhere at all times, along with some heavy stomping of what are clearly rubber feet.
It then suddenly transitions to modern day (for 1991) Tokyo with the aforementioned couple of human idiots complaining about their day jobs, and already I'm wondering if this movie had a budget at all and how much of it was spent solely on the monster suit. We also spot Iria here: she's buying groceries and then putting the groceries away in her next scene, so we're knee-deep in the realm of out-there science-fantasy. However, it's this scene with her AI companion Bob that the other shoe drops: the movie's pulling a Suburban Commando on us, and Iria's on a stake-out on some backwater planet (ours) in order to launch an ambush on a passing Zeiram. Getting back to that budget, there's some real fun 1991 computer displays as Iria and Bob set up some kind of virtual trap "zone" in which to ensnare Zeiram as they argue about the bounty, and then we're hit with the late title card.
Afterwards, the two electricians barge into Iria's hideout because it's presumably using god-knows how much juice to power up all those off-world IBMs running the latest Windows 3.0 screensavers and all three of them get sucked into the same digital arena that Zeiram is trapped in, leading to a cat-and mouse chase through a virtual zone that looks suspiciously like the Japanese suburbs after it's become dark enough out that everyone's already gone home. I swear I've seen something just like this on Home Movies. I just need Coach McGuirk to show up and tell Iria about the time he bought all those swords from the shopping channel. The rest of the movie is just Iria and Zeiram getting the drop on one another with increasingly improbable new guns and new monster forms (respectively) while the comic relief humans do their darnedest to stay alive.
All jokes aside, Zeiram's actually kinda imposing once you get past the costume. Beyond the ever-present ominous chanting soundtrack he's near indestructible, has a whole bunch of innate biological weaponry and alternative forms, and is capable of spawning and controlling strange gooey goblins that look like something out of a Critters knock-off. Each of these minions is based on the DNA of organic material Zeiram has recently eaten: at some point that includes a fleshy chunk out of one of the humans which becomes a half-formed "gooman" in one of the movie's more disturbing scenes. Also, that little face of his can launch itself out via a tentacle and bite through solid steel; it's some seriously creepy xenomorph shit. The movie itself is slow as hell and not particularly engaging beyond its atmosphere, creature effects, and infrequent combat scenes - many of which feel right out of a Super Sentai show, befitting the director's background - but it does a fine enough job setting up the spooky, Terminator-esque implacable menace of Zeiram and the cocky brusqueness of Iria. Let's see if the anime can improve on it.
The Anime
Iria: Zeiram the Animation is a six-episode OVA from Ashi Productions - a studio that made, among many others, the F-Zero and Mega Man anime adaptations (they also worked on the US animated Mega Man show, which - Peter Lorre Cutman aside - did more for the Blue Bomber than Captain N ever did). It's set several years before Zeiram, though breaks continuity a little by having Zeiram also show up in this anime: it's implied in the movie that Zeiram was just some bounty Iria was chasing that proved to be almost more than she could handle. If the events of the cartoon are to be believed she would've been way more wary about chasing the thing (as should Bob, for reasons I'll get into). Like last time, I'm making sure to remember to post the OP: it's pretty good.
The anime definitely has a Perfect Dark Zero vibe right off the bat: rather than the self-assured solo hunter we saw in the movie, this untested rookie (though still overconfident) Iria relies on her family unit of mercs a bit more and in particular her highly-competent brother Gren/Glen, the local jerkass rival Fujikura, and their mission handler Bob. That is to say, Bob the human, who kinda resembles Yang from Final Fantasy IV here. I anticipated that she'd tragically lose these companions upon meeting Zeiram at some point late in the OVA, but they take care of most of that in the very first episode: Iria, Glen, and Bob fly off to a hijacked freighter to discover the hijacker is our ol' buddy Zeiram, who was taken off his homeworld as a would-be biological superweapon (some more shades of Alien) but got himself free and has managed to take over the ship's computer with his shapeshifting abilities while brutally butchering most of the crew. In rescuing the few survivors, Bob takes a near-fatal gnawing to the gut by Zeiram's creepy head-tentacle and Glen stays behind to set the self-destruct to ensure Zeiram's annihilation. So much for gradually developing Iria's tragic backstory, but I guess in a way it's smart to get the known quantities out the way with and spend the rest of the time building up Iria as a newly solo bounty hunter.
From that point on, Iria: Zeiram the Animation slips into an almost episodic structure where Iria is left to take on missions herself and bounces from one adventure to the next, though usually with some connective tissue from the previous episodes. One of those being, of course, Zeiram's constant revivals because, well, you know how it is with unstoppable bio-weapons harboring vindictive streaks (did the Resident Evil devs watch this anime a lot?).My dude will just randomly pop into an episode at any moment like Kramer shoving Jerry's door open. The second episode has Iria crash-land in the slums section of a resort planet after her transport was sent flying from the freighter's self-destruct, and mucks around with some local criminal urchins until Zeiram also lands nearby in a beaten state and the rest of the episode has them duking it out across some space-favellas. We also find out that Glen's alive, or possibly not: a cryptic garbled transmission is all we hear from him.
The third episode has Iria make it back to her home planet of Myce, but runs afoul of the earlier-established political scene: members of the "Tedan Tippedai," apparently the local government, had plans to cover up their culpability in the Zeiram weaponization business after deleting all record of it and quietly disposing of all involved. Iria's the only loose end after they've eliminated the survivors and poor old Bob, but a returning Fujikuro helps her stay one ahead of the assassins. Naturally he's only in it for the money, and his client is none other than the computerized Bob that all of us long-time fans of the movie are familiar with. Bob directs Iria through the Tedan Tippedai building - which looks like a giant mushroom, kinda neat - to unveil those responsible for the cover-up as well as rescue him from his isolated system.
The fourth episode sees Iria finally get her official hunter license (I guess blowing up half the government HQ wasn't a disqualifier) and then go to work rescuing one Dr. Touka, who conveniently happens to be the only official Zeiram researcher still around, from a bunch of kidnappers. The twist here is that the kidnappers are already dead - they got ate by you-know-who - and finally the show brings out one of Zeiram's more impressive abilities from the movie: creating mutant doppelgangers from samples of living organic matter. One of those doppelgangers happens to be Glen, or something that looks like him, leading to a bit of internal strife on Iria's part. Something else that causes internal strife is the big ol' sword Iria uses to run him through, though I suspect this won't be the last Glen clone we see or the last time Iria's shaken by his sudden reappearance.
The fifth episode is where the shit hits the fan, as Zeiram has been quietly killing and assimilating dozens of people and fauna across Myce and begins a monster mash that proves devastating to the local militias. Iria, meanwhile, has figured out what the deal with this Zeiram is after observing him fight: the "core" of a badly-damaged Zeiram managed to bodyjack Glen and has full control over his talents as a hunter, increasing his already formidable combat prowess. After a climactic battle, Iria's left injured after hesitating to shoot a temporarily sane Glen and must now prepare herself for a final showdown. Or, at least, a penultimate showdown that presumably won't be the end of Zeiram because he's still got that movie to appear in. There's also some neat stuff about how all of Zeiram's cells are somehow communicating with one another - at one point he creates an organic pod capable of calling in off-planet clones as reinforcements - that reminded me a little of Jenova from Final Fantasy VII. (I'm sure this anime wasn't going around inspiring Resident Evil and Final Fantasy games left and right, mind, but it's possible there was a certain renewed interest in genetic sciences around the release of Jurassic Park and the lead up to Dolly the sheep's cloning that might've influenced some of the speculative fiction of the mid- to late-'90s.)
The sixth and final episode is simply the build-up to said showdown and then the showdown itself. There's a neat moment where, as the government is trying to teleport Zeiram away to be someone else's problem as a last desperate measure, both Iria and Zeiram get warped to some desert on some far-off planet to finish their fight in a scenic new setting. Iria finally figures out the weird head is Zeiram's weak point and bisects the ugly thing while it continues to make Donald Duck noises (maybe one of the odder choices of the OVA). Zeiram's apparently dead, but we know better.
Honestly, the anime wasn't too bad. Still had the same pacing issues as the movie - stretching out this simple one-on-one battle royale narrative across three hours didn't do it any favors, irrespective of any half-assed political intrigue or loveable street urchin side-characters thrown in for color - but it does a commendable job building out the world Iria inhabits when she's not slumming it on Earth and why all her weaponry and gear from the movie looks as odd as it does: Myce has a very particular aesthetic to it in which all its technology feels partially organic, with its many tools and buildings and weapons looking like they formed naturally from this alien planet and given vaguely Malaysian/Indonesian names to accentuate their exoticness. It almost had something a Dune vibe to it: that sort of confident world-building that doesn't slow down to explain how or why any of this works, since all the characters should already be familiar. Plus, it only has two shower scenes, which is a remarkable level of restraint for an anime of its period. If you want to see a 100% absolutely genuine clip of Iria: Zeiram the Animation in motion, here you go.
At last, after almost five hours of Zeiram content, I think I'm finally qualified to pass judgement on its video game adaptation. Let's boot up some ZeiROMs:
The Game(s)
This sure has been a whole lot of build up to a game I'm almost certain wasn't worth the trouble but, hey, the journey is half the fun with these things. Hyper Iria, released in 1995 one year after the OVAs, is a side-scrolling SNES game that comes to us (well, "us" meaning the exclusively Japanese audience it was made available to) courtesy of developers TamTam and publishers Banpresto. Both are well-known for working with licensed properties: TamTam, though far from a household name outside of Japan, was consistently busy as a contract developer on multiple systems up to and including the 3DS, Wii, and PS Vita before going defunct as recently as 2017, while Banpresto regularly dropped new Super Robot Wars crossovers year after year until eventually being bought and merged into Bandai Namco. Given the purview of this feature, expect to see one or both of their names pop up again in the future.
We're once again playing a fan-translated ROM, released by Dynamic Designs (a member of which, filler, also worked on the City Hunter game we covered last time) in 2016. The game has a surprising amount of text for an action game, between the mission briefs and the weapon loadout menus, and since Bob is giving you directions throughout the missions themselves it's pretty important that you can read them. The translators' accurate work here is definitely appreciated.
To describe the game in short, Hyper Iria approaches the structure of the OVAs by having Iria take on one of five missions that invariably involve Zeiram or some of his clone-monsters. Prior to every mission, the player can use the funds they've earned to purchase new weapons - which remain with you for the whole game, though they can run out of ammo - and items like grenades and mines, as well as non-combat gear like a pair of boots that enhance your jumping ability (helpful for the occasional secret) or the glider wing which shows up in the last episode of the OVA. The missions themselves are set in these maze-like levels which aren't too much fun to navigate, and the player can choose to take down foes with their ranged weaponry and their limited ammo or get up close with some kicks if you're looking to save your guns for tougher enemies. There's five missions total, and all but the last can be played in any order.
Does it do right by the anime? In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Visually it captures the OVAs perfectly, translating many of the odd weapons and tools shown throughout the series to a video game setting and giving it an episodic structure fitting for Iria's role as a bounty hunter, as well as a monetary reward system that is equally germane. Both I and I'm pretty sure the developers wished they had the know-how and time to turn it into a Super Metroid contender, as the linear but still maze-like level design is kinda bad and the jumping controls could use some tweaking, but it's a commendable effort if we were to rate these comparatively with the other anime tie-ins available.
I've also got one last item for you: ZeiramZone! This was a 3D brawler released on the PlayStation 1 in 1996, and is also loosely based on both the OVAs and the movie. Banpresto were once again the publishers, but the developers this time were Tao Human Systems. I have no idea who these cats are, but they later put out a game called Tokyo 23ku Seifuku-Wars. It's, uh, like The Warriors but with Japanese highschools in Tokyo? I think?
ZeiramZone hasn't been fan translated yet and, honestly, running a PS1 game is a bit of a hassle right now without figuring out how to get my controller to play nice with RetroArch and where it's binded all my keys in the meantime - you need the triggers to side-step, and I could not find those anywhere - so I'll just toss in a few snaps to give you some idea of how the game runs and work a bit harder on my emulator-fu for next time.
The fighter-style combat's actually kinda fun, but I doubt it has the legs to support a whole game and so I imagine Iria finds some guns or grenades eventually. I got some serious Hybrid Heaven vibes from ZeiramZone, but I think that's mostly because you're kicking weird monsters in the dick with martial arts in an early polygonal dungeon set in some underground facility somewhere; there's a surprising number of PS1 and N64 games that could be described in that fashion. Either way, I don't think I'm missing out on much here by skipping it, but it is surprising that Zeiram Fever persisted for another two years after the OVAs and second live-action movie. Maybe this was the last gasp for that creepy alien jerk.
Speaking of jerks, that's the end of this episode of anime-enriched fun. I'm still tweaking this format - I might start incorporating more live-action movies where applicable - but be sure to let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this Game OVA entry or have any familiarity with Iria and Zeiram. I'll also repost my work-in-progress spreadsheet here of the many anime adaptations to grace the 16-bit era; I've plenty of ideas for where to go next, but right now I'm leaning... dark fantasy?
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