Odder Couple Part 3: Tattoon Master

My feelings about this title are complicated.  A true love/hate relationship.  Mystical powers and a teenage badass with a heart of gold come together to form:

Background:
Released By: Anime Works
Length: 60 minutes
Year of Production: 1996
Language: Sub and Dub both included, Dub reviewed
Available on Netflix: Yes
Some quick background on this one.  ADV dubbed this back in 2000 and decided to drastically change all of the characters' names and a lot of the plot.  They also inserted random jokes for no apparent reason, think a 4Kids dub.  When Anime Works picked the title for a DVD release 6 years later they kept the dub and added a faithful sub track.
Let me state for the record that I don't necessarily have a problem with drastically changing a dub, depending on the situation.  There are several good reasons to alter a dub.  If the show has a ridiculous number of cultural jokes that would be impossible to translate such as Sgt. Frog, that's fine.  If the show is a painfully mediocre piece of crap, such as Ghost Stories, that is an excellent idea.  If you're trying to mass market a kids show for toy sales and consumption, such as Digimon, Pokemon, or Yugioh, I can accept it even if I don't like it.  For Tattoon Master there was no good reason.

Odder Couple - Eric and Bala
Eric is a teenage bastard who hates his voyeuristic father and disrespects his archaeologist mother.  He is considered quite the teenage heartthrob in his neighborhood but he hates women in general, believing them to be unstable and useless.  Being true to troubled teen trends, he is smoking constantly. 

I didn't know "flavor country" was part of  Japan

Bala is a high priestess of the Tattoon people.  She agrees to trade the secrets of her people's mystical power to Eric's mother in exchange for Eric.  She is the stereotypical, super-powered girl who is hopelessly in love with the protagonist for no particular reason.  Of course, she is scantily clad as often as possible.

Grand Entrance time

This intimate moment brought to you by Eric's Daddy

Story:
Our story opens with Eric's mom begging a cloaked figure for her life.  She stumbled upon the elusive Tattoon Culture and wants to learn their secrets.  Too bad for her, tribal law states overly interested outsiders must be killed.  So like any loving mother, she offers he son in exchange for her life and research goals.

Shady backroom dealings in human trafficking

Eric, oblivious that his fate is being decided by third world undesirables, is out shopping for dinner.  We get to witness what a tough guy he is when a withered old shopkeep slaps the cigarette out of his mouth.  He proceeds to beat up some high school guys who are trying to force a date out of a middle school girl.  She swoons and asks him out.  He refuses.  She gets pissed.  He goes home.

This is how most girls feel about Eric

As Eric approaches his home he is attacked by a mysterious woman in bizarre clothing.  She cuts his forehead with an energy blade and collapses.  Before she loses consciousness she states that the marriage ceremony is complete.  This girl, of course, is Bala.  While she recovers in the apartment Eric and his father share, she presents them with a videotape explaining the deal their mother/wife made. Long story short, Bala will take Eric as her husband, Mama gets the Tattoon secrets.  Eric is less than pleased, seeing what marriage has made of his father, so he runs off to bunk with one of his chain smoking, delinquent buddies.

Only slightly creepy

Thinking he has dodged a very shapely bullet, Eric goes to school the next day to relax.  In keeping with the necessities of this genre of anime, Bala appears as the mysterious and attractive transfer student.  In her words, she did it in order to be nearby when Eric caves in to her demands.  This angers the obligatory childhood friend/class rep/Tsundere character Lisa.  She calls Eric a heart-breaker, and hates Bala for loving the "enemy of women."  The cat fight begins and Eric breaks it up.  Lisa gets to see Bala's powers in action, but declares a duel with her anyway. 

Lisa is also a competent archer

Before their epic duel, Lisa asks her grandfather to train her in the art of shooting living targets, so basically murder.  During their battle, which is clearly meant to be the high point of part 1, Lisa employs enough trick arrows to impress the Green Arrow and Bala decides to run and dodge rather than fight.  The entire time she tries to talk about friendship.  Eventually Lisa is able to use some sort of bondage arrow to strap Bala to a wall.

Giving the people what they paid for, assuming they didn't pirate this.

Bala powers up with glowing tattoos all over her body, breaks the bonds and fires an energy blast at her foe.  Eric leaps between the two girls, yet again, and his forehead starts to glow.  A tattoo similar to one of Bala's appears on his head and is able to divert the energy blast.  Bala explains that all of her negative energy was dispersed by the love Eric has shown for the two girls, but especially for her.  A little more yelling ensues and the first half of this OVA is over.

And the Trio lives to fight another day

Part two starts with Eric discovering a barely clothed Bala in his bed.  She tells him they consummated their marriage the previous night and Eric has a bit of a panic attack.  This only lasts for a moment until he realizes his dad is in the corner videotaping the entire exchange.  Domestic violence ensues when Eric learns what Bala said was a lie meant to get a good reaction for the camera.

Smile, you're on Pervert Camera!

After another day of school, Eric is ready to go hang out with his delinquent buddies when Lisa reminds him they have cleaning duty for disturbing class earlier.  Bala and Eric's two delinquent buddies go loiter at a 7-11 while they wait for him to finish mopping.

Supporting cast waits offstage for their next bit

*Side Note of Importance and Interest*
It was at this point in the story that I realized how much they had altered the story line for the dub.  When I watched this originally, my best bad movie buddy had asked occasionally in the first half, "Wait, is that what they're actually saying?"  I assumed it was and we left it at that.  However, when Bala and the delinquents are in front of the convenience store, one guy complains about how his tongue is stuck in a soda can.  The second asks what his motivation was for inserting his tongue in said can, and Bala offers to help him remove it.  At this point we were certain something was wrong.  We started the scene over with the subtitles on and found their actual conversation was about whether Bala was jealous that Eric was alone with Lisa.  Except all of these names were different in the original Japanese.  We watched the rest of the DVD with the subtitles on so we could check the inconsistencies.  The changes were many and unnecessary, including back story and motivations of the villains in part 2. It was an interesting experience.

Note the tongue in the can.

*End Side Note*
Bala explains to the unimportant side characters that she and Eric are connected by the tattoo on his head, and that it allows her to see whatever he sees.  She can also summon him telepathically.  At this point the trio is accosted by a man in a pinkish shirt on a motorcycle.  He calls himself Hydra and claims he wants revenge on the Tattoon people for killing his older, super-manly brother.  Bala remembers his brother as a young doctor who made a pass at her father.  Hydra does not take this well and beats up the two punks to vent his emotions.

Hydra attempting to be cool and manly

Eric shows up, having been summoned by his bond with Bala. A brief battle occurs in which he gets beat down by Hydra's mystic shadow tattoo powers.  Lisa scares off the pink-shirted biker by pretending to be a police officer.  Hydra swears revenge as he flees in terror.  He regroups by meeting with his master, a street jewelry vendor who insults his fashion sense.  Eric and Bala regroup at home where our priestess tells the story of Hydra's brother.  He was a doctor who came to study the Tattoon people hoping to find away to "free himself" from his body.  The Tattoon people fulfilled his wish.  The next day brought the grudge match between Eric and Hydra.  They settle their dispute like men; fighting at a playground.

A new take on shadow boxing

 While the men duke it out, Bala is attacked by her long lost sister Kandar.  Kandar was banished for learning the forbidden Dark Techniques of the Tattoon.  She also hates Bala for being Daddy's favorite.  She uses wind-based powers to shred Bala's clothes.

The hand sign for wind power is suspiciously similar to the hand sign for "rock on!"

Bala and Eric are both getting beaten fairly handily by their opponents.  They turn the tide in battle by connecting their spirits which grants them both a power-up.  Eric starts emitting light which drives away Hydra's shadows, allowing Eric to finish him with a headbutt.

Or if you yaoi fans prefer, a Liverpool Kiss.

Bala lectures Kandar about love and friendship, stating true Tattoon power comes from being connected to others, not from driving them away.  Then she energy blasts her sister to kingdom come.  Our protagonist couple wins the day.

The power of Love and Ink

The story ties up its last loose ends when a woman tackles Hydra from behind.  Turns out his "manly" brother used the Tattoon people's powers to give himself a sex change.  He still calls himself Arnold though, which is kinda weird.  The final scenes involve Arnold trying to get all touchy feely with his brother Hydra and Bala celebrating the fact that Eric clearly loves her, proven by the fact their powers joined.  And everyone lives happily ever after, except for Hydra, but he was a jerk anyway.

Brotherly Love

Why Watch?
1. The English Dub - Although it takes extreme liberties, changes the story, character names, etc. for no apparent reason, it is entertaining.   Isn't that all you can really ask for?  If you know what you're getting into when you sit down to watch this, the dub can be very enjoyable.

2. Smoking - I always enjoy seeing taboos animated.  The constant abuse of tobacco by the teenagers in this show makes me smile.  Bad role models can be fun.

Your grandmother might not approve

Why not to watch?
1. The Dub - As much fun as it can be, if you don't know from the start how odd the dub is, it can be annoying.  This show never had a chance to gain mainstream appeal, so why even bother trying to make it more accessible?

It really is confusing

2. The Plot - This is another fairly standard anime plot.  Girl with mystical powers appears, loves protagonist unquestioningly for no real reason and jealous classmates try to tear them apart.  I've seen this basic plot more times than I can count.  For a 2 episode OVA it works okay, but don't expect anything too novel. 

Should You Be Watching?
This title is certainly worth a rental.  The English track is great for a laugh if you're in the mood for that type of entertainment.  Don't take this show seriously at all and you can have some fun with it.  Also, with a run time of 60 minutes it ends before the premise gets too stale.  When you're in the mood for something mindless and stupid, pop this into your DVD player.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.