Kekko Kamen

Never be ashamed of the naked truth.

The second Go Nagai anime I've written a review for, Kekko Kamen can best be described as "Cutie Honey, but somehow even hornier". It's a short little 4-episode OVA series that's light on plot and heavy on sexy silly shenanigans, in the best way. And like all great schlock content, it doesn't JUST provide an outlet for general horny nonsense, and in fact uses its R-rated status to go all in on both pushing the lines and - dare I even suggest - making a statement.

"Nobody knows my face, but everyone knows my body!" has to be one of the best heroic intro lines ever written.

Kekko Kamen is a show about a local hero who defends a high school from sexual deviancy, and her gimmick is that her costume is inverted. She wears a mask, gloves and boots, but absolutely nothing else. Students at the school are regularly threatened with kinky nonsense from the evil principal and staff in an effort to lure out this legendary hero, so she can be destroyed, so that said escapades can continue uninterrupted. Sounds like business as usual for a high school, to be honest.

Ah, this must have been the high school Dan Schneider went to.

With only four episodes in tow (not counting the live-action tokusatsu version), Kekko Kamen has no substantial plot or story to tell, just four episodes worth of random encounters that pit our birthday-suited hero against various deviants and ne'er-do-wells. The episodes don't even need a reset button in between. This could very well have turned into a much longer series in this format, and I would have welcomed it, but I'm not dissatisfied with it only being four episodes either.

Once your main character gets to bash the villain in the crotch with a pair of nunchucks, there's really nowhere else you can go from there anyway.

But aside from being a fun, wacky sex comedy, Kekko Kamen sports a certain punk-ass attitude in both its characters and the way Kekko solves her problems that I found really endearing. Sure, part of it is because there's booty and boobies in every other shot, but most of it comes from the fact that the show isn't afraid to tread openly into "controversy" with its villains. Shows that don't mind condemning themselves to an unmarketable 18+ rating are basically given free reign to do whatever else they want with their characters, no matter how offensive it becomes.

Some people won't be offended anyway, especially if there's nudity involved.

Before I elaborate, I want to mention something here. A lot of people seem to have this idea that good comedy is offensive because offending people is funny, but I disagree. The real power of offensive comedy is its ability to bring up a valid or important point by highlighting controversial subjects in an absurd or campy way, and using that absurdity to take it down a peg. It's about foregoing nuance for a moment and making a stand on a subject without fear of retribution from the pearl-clutching Karens of the world.

It's like when the city won't do anything about the antisemitic propaganda posted on a street corner, so a tagger comes along and spray paints a huge penis on it, forcing a cleanup crew to come out and do something about it, because of course they're more offended by a penis than they are by antisemitism. Grim as it is, it's still laughable, and THAT'S the real power of offensive comedy.

If something about this gif offends you, you'd better make damn sure you know what it is and why.

And with that in mind, watching an exhibitionist superhero beat up Nazis in a high school and turn the S&M queen's own tactics against her is exactly what makes Kekko Kamen such a good show. See, Nazis used to be a staple of villainry; it was ALWAYS morally correct to beat the shit out of them on sight because they're irredeemable bad guys who needed to be forcibly brought to justice with the power of passing a fist through their faces. Modern day portrayals of these vile monsters always wants to focus on the part of them that's still recognizably human, reminding us that ANYONE is capable of being a disgusting supremacist piece of trash. And while I think that's important to show too, sometimes I would just RATHER see a bigot get their ass pelted with a pair of wooden nunchucks and tossed into a garbage can.

BEAT. HER. ASS. Even though she's, uh, apparently kinda into that.

Likewise, another of the show's villains is a lecherous samurai who fires off polaroids from his camera like shuriken, ripping students' clothes off in the process. It's delightfully cheesy, until you remember that candid upskirt photography is a real-world, ongoing problem that continues to besiege people around the world to this very day. It is in fact the main reason all phone camera apps are REQUIRED to make a loud shutter sound to let you and everyone nearby know that you just took a picture of something. Even back in the 90s, having a character weaponize this was silly and over-the-top, but still makes a clear point that this is villainous behavior.

Listen, if even a nudie anime understands this, it should be common fucking sense.

Having this Adults-Only, unlimited freedom to approach villains like this gives Kekko Kamen an edge over other, more socially-conscious shows in my opinion. It allows these villains to be shown for what they are, and gives us the power fantasy of seeing them get their well-deserved ass-whooping, and by a naked hottie with a body, no less. And I truly appreciate that for everything it is.

The other two villains aren't really controversial, they're just fun enemies for Kekko to square off against. One is an android with weird tentacle appendages who engages in Nagai's foot and tickle fetishes, the other is a super-ripped bodybuilder who unfortunately makes Kekko weak at the knees and unable to fight him. Both are easily dispatched in silly ways once our hero figures out the right strategy to use.

Ah yes, the ancient art of "it's just a blindfold, stupid!".

The way I worded it earlier, you might wonder if I'm trying to ascribe some higher meaning or deeply powerful truth that can be derived from trashy titty anime. And I mean, not really, it IS after all just cheap sex and violence comedy...but also, yeah? Maybe I am? Kekko Kamen doesn't take itself seriously - the main villain calls himself the Toenail of Satan, after all - but if you take the time to appreciate the way it weaponizes its own offensiveness to, at the very least, make a point about who it considers villains, it becomes something oddly poignant.

Much like Kill la Kill carrying on that torch some twenty years later, Kekko Kamen is a show that encourages you to bare all and show the world who you are, and to not let clothes make the man (as it were). Could a show have done this more respectfully without relying on sex and tittilation? Of course. But where would be the fun in that?

It's ok to admit you like someone for more than just their personality.

Anyway, yeah, needless to say, I loved this one. Easily one of my favorite nudie anime of all time. Highly recommended for horny fans of Cutie Honey or Ikki Tousen, but also for people who like other decidedly unhinged and take-no-prisoners style media like Tank Girl, Dead Leaves, or Aachi and Ssipak. I have at least one other Go Nagai anime to review, but if you know of more shows that have this type of campy energy, send them my way, I'd love to review them!

She can be your angle or yuor devil. Maybe even both at the same time.