Iria Monday

I’ve been writing about Aria for the last three months, and honestly I’m sick of all those nice boats. So the blog is going in a different direction from now on. This week I will be watching the 1994 sci-fi action OVA Iria: Zeiram the Animation.

Ara-ara this, motherfucker.

Iria is the brainchild of Keita Amemiya. There are two live-action movies in the franchise, but the anime stands on its own.

The title star joins her brother Glen as a bounty hunter. This is a classical hero saga, where the bounty hunters are noble samurai in a universe controlled by greedy warlords. The heroes’ virtue is undisputed, and there is very little in existential angst as they carry out their idealistic form of frontier justice on those whom they judge to be immoral. It’s the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and if it requires breaking a few laws (or all of them), well so be it.

The family business

Chapter 1

Iria’s journey begins when Glen is killed in what was supposed to be a routine rescue of a hijacked cargo ship. The murderer is equal parts machine, mutant, and demon. Oh, and it’s supposed to be immortal. Don’t you think that’s setting the bar a little too high? Of course, I have no doubt that Iria will find away to kill it eventually, because anything else would be unfair. As seen in the opening scene, where Fujikuro steals a bounty from her, this show puts a high value on fairness.

But does he even lift?

It’s also revealed that the mutant-machine-monster, called Zeiram, is the product of a corporate experiment. So no need for subtlety nor suspense here. This ultimate weapon had been deemed too dangerous by whatever passes for a legal authority. Teden Tippedai Corp. was transporting it in secret when it got loose and killed almost everyone on board. Bob wants to just cut their losses and get the fuck out, but Glen being the hero that he is insists they save everyone, including the smarmy company stooge.

Literally sallow-cheeked

But the sycophant seems to betray his humanity when he drops a locket holding a picture of his daughter. Iria takes this as a sign that humans are good people at heart. The corruption of the universe is a tragedy that drives good men to do evil deeds. True evil doesn’t exist, and there is nothing so wicked that it can’t be overcome by honorable men. Nevertheless, that guy’s an asshole.

What passes for fan-service in this show

Chapter 2

After escaping from the Zeiram, Iria lands on a resort planet needing to refuel and find a way back to her home planet. Meeting a gang of street boys reveals the feminine side she never knew she had. Once more, her sense of honor is in the forefront as she refuses to arrest the young vandals.

The star makes him look like a sheriff

The Zeiram from the cargo ship has survived and is indiscriminately killing people. The government isn’t concerned with the lives of a few hundred poor people. All information about the incident is being suppressed anyway, so it would be awkward to have to respond to something that doesn’t technically exist. Orchestrating a galaxy-wide conspiracy in less than three days isn’t any trouble at all it seems. No more than a single inexperienced bounty hunter and a rag-tag group of kids with slingshots fighting a genetically engineered killing machine.

Truth through superior firepower

If you were expecting any surprises from the Zeiram, which I’m sure you weren’t, there were none here. Iria is able to immobilize it briefly and attempts to talk to it, but she doesn’t get a response. The monster is unnatural, and thus does not obey the laws of nature. It has no soul, it has no reason, it has no honor. I said that evil isn’t part of the universe, but by the actions of evil men, the Zeiram was brought into the world. That leaves it to virtuous men to do something about it. There is no one more virtuous than Iria and her temporary partner Kei. Because they’re the good guys, it isn’t a surprise that they’re able to win. Nor is it a surprise to learn that Glen is still alive. Or is he? Iria hears his voice on the radio, but the badge he was wearing is dropped during the fight with the Zeiram. What happened to Glen is the small token of suspense the story has to offer.

The architecture in this show is post-modern-neo-classical

The other open question is how invincible the Zeiram really is. When Iria was fighting it on the planet, it was weakened by an injury to its head. It has resisted most bullets, explosions, knives, and small pebbles thrown its way. So how it was wounded is itself a mystery. The Zeiram’s defenses are not so perfect after all. If Iria can learn how to hurt it again, there’s a chance she can kill the “immortal” beast.

Just like a woman to worry about clothes at a time like this

Chapter 3

Iria returns home just wanting a meal and hot shower. The ensuing shootout and car chase goes about in the typical fashion with all the convenient escapes, meaningless explosions, inconceivable physics, and snappy one-liners with the dopey sidekick Fujikuro. As you expected, Bob is dead and the smarmy guy is to blame, so Iria goes to visit him for no particular reason.

She still takes the money

Oh, and remember the locket with the cute little girl? Yeah, a complete fake. He just wanted the microchip hidden in the backing which had all the incriminating evidence on it. If there’s one thing you can trust a criminal mastermind to do, it’s brag about his crimes in the most meaningless and compromising way.

Naturally, none of those bullets actually hit her

So she scales a skyscraper, hops on and off elevators, and swings about like the reincarnation of an Illuminati-fighting 13th century assassin. Iria confronts the guy only to not kill him. Good guys just don’t do that, no matter how deserved it is. Well, to his credit, he let the bystanders on the cargo ship live. Oh, and it turns out Bob isn’t dead either. I mean, he isn’t exactly alive either, but having his brain uploaded to a computer was the best he could’ve hoped for after what the Zeiram did to him.

Then, after rescuing “Bob” and escaping through a conveniently unguarded teleporter, Iria finally gets the shower she wanted.

Did you really expect me to show you that scene?

Chapter 4

Attacking an office building in broad daylight isn’t enough to put Iria’s career in jeopardy. That could just be the result of hanging on to that microchip. Now that she’s a full-fledged bounty hunter, her first job is to find the guy who happens to know all about the Zeiram. Well, why wouldn’t it be?

Bob’s new form comes in handy

As was hinted at earlier, Glen reappears. Except it’s not him. The Zeiram can create clones of itself using human DNA. But Glen isn’t the only familiar face Iria sees. The slumdogs Kei and Komimasa hitched a ride to the planet. Iria acts like a big sister around them, which just makes her think more about her older brother. That’s a problem when she has to fight the Glen clone. She’s such a pure and virtuous hero that it’s difficult for her to hurt something that happens to look like her brother. Except the thing isn’t anything like him. We didn’t see that much of Glen in the first episode, but I’m pretty sure there weren’t tusks growing out of his back.

Someone really needs some Dove Skin Care

Turns out, though, that the expert Dr. Touka wasn’t aware of the cloning ability. So after tearing-up his research notes, what use is he other than to be a cynical old fart? Iria, Kei, and the doctor head back to the city with a glimmer of hope, because if the Zeiram was able to clone Glen, that means his body is still alive somewhere.

The face of not taking any more shit

Chapter 5

Iria has a penchant for meaningless emotional gestures. This time it’s visiting the abandoned village where she was born. But one of the clones is there waiting for her. She defeats it quickly then has to drive back to the city after doing nothing more than reminiscing a bit.

The clones are the Zeiram’s way of keeping its body alive. It can assimilate the cells of its victims and use them either to strengthen itself, or spawn clones. It’s been hunting at night to build an army of monsters that will attack the city. It also has some kind of electronics ability, as it was able to create a radio transmitter that is broadcasting a beacon to a larger Zeirim body now on its way to the planet.

Nevermind Glen, she just wants her gun back

More importantly, Iria now knows that her brother was taken in whole by the Zeiram. That’s why his clone looked so much like him, and that it seems to share his memories. She figured all this out by eavesdropping on Dr. Touka and going back to her village again. But her resolve to fight her brother-slash-Zeiram is short-lived when she actually sees him in the monster. It’s easy to kill an amorphous blob with a Noh mask on its forehead, but not while looking at someone’s face, even as he begs you to pull the trigger. At least that’s how it is for a paragon of justice.

Dance with the devil in the pale moonlight

Oh, about her brother: they’re not really related. And Kei… Kei is a girl. So I guess this story had a few plot twists after all.

Chapter 6

The ass-kicking she got has put Iria in a bad mood. She seems to be content to watch as the army tries deal with the Zeiram in the most complicated way that is bound to fail. Kei wants to fight it herself if no one else will. Iria sees her own stubbornness in the girl she’s already starting to treat as an apprentice. Remembering how Glen reacted, she conceives of a plan that is even more reckless than the army’s. But it’s almost guaranteed to succeed because it depends on her ability to remain strong and virtuous in the face of evil.

Chillin’

But to get there she has to rely on the unasked for assistance of Fujikuro. I’m sorry to see him treated so unfairly in this battle. His half-hearted rivalry with Iria is a sign of affection. Maybe she knew it, maybe not, he never gets the chance to make it clear. The last we see of him is riding into a swarm of mutant clones with a shit-eating grin on his face. It’s a manly way to go out, but there’s no finality in it. He isn’t a part of the final scene, so we don’t know whether or not he made it out alive. Guessing does us no good, because Bob and Glen were supposed to be dead too, right?

All she’s missing is the halo

In any case, Iria’s way of defeating the Zeiram is to become part of it. It’s not entirely absurd; Glen did it. She’s risking her life in the process, but it wouldn’t be much of an ultimate battle between good and evil if the stakes were any less. Iria is a pure soul, so offering herself as a sacrifice sounds about right. Except, sadly, she doesn’t need to go that far after all. It looked to be going as expected until, rather suddenly, the ghost of Glen whispers in her ear and she kills the monster by just stabbing it once in a vulnerable spot. Really? That’s all it took? She didn’t even get absorbed completely into its body. What a let down. If that’s all it takes to be a messiah these days, it hardly seems worth it.

Kudos to Bob, though. Hacking the teleporter was a clever trick, and I don’t think he could have picked a better planet. The Zeiram may be lifeless now, but if any of its body remained the risk of it being revived is still there. Good thing to have the desert sun bake it away to dust.

So that’s Iria. Stories aren’t written like this anymore. Viewers expect more personal reflection, moral dilemmas, and sharp irony. Someone so perfectly heroic as Iria wouldn’t be accepted these days.

Now, check back later this week when I’ll be playing the visual novel Robotics;Notes on “Airi Thursday.”