In the futuristic world of "Bounty Dog," the moon is colonized by man and used as a extraterrestrial city. This "moon city" stands tall as a representation of man's ability to conquer seemingly impossible frontiers. "Bounty Dog," however, is an action/adventure Anime, so you know things are not going to be peachy.
This moon, as it turns out, is not really a leftover piece of obiting debris formed during the big bang but is really an observation post for an alien entity in the form of a beautiful woman. The origin of the alien entity, called "The Sleeper," is never really satisfactorily explained. But what seems to count is that "The Sleeper" has always been there, fascinated by humans and evolution and comes down to observe mere mortals every 2,000 years or so. Throughout the centuries, however, "The Sl
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| Courtesy of Manga Video Two arch enemies, the evil Sleeper and the good Sleeper, match wits and muscles in "Bounty Dog," an Anime video. |
Yayoy, unfortunately, is outnumbered as Darkness has created an army of minions in her image. Of course Yayoy wants to prevent human destruction, but why she never bothers to actually accomplish the heroism is also never addressed. What she does do is get romantically involved with a young man named Yashiyuki, a member of The Bounty Dog Investigation Unit- a "high tech cybernetic mercenary team." She manages to secure an artificial hand on Yashiyuki, replacing his natural one, before her untimely death at the hands of Darkness' henchmen. Engraved with some strange shape, the hand is the key towards defeating Darkness' would-be reign of terror on mankind.
Yashiyuki however, has no clue about any of the cosmic-level drama going on as Yayoy never explained anything about her extraterrestrial roots. What Yashiyuki seems to instinctively know is that he needs to head to the moon in order to settle some matter about which he is still unclear. We learn later that Yayoy did manage to create a single lackey clone of herself to help our hero Yashiyuki, who then begins his journey to avenge the death of his lady love.
Disturbing psychological problems repeat frequently for the hero as every henchman of Darkness' he has to kill looks exactly like Yayoy. His trauma of losing Yayoy is thus intensified with every lookalike he has to destroy.
The animation for "Bounty Dog" is the terrific top-notch standard one would expect from anything with a "Manga Video" label on it. No debate there. The action scenes are vividly portrayed with spurting blood and whizzing laser blast sequences. The story development and plot, on the other hand, seem to have taken a back seat to the visuals and sound effects. (What does this sound like? Hollywood movies?)
There is so much potential in the premise of the movie and the concepts introduced, but it fails to live up to any of its initially exciting bits. With everything in the movie unfortunately falling into mediocrity by the end, one might've expected all the hype about Yashiyuki's artificial arm, "being the key to stopping Darkness," to do something cool. Much to our consternation, it doesn't! All the funny shapes engragved upon its surface and the way the characters lent endless tirades about it seemed all for nothing, especially since Yashiyuki ended up using it like a crude demolition tool.
Although in "Bounty Dog" the moon was triumphantly colonized by advanced humans and a dominating extraterrestrial entity threatened their liberty, this puppy just could not do anything with these elements to raise itself beyond the dime-a-dozen mediocre Anime category.
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| Courtesy of Manga Video Yashiyuki, a bounty dog, is the hero of the Anime story about futuristic life on the moon. |
01-13-99
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