Mad Bull 34

America, as we all know, is a land of happy blonde hookers, gun-toting schoolchildren, and roller-skating hoodlums, where self-defense teachers use their classes to scout for potential rape victims, pretty journalists use their bodies as bait to trap molesters, and kindly police get freebies from "high-class" whores. One such hero is "Sleepy," a vast hulk of a police officer also known as Mad Bull. In a series of astoundingly misconceived setups lifted from the worst of U.S. cop shows, Japanese-American rookie Daizaburo is assigned to Mad Bull in New York's 34th precinct, and the older cop shows him the ropes.

While MB34 is one of the most puerile anime ever made, it is at least partly inspired by American TV itself-a diet of murder and crime shows genuinely does make America look like this to many foreigners, who could be forgiven for assuming that the U.S. jumped straight from the genteel Little Women to the killing fields of Golgo 13. Lacking any of the redeeming qualities of the lighter-hearted Gunsmith Cats, MB34 presents a stunningly infantile story in which "not doing things by the book" means shooting all suspected perps on sight and the way to snap a traumatized hostage out of shock is to "stick your finger up her ass." Based on a 1985 Young Jump manga by Kazuo Koike and Noriyoshi Inoue, the English dub features a new hip-hop music track, which, frankly, is one of the high points of this odious show-the mind boggles at James Brown lending his name to a show that features an episode called "Hit and Rape." The credits thank the real-life 34th precinct of the NYPD for unspecified assistance, though the public relations officer must have had a baby when he saw the final result-a ruthless cop hunting down the assassin who has already tried to kill him with poisoned soap, in revenge for the death of the prostitute they share on alternate weekdays. Listen, too, for the British-made dub, which seems to think that referring to civic dooty at irregular intervals means you've got a New York accent. LNV