Name(s): Baoh: The Visitor / Baoh Caller / バオー来訪者
Format: Original video animation [OVA] (1 episode)
Studio(s): Pierrot

Review

Oh yeah. This. This is a thing I watched. What the fuck is it, right? Baoh: The Visitor is a 1989 OVA adaptation of a Hirohiko Araki manga from before he wrote JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The OVA is about 45 minutes, and the manga itself spans a multi-generational, genre-hopping, epic two volumes. Naturally, I assume the OVA is comprehensive and faithful.

With all that in mind, there’s justification for finding Baoh disappointing. There is little of Araki’s now-trademark eccentric creativity and style. The only reason you’d have to expect he was involved is that dogs are beaten and shot within the first five minutes.

Premise

In Baoh, a teenager after an accident is turned into a bio-weapon by a secret organization. Another captive of the organization, a little girl with psychic powers, inadvertently frees the guy as she tries to escape. It turns out a parasite inside of Ikurou gives him the ability to turn into a primal creature uncannily similar to Beast from X-Men that has super strength, sharp claws, and can generate electricity. Ikurou and Sumire escape together and are on the lam from the Doress organization, and soon have to take the fight to them.

Baoh is a barren story and setting. It feels like the foundation for something that should’ve grown more extravagant and detailed; like a pilot manga. Whether it was one or not, even the basic concept doesn’t feel fresh. Transforming bio-weapon mutant is a cliche in and of itself. Also, Baoh’s standard abilities never grow to anything beyond what they seem at a glance.

The antagonists of Baoh have no goals other than to bury their Baoh experiment and use it to gain world influence. Certain characters having psychic abilities is never explained or related to the Baoh project in any way. A little girl has visions she can use to foresee events—and that’s all there is to it. We know nothing about our heroes other than they don’t want to be captured by Doress, which is completely expected.

Visuals

The action scenes, of which there are many, lack the pieces necessary to make compelling set pieces or combat. Baoh dispatches all of his rivals with total ease and almost purely brute force, allowing for that B-movie kind of violent ’90s OVA with a ton of exploding heads and gore. Even when it comes to being weird and unnecessarily violent—the appeal of a lot of these pulp OVAs—Baoh is fairly tame, and the exploding head trick is about all it has to show.

Production values are fine. It looks better than your average series, but not by much. I noticed some reused head shots and still backgrounds which are the kind of thing I normally hope to not see in an OVA (or anywhere), but motion is fluid and I didn’t spot any obvious low frame rates. Background music is a lot of that completely stock squeal “tense” ambiance and electro rock ‘n roll when Baoh goes on the attack.

Verdict

I don’t think there’s any reason to recommend this. It doesn’t conform to people’s expectations of Araki, the violence isn’t that extreme even if you’re a “gorehound,” and it doesn’t have much of that camp appeal due to how straightforward and natural of a story it is.