Yatterman

Miike Takashi has always done genre movies differently from everyone else - and the superhero genre is no exception. Unlike the Hollywood superhero films that try to be dark, edgy and metaphorical about the sad state of the world, Miike’s Yatterman goes in the precisely opposite direction, being an unapologetically entertaining romp with no grimly ironic messages whatsoever.

The anime on which Yatterman was based, broadcast in Japan from 1977 for two years, was a big hit with children. The film, however, targets adults as well; Miike has packed it with pop culture references from the 1970s and earlier, from store signs to soundtrack tunes, as well as gags that range from from the childishly gross to the adultly racy and raunchy.
Most of the latter sort revolve around the voluptuous form of Fukada Kyoko as Doronjo, the film's arch-villainess. Encased in a revealing leather outfit, Fukada exudes sweetness and sex in equal, Marilyn Monroe-ish proportions. Her va-va-voom presence helps make Yatterman a brilliantly naughty return to form for this bad-boy king of cult.

Its heroes are Takada Gan aka Yatterman 1 (Sakurai Sho), the mechanically-inclined teenage son of a deceased toymaker, and his spunky girlfriend Kaminari Ai aka Yatterman 2 (Fukuda Saki). As the film begins, they are in their Yatterman superhero guises, battling Doronjo (Fukada) and her two costumed minions, the rattish Boyacky (Namase Katsuhisa) and porky Tonzra (Kobayashi Kendo), in the middle of Tokyo. Their main mechanical ally is Yatter-Wan, a giant dog robot that Dad designed, but Gan completed.

The battle is inconclusive, despite atomizing blows and explosions (all the characters have the regenerative capabilities of Wile. E. Coyote). The struggle, however, continues, centering on the mystic Skull Stone, whose four pieces are scattered to the far corners of the earth. Once reassembled, it will give its owner unlimited power 
Shoko Kaieda (Okamoto Anri), the daughter of  the explorer Dr. Kaieda (Abe Sadao), asks Gan and Ai to help her find her father, who was on the track of the Skull Stone when he vanished in the deserts of Ogypt. This trio sets off across the ocean on Yatter-wan, hanging onto its sides for dear life as it zips across the waves.
The Doronbo gang also leaves for Ogypt at the command of their supreme leader, Skullobey (Takiguchi Junpei), who appears to them as a skull-headed robot. Soon an absurd battle will be joined for the possession of the Skull Stone - and the fate of the world.

The film includes many of the robots and gadgets familiar from the original series, including Omochama, Gan and Ai's cute robot companion, and the Mecha no Moto - a dog-bone-shaped energy charger that revives Yatter-Wan when he is ready for the scrap heap.

Yatterman, however, departs from the original series when Gan and Doronojo exchange hot glances, accidently brush lips - and fall in love. Doronjo dreams of herself as a happy, pregnant housewife buying tofu from a folksy old street vendor and greeting Gan, now a blue-suited salaryman, as he walks home from work in the sunset.
This is not the sort of scene you'll see in a Hollywood superhero film, trying so hard to be cool, but Yatterman is less restrained - and far funnier. And as, Fukada reminds us in leathers or out, far sexier too.