Synopsis
The World as we know it has been torn apart shattered by a series of natural disasters that have turned civilization into a brutish nightmare of survival and has left whole cities buried beneath the Earth. It's now a lethal and chaotic place, a place where only the strongest and most savage remain alive. The strongest of them all is a giant warrior known as Violence Jack.

Evil Town is a buried city; a lightless, vermin-infested hell suffocated beneath a million tons of masonry and iron. Control of Evil Town has been split into three sectors: corrupt section A, the psychotic gangs of sector B and the secretive sector C, with whom no contact can be made.
Released from his concrete tomb by the men of section A Jack agrees to fight for them against their enemies, but no one in this tomb-city is as innocent as they claim.

Ripped free from mainland Japan, the once-fertile Kanto plain has become lawless and ruined wasteland. The great cities are gone, leaving only scattered villages amongst the rubble and a decimated population holding on to the memory of civilization. These isolated townships are vulnerable and open to attack, one by one; a brutal, lawless army known as Hell's Wind is wiping them out. Jack is caught in crossfire when the gang attacks another settlement, and vows to fight for the villagers.

Special Features

• Chapter selection
  
• Standard Manga Video Previews

DVD Technical Information:

• Digitally remastered
  
• English language version
  
• Region Code: 2
  
• Running time:125 mins

A huge comet erupts from depths of space, ripping into Earth with the force of a thousand hydrogen bombs and blasting away the last remains of the civilised world. In the wake of this cataclysm, one man has risen to power in the corps-strewn wasteland that was once Japan. His name is Slumking and his rule over the scattered settlements of Kanto is both harsh and absolute. Only Violence Jack; the ultimate spirit of death and retribution, has the courage to challenge his rule. Enraged at the defiance, Slumking demands the death of his giant enemy whilst the arrival of a huge, fanged warrior in the nearby village of Trench Town signals the begging of carnage on an incredible scale.

Opinion
Violence Jack is split in to 3 separate movies. The first episode deals with Evil Town. Evil Town is the name of the settlement where the survivors of the Tokyo earthquake live. Jack is discovered by the normal Section A, who he then agrees to fight for against their enemies. Section B is one such enemy, full of surviving gang members who are in to murder and death. Finally Section C -- well nothing much is known about them.

Evil Town is traditional anime, by that statement I refer to men transforming into monsters, girls being raped by men and women, and lots of blood. Evil Town does have a few redeeming features, namely the way that the anime draws you into Section A being 'normal' but as soon as the truth is revealed by Section C, then things change.

Evil Town is entertaining, but does not really ever progress to anything more than a final battle which you saw coming before you even put the DVD in the drive.

Hells Wind is the second episode, and is definately the best of the bunch. The opening sequence and the drivers subsequent death with a chainsaw is a real shock. Hells Wind follows the story of the now dead guys girlfriend who is out for revenge on Hells Wind. However it seems that their are people trying to make the most of their lives by carrying on as per normal. Hells Wind does something that Evil Town doesn't and that is to develop Jack's character and introduce the idea that maybe he has a greater purpose than just killing anything that moves. Hells Wind still contains nudity but no scenes of pointless rape of women.

The final episode is Slum King. Slum King is strange for 2 reasons. The first is that it seems to be a prequel to episode 1, and Jack never gets to fight the Slum King. Slum king has singlehandedly taken control of the wastelands and his is the only law. Girls are rounded up and taught how to 'entertain' his troops. However when a former girlfriend of a soldier is captured, his priorities change and he has to rescue her. This treason means death, and he is given the chance to kill Jack.

Slum King contains several instances where Jack does not kill certain people, it is left to the viewer to decided whether Jack is some spirit of Retribution, or he just got lazy on a couple of occasions. Slum King is a big dis-jointed mess, which attempts to tell us that Jack was a good guy all along.

Overall Violence Jack is a strange anime, it is very violent and contains several scenes of girls being raped. Hells Wind is the most coherant story of the bunch, and is the one I would recommend most. Violence Jack is also on the Manga Collections label and can be picked up also at around £5, so for that price it is hard not to recommend it, but only if you are happy with the content discussed above.