Speed Grapher
| Speed Grapher | |
| Genre | Drama, Mystery, Psychological, Supernatural |
|---|---|
| Anime | |
| Directed by | Kunihisa Sugishima |
| Studio | GONZO |
| Manga | |
| Published by |  MediaWorks |
Speed Grapher (スピードグラファー) is a 2005 anime series, created by GONZO Digimation. The series ran for 24 episodes from April to October 2005. The series was licensed for North America by FUNimation Entertainment in 2006.
Synopsis
Speed Grapher follows the exploits of former war photographer Tatsumi Saiga, who investigates a secret fetish club for the ultra-wealthy. He tries to photograph the club's "goddess", a 15-year-old girl named Kagura, but is discovered. As he is about to be killed, Kagura kisses him, granting him the ability to destroy anything he photographs. Kagura's body fluids can give people bizarre abilities related to their fetishes or obsessions. The story develops as Saiga aims to grant Kagura's desire (her freedom), while on the run from the Secret club and the Tennouzu Group megacorporation that operates it.
In later episodes, we learn that Kagura's body fluids contain a chemical that activates the dormant virus that is responsible for the transformation of humans into Euphorias, such as Saiga. This virus has the rare ability to attach itself to the victim's DNA and alter his body on a genetic level, granting him supernatural powers. Apparently, to become a Euphoria, the virus must be carried before absorbing Kagura's fluid. Failure to carry the virus beforehand will result in death.
Speed Grapher is also an indictment of the capitalism and materialism of Japanese society. Kagura is the daughter of the wealthiest woman in the world, but she is kept prisoner and nearly starved; her mother bribes any person who tries to help Kagura; the main villain, as a display of his own vast wealth and power, smokes cigarettes rolled with 10,000 yen bills. In a stark juxtaposition, the hero of the series is a photographer whose lifestyle and beliefs contrast greatly with those of the villain characters, and his self-sacrifice and personal indictment of greed is what ultimately saves him and those around him.
Characters
Main Characters
- Tatsumi Saiga
Voiced by: Yuuji Takada (Japanese); Christopher Sabat (English)
The male protagonist. A veteran war journalist who somehow takes a liking to it. His love for photography develops into a sexual fetishism, as he gets an erection whenever he takes exciting photographs. However, after going back to Japan, his passion seems to have died. While investigating a secret club where rich and influental people meet to fulfill their most perverted desires, he receives a kiss from Kagura and developes the ability to explode whoever and whatever he photographs - Death by Photo. The effect of this ability depends on what type of camera and lens he is using (e.g., a telescopic lens has a more powerful effect than a regular lens). He can also psychically load film into his camera. He was infected by the virus on the same island that Suitengu was. Saiga uses a Nikon camera and what looks to be Nikor lenses. (Despite the title of the series, Saiga was never depicted with a Speed Graphic.)
Over the course of the series Saiga gets more and more protective of Kagura. First acting as a sort of teacher; teaching her things about the world and when anyone questions whether he is in love with her or not he just casually brushes it off saying "It's not like that." or just ignoring the question altogether. But eventually in the final episode when Kagura says the world would be better if she and Suitengu were dead Saiga finally admits to her that he loves her and wants her to live more than anything. Five years after Suitengu's coup d' etat a blind Saiga is taking pictures of the sunset, when a twenty year old Kagura walks through the laundry drying in the sun. He then says "Welcome back." and the two embrace and the screen moves up toward the sunset.
- Kagura Tennouzu
Voiced by: Kei Satou (Japanese); Monica Rial (English)
The female protagonist. Raised as the heir to the powerful Tennouzu Group. Has the ability to transform people infected with a mysterious virus into Euphorias (people with supernatural powers related to their innermost desires). She also has inoperable brain tumor, causing her to only have six months left to live. Associates of Suintengu and her mother have given her injections to keep her from reaching puberty.
Even though Saiga won't acknowledge his feelings about Kagura she has no problem expressing the fact that she wants to be at his side no matter what. When Saiga comes to terms with his feelings and Kagura sees how much he changes she'll often joke about how "uncool" he's become, but nevertheless she still loves him. Before Saiga's fight with Suitengu he tells Kagura his feelings, which makes her very happy, but then tells Ginza to take Kagura to the island where Ryogouku is so her can treat her right away. After five years she returns to Japan to be at Saiga's side.
Tokyo Police Department
- Hibari Ginza
Voiced by: Takako Honda (Japanese); Clarine Harp (English)
A vicious policewoman in love with Saiga. She is very jealous of him and does anything at hand to protect him from harm. She has a joking habit of saying "self-defense" whenever she shoots or kills someone (usually while they're attacking her). She usually blackmails Saiga into having sex with her by stealing his camera and promising to give it back after. She is very jealous of Kagura and even makes a deal with Shinsen to recapture Kagura as long as she can "keep" Saiga. After she returns Kagura she takes the unconscious Saiga back to her apartment. Ginza begins to become depressed when people tell her things about Saiga she didn't know. But she really goes off the handle when Suitengu tells her that she severely underestimates the worth of Saiga and Kagura to the Tennouzu Group after she tried to bargain for his life in exchange for a petty conman. Ginza eventually realizes that she cannot stop Saiga from loving Kagura and helps him out to make sure he stays alive. Even though she is angry when Saiga tells Kagura he loves her she agrees to take her too the island where Ryougoku is to get treatment. When Kagura resists saying that she wanted to stay with Saiga Ginza states that she was heartbroken when Saiga confessed his love to Kagura but she can't let her die by matter of pride, then swiftly knocks Kagura unconscious. It is revealed at the end of the series that Ginza does eventually find happiness with Dr. Ryougoku.
- Shiina
Voiced by: Jin Yamanoi (Japanese); Anthony Bowling (English)
Hibari Ginza's partner, he tends to be very scared of Ginza and as such tends to pretty much follow her orders without so much as thinking of telling her no. At the end of the series he finally becomes a photographer and takes Saiga's old job at which he is still being degraded for his skills being inferior to Saiga's even though he is now blind.
- Chief Ekoda
Voiced by: Naoki Makishima (Japanese); Mike McFarland (English)
Chief of the Tokyo Police Department, he also has an extreme leg fetish, which he cuts off the legs of numerous women and proudly displays them in his house. Later he is found out by Ginza to be a member of Suitengu's club and that he cut off his wife's and his daughter's legs. He admits that he has always lusted after Ginza's legs he tries to cut them off but Ginza breaks his neck with her legs. He was so crazy that even as Ginza was about to kill him he still had a smile on his face because he was so close to her legs and even yells "Tighter! Tighter!" As she proceeds to snap his neck.
Roppongi Club/Tennouzu Group
- Chouji Suitengu
Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese); Christopher Ayres (English)
The main antagonist. Apparently he is only using Kagura and her mother to extend his influence and profits, but there is a hidden vengeance plan in his agenda. He is a Euphoria with the ability to manipulate his own blood and use it at will to attack and defend. He carries around a music box that belonged to his younger sister, Yui. His real name is Ueno Takeshi.
Suitengu actually had a normal life with his family. However, his parents were deep in debt with the Tennouzu's Group's predecessors (the Ashikaga Group) and were murdered. Suitengu was sold as a child soldier at thirteen and grew up on the battlefield while his sister was sold as a prostitute. His last mission was infiltrating a research lab, but the facility was destroyed and Suitengu lost all his limbs as a result. However, he also became the only person who survived and carried the virus so scientists put new limbs on him and since then he has had his ability to control blood.
He despises the fact that his family and his life were ruined for money and as such secretly holds a deep hatred for it. Eventually he reunited with his sister, but her state of mind had been shattered and he mercifully killed her to end her life as a prostitute. His ultimate goal was to take revenge on the Prime Minister who destroyed his peaceful life and punish people steeped in greed and money in the form of causing the entire country to go bankrupt.
- Shinsen Tennouzu
Voiced by: Gara Takashima (Japanese); Pam Dougherty (English)
Kagura's mother and president of Tennouzu Group. Before that though, Shinsen had been an aspiring model who had been scouted by a woman named Goutokuji. Her body had been 'remodeled' by a doctor named Kazuki Odawara, whom she soon fell in love with. Despite her rise to fame, she chose to leave it behind and marry Kazuki. Shinsen had signed their marriage licenses and waited for several days for him to show up at a hot spring, but he never came. She then returned to Tokyo, left bitter by his betrayal and sees Kagura as the ultimate symbol of it. Though she seems in love with Suitengu, Shinsen realizes he was just a replacement for Kazuki in her loneliness. While incredibly cruel to Kagura and many others, Shinsen is incredibly kind to Goutokuji, whose injuries she believes are her fault. A different, more compassionate side is seen of her. Seeing Suitengu's true nature, Shinsen once again intended to leave fame behind to try and live a quiet life. She is strangled to death by Suitengu, using Kazuki's left arm. Before she is about to be strangled Suitengu reveals to her why his left arm always felt so loving by saying "You were always caressed by your true love's arm." In her final moments, she hears Kagura telling her that Kazuki had indeed come for her and she wasn't abandoned to which she gives a slight chuckle realizing how foolish she had been.
- Tsujido
Voiced by: Hiro Yuuki (Japanese); Greg Ayres (English)
Tsujido is Suitengu's right hand man and accompanies him wherever he goes, often as a personal attendant. His Euphoria power is super enhanced olfaction, allowing to smell his enemies miles away (unlike most Euphorias, Tsujido does not require a physical transformation to be able to use this). He doesn't reveal himself as a Euphoria until the last episode while fighting Ginza, in which he transforms into a large wolf. Along with Makabe, he was abused by local Yakuza years before and saved by Suitengu. However, he had already had his nose cut off and was near death due to blood loss. He chooses to stay behind with Makabe to protect Suitengu when the building is under attack. Despite serious injuries, he manages to find and carry Suitengu to the generator's control room, where he dies alongside him as main office of the Tennouzu group self-destructs.
- Makabe
Voiced by: Hisao Egawa (Japanese); Bob Carter (English)
One of the men who works under Tsujido, he is a big, tall, bear of a man, and doesn't talk as much as his partner, Niihari. Makabe tends to be more professional in getting the job done. When tracking Kagura and Saiga with Niihari and Tsujido, he often acts as the driver. He knew the two before Suitengu had met them. After being beaten unconscious by Yakuza, Suitengu appears and slaughters them all (save for one). With this, he feels great gratitude and stays behind with Tsujido to help Suitengu. During the assault on the main office, the ceiling collapses due to a rocket barrage and he dies protecting Tsujido from being crushed.
- Niihari
Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese); Robert McCollum (English)
The other henchman working under Tsujido. Unlike his more silent partner, Makabe, Niihari has a habit of talking a lot and speaking with profoundly foul language at times. He's mentioned failed relationships with women in his life; his mother betraying his father and himself and then his wife being overly greedy. Niihari was the first henchman that Suitengu met as he was outside the building Makabe and Tsujido were kept, nervously holding a sword as he was preparing to rescue them both. He is the only one of the Tennouzu Group to survive and in the end of the series, Niihari has become a successful businessman.
Euphorias
- Shirogane Katsuya
Voiced by: Takehito Koyasu (Japanese); J. Michael Tatum (English)
One of the Euphorias sent by Suitengu to retrieve Kagura from Saiga, possesses the ability to stretch his body into any imaginable form. He's known as the Rubber Gimp, He was a ballet dancer who was completely obsessed with the flexibility of rubber to the point of breaking a young girl's arm for 'being too stiff'. His head was blown off by Saiga using a piece of mirror to reflect his camera shot.
- Kaoru Koganei
Voiced by: Mari Yokō (Japanese); Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)
Best known as Lady Diamond. Her Euphoria power is to turn her entire body into diamond, becoming almost indestructible. She has the bizarre habit of eating diamonds (even biting off the finger of a woman to get her ring). She kidnapped Kagura and demanded a ransom, but was killed by Suitengu by being shattered into a million pieces and having her body turned into diamonds to be sold.
- Mizunokuchi
Voiced by: Shiro Gō (Japanese); R. Bruce Elliott (English)
A sadistic dentist and Euphoria user who's been given extra limbs with dental devices on them and can even turn other part of his body into drills (such as his tongue). He tortures patients by inserting all of his limbs into their mouths and polishing their teeth slowly. Apparently he removed Kagura's lower molars three years ago, but did it as slow as he could so he could see Kagura writhing in pain. He kept one of them and carves it obsessively.
- Ran Yurigaoka
Voiced by: Takeshi Kusao (Japanese); Christopher Bevins (English)
An esthetician whose Euphoria power is to make the various tattoos come to life, he can also use his tattoos to control other people's movements by making the tattoo appear on them. His most common tattoo is his spider one. He has an obsession with his and other people's skin.
- Father Kanda
Voiced by: Ryūzaburō Ōtomo (Japanese); Bill Flynn (English)
A corrupt Priest, who was found out to have given all of the Church's donation money to the Roppongi Club to pay his Membership dues. He was found out to be a Euphoria who had the power to control electricity, he can also transform into wires and control thunder bolts. He believes he is a God, due to his powers.
- Miharu Tsurumaki
Voiced by: Maya Okamoto (Japanese); Laura Bailey (English)
A former actress who had a traumatic past due to her mother trying to drown her in a suicide/murder attempt. Since her mother's suicide she's become mute. She's also drowned every man who has fallen in love with her. Appropriately she can turn herself into a fish-like being and manipulate water (or fog by controlling the water droplets it's made of), she can even transform herself into water.
- Seiji Ochiai
Voiced by: Tetsuo Kaneo (Japanese); Jerry Russell (English)
A former photographer, now cabinet member who leads a group called the White Eagles whose purpose was to bring down the Prime Minister and Suitengu. However, he turned out to be a traitor and Euphoria who could manipulate sound, by using his speakers within in his transformed body. He loves music and when using his powers, pretends he is a conductor.
- Kamiya
Voiced by: Takehiro Koyama (Japanese); John Swasey (English)
The Prime Minister who is also a member of the club and an extreme glutton. He also has a Euphoria power in which he becomes a huge, deformed spider-like creature with a huge head and a tongue with acidic saliva. However, he is viciously killed by Suitengu while begging for his life.
Others
- Bob
Voiced by: Kouji Ishii (Japanese); Antimere Robinson (English)
The main source of Comic relief in the show, Bob is an out and proud flamboyant homosexual who runs an erotic massage parlour. He lives right next door to Saiga and seems to be a westerner.
- Kazuki Odawara
Voiced by: Hidenari Ugaki (Japanese); John Burgmeier (English)
Shinsen's former lover and Kagura's father who was a scientist who attempted to develop a bioweapon. However, the government soon tried to eliminate all traces of evidence. He died in a ravine and the remains of his research lay within Kagura who can awaken the virus within carriers and Suitengu who has his left arm.
- Professor Nishiya
Voiced by: Eiji Yanagisawa (Japanese); Barry Yandell (English)
A university professor who is an acquaitance of Ryougoku's. He tells Saiga about the retrovirus that has been activated within him and introduces Saiga to Ochiai. However, he sold them out so he could do research on Kagura to gain fame. He is eaten by a mutated Kamiya.
- Doctor Genba Ryougoku
Voiced by: Rikiya Koyama (Japanese); Kent Williams (English)
A doctor who runs a small clinic and also an acquaitance of Saiga's who apparently saved his (Saiga's) life when he was nearly crippled in a rundown hospital. His wife died three months ago to cancer.
Episodes
- Depravity City (背徳都市)
- Goddess of Greed (唸る札束)
- Film Like A Bullet (写殺爆殺)
- Lethal Headshot (略奪少女)
- Whore of Diamonds (ダイヤモンド夫人)
- Out of Focus (さよならダイヤモンド夫人)
- The Big Picture (猟奇ドリル)
- Dentophobia (神楽のともし灯)
- Into the Bath (湯殿にて)
- Suitengu Cometh (水天宮来る)
- Mother Critical (ハハキトク スグカエレ)
- Left Hand Lullaby (左手に抱かれて眠れ)
- Ginza the Lawless (銀座番外地)
- The Wedding Photographer (人妻神楽)
- Hell is a Wet Woman (濡れ女地獄)
- Audit the Wicked (半期決算報告)
- The Reaper and the Nouveau Riche (死神成金)
- Fates and Fists (第三局)
- Lips and Lied (嘘とくちびる)
- Good Vibrations (グッドバイブレーション)
- All Hail the Glutton (総理の朝食)
- Money, Money, Money (オカネクダサイ)
- Tender Grave (札束と墓標)
- The Roppongi Crisis (六本木クライシス)
Theme songs
- Opening
- "Girls on Film" by Duran Duran [TV version]
- "Shutter Speed" by Shinkichi Mitsumune [DVD Version]
- Gonzo could not gain the rights to "Girls on Film" for worldwide distribution on DVD.
- Endings
- "Hinageshi no Oka" by Shione Yukawa (Episodes 1-12)
- "Break The Cocoon" by Yoriko (Episodes 13-24)