This article is about a franchise of manga, anime and movies created in the late 1980s and early 1990s Japan.
All images used in this article are protected under Fair Use, as this article is criticizing and reviewing the source material. Additionally, this article covers sensitive topics, such as sexual violence and crime. Reader discretion is advised.
Premise
Rapeman is a series of manga, anime and movies revolving around a man named Iwasaki Keisuke and his uncle Tadao Haraoka. Keisuke is a rapist-for-hire, and Haraoka is basically his aide, the guy who handles all the administrative work and deals with the clients. That's right, your eyes are not deceiving you: Keisuke is a rapist for hire. Or more precisely, a twisted "superhero" of sorts, who is a handsome PE-teacher by the day, and a rapist-for-hire by the night, "righting wrongs through penetration" - not so much in the anime adaptation though, where his main objective seems to be to give his victims PTSD, driving them into the arms of more patriarchal authorities.
While the whole premise might sound like some incel's fantasy, in truth, the original manga was written by a woman named Aisaki Keiko. Running from 1985 to 1992, the original manga - which, much to my shame, I have never read - manga spawned a two-episode anime adaptation in 1994, and nine live-action film adaptations from 1993 to 1996, of which sadly I could only get my hands on five, and only managed to get English subtitles for four. Hey, these are obscure movies even by Japanese standards.
So, without further ado, let's get into it, shall we?
The Anime
In 1994, the manga received a two-episode OVA adaptation, which features the Rapeman the way I just described him: a handsome if somewhat perverted and socially awkward (but in the cute and attractive-for-women kind of way) PE-teacher by the day, sleepy and moaning about wanting a raise, and a rapist-for-hire dressed in ninja garb by the night. His client is a man whose gold-digging girlfriend is cheating on him or something, and his first victim is said girlfriend. Afterwards, we see him doing his day-job by the day, only to receive the shocking news from his uncle Haraoka, that his next target is going to be one of his students - the superficial daughter of a yakuza family, whose parents are shipping her with their rough bodyguard, but the girl claims to like "only handsome boys", and is dating some Kuwabara-lookalike.
Rapeman is hired by the girl's stepmom to rape the girl to make the Kuwabara-looking dude seem lame, and the bodyguard guy seem awesome. The plan works exactly as intended, the Kuwabara-looking guy pisses himself when Rapeman throws a katana next to him, while the bodyguard-dude gets wounded in the process of trying to fight off Rapeman, while the girl was already raped. The next day, we see the girl having broken up with the coward, and visiting the bodyguard in the hospital, putting flowers into his vase.
The next episode, Rapeman is hired by a burglar girl's father to rape her to dissuade her from criminal life. Not much else to say. After she becomes the third onscreen victim of Rapeman, she gives up the criminal life and starts to care for her father... and I guess they live happily ever after.
Despite the theme - nonconsensual sex - the anime is surprisingly... tame? We never see any male genitalia, the only NSFW parts of the anime are the female nudity and the moans, and even the rape itself is presented in an unrealistic way that makes it seem more like consensual BDSM than actual rape.
The anime has a clear anti-feminist message: all of Rapeman's victims are rebellious women who reject patriarchal authority and society's standards of how a woman should live and how a woman ought to choose her mate, and they get punished for it by Rapeman, who indirectly convinces all of them to accept patriarchal authority and "know their place" in society.
The anime also spawned an English-language parody, which I will cover after the movies.
The Movies
While the anime is not much to look at, the movies are arguably far more interesting. They definitely cover a much wider range of emotions than the anime: they simultaneously get to be funnier and darker at the same time, as they venture into different themes. On the funnier side, characters are constantly cracking jokes, and most of the time, Rapeman's victims actually end up enjoying >>>it<<< - but on the darker side, the movies also feature character deaths, even the deaths of plot-relevant children and teenagers (albeit killed offscreen), and a few victims of Rapeman clearly shown being what they are: victims of rape, traumatized by the event. Despite the main theme, the Rapeman movies get to tackle serious topics, such as political corruption, dangerous cults, (child) sex trafficking and organ harvesting.
Between 1993 and 1996, a total of nine Rapeman live action movies were produced, six of which were set in modern-day Japan, and three of which were spinoffs set in Edo-period Japan. Out of these, I only got my hands on five of the main modern-day movies, and only got my hands on English subtitles for four, so out of nine movies, I only got to see four. These four, however, have a clearly established pattern.
The first four Rapeman movies all follow basically the same pattern with minor modifications:
1. Rapeman is hired to rape a woman who is not relevant to the plot at all. Once he does that, we never hear of her again.
2. Rapeman is then hired to rape a woman who serves as an important character to the plot, a catalyst to the plot.
3. Rapeman bites off more than he can chew, and gets involved in some nasty stuff.
4. Rapeman and his uncle Haraoka do detective work, expose the villains to the police, save some innocent people and rape some female villains in the process
5. Justice is served, everyone lives happily ever after - at least, everyone who didn't die
Oh, and I neglected to mention - in the movies, Rapeman gets a somewhat heroic streak, because he and Haraoka put almost all of the money they earn into charity, and are running an orphanage... meaning that they are basically sheltering and feeding needy orphans on the tears of rape victims.
Now, if you were expecting the movies to depict rape realistically or in graphic detail, you’ll be disappointed: just like the anime - the most family-friendly hentai ever - it doesn’t really show much. It doesn’t show male genitalia at all. It doesn’t even show female genitalia. Only uncovered female breasts, basically. And save for one victim, the women at one point seem to all start enjoying it. This is more like semi-consensual BDSM than rape.
The first Rapeman movie involves Rapeman having to rape a politician's wife, paid to do so by a woman pretending to be the politician's grieving girlfriend. Rapeman does the deed, but the woman almost commits suicide, which puts a strain on the politician's reputation. Then it turns out, that the woman who hired him is connected to a rival political party, which in turn is connected to the Yakuza. So, Rapeman does his thing, and together with his uncle Haraoka, they bring justice to the elections, and expose the corrupt party, which causes his first victim's husband to win the election.
The second Rapeman movie involves a criminal connection between a hospital and the Chinese triads, which results in the first character death in the movies: the death of a little girl (killed by the corrupt hospital staff to harvest her organs), who was in Haraoka's orphanage. As the formula dictates, Rapeman and Haraoka play detective, uncover some ugly truths, and then right wrongs through penetration, before finally calling the police and making sure that all of the villains are arrested.
The third Rapeman movie involves a connection between drug dealers, sex traffickers, corrupt cops and school staff. This is the one in which the second character death occurs: the offscreen death of a teenage girl in drug overdose, a bullied outcast that was comforted by Rapeman the day before her death. The authorities declare her death to be from suicide, but Rapeman refuses to believe it, so as the formula demands, he goes on a detective quest, and uncovers an unholy alliance of greedy teachers, sex traffickers and corrupt police officers, who intentionally killed the girl, and are trafficking schoolgirls into prostitution. As usual, Rapeman rights wrongs through penetration, and manages to ensure that justice is served.
The fourth Rapeman movie involves a connection between a creepy sex cult, and some corrupt politicians. Basically, Rapeman gets to expose the cult for what it is, and makes sure that everyone gets to know the truth. It's interesting to note, that the fourth Rapeman movie was made in 1994, just one year before the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 by Aum Shinrikyo, a notorious cult in Japan.
Sadly, I couldn't get to see the fifth and sixth Rapeman movies, as I could not even get my hands on the sixth on in the first place, and while I do have the fifth on my computer, I don't have English subtitles for it. But, knowing how much the first four stick to the pattern, I'm probably not missing out on much.
In addition to six Rapeman movies set in modern-day - or rather, 1990s - Japan, three Rapeman movies were produced that were set in Edo-period Japan, or during the existence of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868). I doubt that Japanese women had the political power necessary to be arch-villains at the time, but hey... Maybe one day, when I get my hands on those three, I'll get to see how does the Rapeman-formula look when mixed with samurai drama.
Nevertheless, I genuinely enjoyed the movies I got to watch. On a more tragic closing note, the actor playing Rapeman, Hiroyuki Okita commited suicide in 1999. I guess he could right all sorts of wrongs through penetration, just not the ones who were haunting his soul, The actor playing Haroaka, Sakae Umezu died in 2016.
Despite their deaths, Rapeman’s journey did not end there...
The English-langauge parody
Some time before 2012, a bunch of people - whoever was running the Youtube channel WeeklyTubeshow2 - thought it was a good idea to make a parody of the Rapeman anime by re-dubbing it in English, cutting off some scenes, changing the story completely.
All mentions of Rapeman and his dayjob are completely removed. He is dubbed by someone with an African-American accent. None of his victims have names anymore, but all of them seem to enjoy being raped by him. No excuse is given for hiring him anyway.
In the second episode, he seems to just rape the thief for no reason. Still, the parody is littered with awesome lines such as, "***** you ain't slick, you gonna **** this ****!", "When I cut you off the path, you gonna take it in the ***!" and "Boom shaka-laka, it's dang-alang time!".
Definitely, 100% recommended.
In conclusion
I personally liked the Rapeman movies I got to see. They consist of a healthy mix of black comedy and social commentary, even if the central theme will alienate most people. I definitely recommend watching them.
But is there a moral to Rapeman? What can Rapeman teach us? I think he can teach us several things, such as...
Looks can be deceiving. Behind the charming smile and a friendly demeanor, a rapist can hide.
Humans are multi-faceted, complex and three-dimensional. We like to reduce people to singular traits - whether positive or negative - or to their occupation, or to a single crime they commited, or to a type of crime they habitually commit, etc. But Rapeman shows us, that in reality, people are complex. Iwasaki Keisuke is not just a rapist - he is also a philanthropist (most of his income goes to charity to fund an orphanage), has a soft spot for the kids, an unofficial part-time detective solving crimes, and is rather selective about his targets, as he hates going after those who don't deserve it according to him. Rapeman may be a rapist-for-hire, but he clearly has a softer side, and is contrasted by villains who commit crimes much much worse than rape.
There are crimes worse than rape. In this day and age, we like to think as rape - that is, the act of forcing yourself on someone and penetrating them without their consent - as the worst crime one can possibly commit, as it tends to leave a traumatized victim prone to suicide. But the Rapeman movies depict villains who commit far worse crimes, people who deserve punishment for worse than Rapeman. Rapeman gets to fight against villains involved in child sex trafficking, illegal organ harvesting, the murder of a little girl and a teen-aged schoolgirl, political corruption, brainwashing people into a creepy sex cult, etc. Compared to these people, even the rapist Rapeman is a hero.
