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My Little Kakugo

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Yeah..... Apocalypse Zero (or Kakugo no Susume in Japanese) is actually one of my guilty pleasures :sweatdrop: revamp v2 . It was created as a 11 volume manga in 1994 by Takayuki Yamaguchi, a Japanese manga artist whose creations are infamous for having heavy violence. The manga was adapted as a two-part OVA in 1996, the same year the original manga was finished. Only seven volumes of the manga are translated so far.

 This R rated manga and its anime adaption  has such a very, very, VERY bad rep for having so much gore, fan disservice, VERY explict nudity, and loads of nightmare fuel from the grotesque sight of the ugly looking monsters and the corpses of their victims. How I discovered the manga was due to my curiosity on TV Tropes when I found out that my favorite character Kiyotaka Ishimaru from Danganronpa is an expy of Apocalypse Zero's protagonist Kakugo Hagakure. Even before I discovered the manga, I was scrolling on Tumblr to find some Ishimondo when I came across this post kawaiibrowncupcake.tumblr.com/…. At first I ignored it, but a few months after I discover the manga, I decided to go see if I could find it again and I did. I gotta say, Kakugo did look somewhat like Taka in terms of hair style, wearing white uniforms and black boots, and some sweet eyebrows (though Kakugo's eyebrows were less extreme than Taka's). Heck, they even have hearts of pure gold, have their moments of being cute, are socially inept (as I discovered after recently reading that Kakugo is bad at baseballs simply because he's very new to this kind of sport), and are quite the gentlemen. However, compared to Kiyotaka's hotblooded personality and tendency to be critical to those who don't follow the rules, Kakugo is stoic and was willing to put his duties to fight monsters over his schoolwork. Initially I was drawn to Kakugo because of how alike he looks to Taka, but then I began to love him for his desire to help others, his philanthropic goal of keeping humanity safe, and being the most badass character.

Anyways, the summary of Apocalypse Zero is that at the beginning of the 21st century, a buttload of natural disasters ranging from Earthquakes and volcano eruptions to hurricanes and tsunamis (oh my) have ravaged the world, causing peace and order within society to collapse and untold million deaths. Far away in the snowy mountains lived the secret Hagakure family. Trained by his firm, stone-faced father Oboro, Kakugo and his older brother Harara were taught to protect what was remaining of the human population from monsters using the two Fortified Armor Shells Zero and Kasumi, which are exoskeletons created from the souls of the deceased. Unfortunately, Harara succumbed to the misanthropic spirit Kasumi's influence, causing him to turn on his family, murdering Oboro and nearly killing Kakugo (by using a technique to cause his younger brother to vomit out his intestines and then tossing him off the cliff to die. Yeeeaaah... not a pretty sight of Kakugo vomiting his own guts out literally espiecially in the manga ._.) both in cold blood. However, Harara was unaware Kakugo managed to survive the ordeal (I guess a professional doctor found him nearly freezing to death, I dunno, I never finished reading the manga) and was now a student at (a surprisingly still functioning) high school. Crazy beings called the Tactical Evils/Fiends are originally sent by Harara to kill humans so Earth will be free from suffering. But when Harara found out that Kakugo survived, he sent the Tactical Evils to take him down. Fortunately, Kakugo still carries around his Armor Shell Zero to defend the innocent and kill the monsters.

I should warn you that the Tactical Evils are absolutely DISGUSTING to look at. WHat makes me say that, well... it's mainly due to the fact they were very heavily sexualized to our displeasure and some of them will used their mutated breasts/jiggly bits to attack our hero. Yeeeeaaah... that's one of the many reasons why Apocalypse Zero is called the vilest anime ever, and the real kicker is that the short-lived anime adaption was slightly tamer than the manga (in the anime where Kakugo meets the many ghosts of Zero for the first time, he was simply told that he is worthy of wearing the Zero armor and that's all; but in the manga, upon meeting the spirits within the armor, a extremely sympathic Kakugo decides to dismember himself and eventually his head to reach the level of suffering the ghosts have went through to build the armor despite the ghosts' protests, but luckily the ghosts resemble Kakugo back together and promise to look after him). But once the Tactical Evils are out of the picture in the second half, the manga becomes 5 times better. To be honest with you, I actually got used to these gigantic eyesores surely but slowly. Another thing you need to know is that Harara has a female body but is still referred as a 'he' despite having female voice actors (Harara was even voiced by Megumi Ogata in the original Japanese verison). Don't worry, I'll explain later on.

I actually like the Apocalypse Zero OVAs though I do know that there are many things left out, but try not to worry I'll explain: The Fortified Armor Shells are created by Shiro Hagakure (the misanthropic grandfather of Oboro and great-grandpa of Kakugo and Harara), a war criminal in World War 2 who had people regardless of age, gender, and race killed to create the armor shells. Apparently, as it turns out, a Tactical Evil was created if a person dies with extremely morbid thoughts or is put in a cocoon to transform into. The reason why Harara became a female was because Kasumi hates men due to her child being sacrificed for Shiro as one of the many souls to build the female armor shell, so Harara (who is impressed by Kasumi's perspective of a fair fight since Harara himself loves fighting and battling and had realized he had the same views as her) turns his body into that of a female to make peace with Kasumi and help her gain vegence. That's all I know manga wise.

Kakugo and Harara both have steel balls called Metal Spheres all over their bodies, though the latter has the most Metal Spheres. They were installed (and by 'install' I mean 'shot onto their bodies with a cannonlike gun') by Oboro. The Metal Spheres activate the BioZero Armor which covers the bearers' skin to avoid massive damage.

If you want to (either/both) read the manga and/or watch the OVAs, then you MUST have a strong stomach & love for gore AND have to be 18 years old and up before doing this (I was actually 17 years old when I discovered this). If you love the mindless violence and don't care much of the story, then you should watch the OVAs on YouTube. But if you want a better story, then you should read the manga.

I would like to thank daevakun.deviantart.com/ for giving more information about the Apocalypse Zero manga

Should I mention that the anime adaption has a kickass theme song sung by Hironobu Kageyama www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACutTO…
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Combatkaiser's avatar
shouldn't harara's cutie mark be her/his faction symbol/logo?