Kekko Kamen


Kekko Kamen is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai. It was serialized in Monthly Shōnen Jump from September 1974 to February 1978, with the chapters collected into five tankōbon volumes by Shueisha.
It follows the misadventures of a student named Mayumi Takahashi who attends a boarding school called Sparta Academy that is run by sadistic psychopaths. The teachers are constantly looking for ways to torture or humiliate the students, and from this the teachers derive sexual satisfaction. Takahashi's only protection is from a mysterious nude female superhero—the titular Kekko Kamen. The manga has spawned an original video animation series and numerous live-action films. In North America, the OVAs were released by ADV Films, while several of the films were published by different distributors.

Plot

First-year student Mayumi Takahashi attends a junior high school called Sparta Academy, where the penalty for any student making the slightest mistake is being sexually humiliated by the perverted, corrupt and misogynistic teachers running the school, the principal being a demonic, jester-like villain named "Toenail of Satan". However, before the teachers can take their sexual advances too far, Kekko Kamen steps in and delivers a sound beating to the teachers, and usually performs a finishing attack by jumping into the air and landing crotch-first onto her opponent's face.

Characters

;Kekko Kamen
;Mayumi Takahashi
;Toenail of Satan
;Teacher Ben
;Chigusa Yuka
;Keiko Natsuwata
;Koichi Omote
;Ai Sakai
;Kaori Wakatsuki
;Kei Kurenai

Production

Kekko Kamen is a female superhero whose costume consists solely of red boots, gloves, scarf and a mask with long bunny-like ears. Her fighting style is graceful, and her finishing move involves driving the opponent to the ground with a flying headscissors takedown which presses her groin into the victim's face.
Kekko Kamen is a parody of Gekko Kamen. It was originally a joke that Nagai sent to his editor expecting him to reject it. His editor, however, loved the idea and that started Kekko Kamen. Even the name of the main antagonist is a parody: in Gekko Kamen it is Claw of Satan while in Kekko Kamen it is Toenail of Satan. The theme song for the Kekko Kamen character uses the same lyrics for the theme song to Moonlight Mask, but with changes.

Media

Manga

Kekko Kamen was originally serialized in Shueisha's magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump, from to.
The series has been compiled several times by Shueisha and other publishers. It is also available in ebook format, published by ebookjapan. The manga was published in two volumes in Italy by d/visual, on December 22, 2006 and July 30, 2010.
;Shueisha
Vol.Release dateISBN
1
2
3
4
5

;Shueisha
Vol.Release dateISBN
1
2
3

;Kadokawa Shoten
Vol.Release dateISBN
1
2
3

;Kodansha
Vol.Release dateISBN
1

;Leed Publishing
Vol.Release dateISBN
1
2

Original video animation

A four-episode original video animation adaptation of Kekko Kamen was created by Studio Signal and released by Nippon Columbia on two VHS tapes in 1991 and 1992. A DVD collection was released on April 21, 2001. The first two episodes were directed by Nobuhiro Kondo and the second two by Kinji Yoshimoto. The opening theme song is "Kekko Kamen no Uta" which Go Nagai wrote for the manga, with composition and arrangement by Keiju Ishikawa, and sung by Emi Shinohara. The ending theme is "Morodashi Heroine Kekko Kamen" written by Hiroshi Koenji, composed and arranged by Keiju Ishikawa, and sung by Emi Shinohara.
The OVA series was released in the United States subtitled in English on two VHS tapes by ADV Films on February 7 and April 4, 1995. A single DVD version was produced on February 15, 2005, which beside the subtitles, also included dubbed English audio. ADV Films has also re-released Kekko Kamen in bundled DVD packages with other anime; Cutey Honey/Kekko Kamen on April 1, 2008, and Puni Puni Poemy/Kekko Kamen on April 21, 2009. The OVA was also released in a dubbed version in Italy on VHS by Dynamic Italia in 2000 under the name Kekko Kamen: La maschera libidinosa.
;Episodes
#TitleOriginal release dateEnglish release date

Live-action films

There have been eleven live-action films based on Kekko Kamen. Go Nagai has been intricately involved in the production of the films. The first three movies and the three from 2006 were released in direct-to-video format, while films four through seven and eleven were theatrically released in Japan. The 2012 film was released theatrically in limited locations before being released on DVD after more than a month. The first four theatrical films were released on DVD in North American by Media Blasters' Tokyo Shock label beginning in 2005.
Kekko Kamen P is a manga series written by Shigemitsu Harada and illustrated by Seiju Minato and published in Weekly Young Magazine from 2003 to 2004. The chapters were collected into two tankōbon volumes by Kodansha on May 6 and July 6, 2004. It is a sequel to the original series, where several years have passed since the events depicted in the first manga. Momoka Nogami discovers the legend of the original Kekko Kamen and decides to emulate her actions donning a similar costume, adding a peach motif, and so she becomes Kekko Kamen Peach. Other Kekko also appear, Kekko Kamen Lemon and Kekko Kamen Melon, and even a male version called Kekko Kamen Banana.
A special story called "The Excellent - Kekko Kamen Gaiden", written by Shinobu Inokuma with co-operation from Nagai, was published in Business Jump in June 2011. It takes place many years after the original manga where a new Kekko Kamen, whose secret identity is a new teacher in a new school owned by the remaining factions of the Toenail of Satan, protects young female students from the evil members of the organisation unfortunately one of them catches her. She is held prisoner until the original Kekko Kamen rescues her and they both defeat him, with the original telling her successor that some of the remains of the Toenail of Satan may have spread all over the world and that she will keep on fighting alone but she was proud of her successor that if she's gone she and her successors after her will always protect the young female women from evil by using her namesake.
A one-shot crossover featuring Go Nagai's Kekko Kamen and Mazinger Z characters was written by Takeshi Okano and published in Grand Jump on January 16, 2013.

Reception

Stig Høgset of Them Anime Reviews gave the Kekko Kamen OVAs two out of five stars, called the art passable, and clarified that while the jokes are smutty, they never get offensive.
Reviewing for Anime News Network, Theron Martin wrote "Kekko Kamen is great fun as long as you're an adult who can appreciate oodles of fan service and raunchy, sometimes utterly tasteless, humor." He cited the humor as a highlight, but felt the production values were mediocre.
Martin gave a much more negative review of the live action Kekko Kamen: Mask of Kekkou, saying it came off as "exploitive and cruel rather than the campy, whimsical work it should have been." He called the writing amateurish and the acting even worse.
Angel Blade is a hentai parody OVA of Kekko Kamen produced in the Vanilla Series.
American heavy metal musician Rob Zombie used clips of the Kekko Kamen OVA during the 2010 Mayhem Festival tour during the song "Never Gonna Stop ".