Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (ボボボーボ・ボーボボ Bobobo-bō Bō-bobo) is a manga by Yoshio Sawai, published by Shueisha in Japan and serialized in that country's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. On February 16, 2005, it was announced that the Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo anime will air on Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block in late 2005.
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is a comedy that uses puns, non-sequitur humor, double-talk, breaking the fourth wall, non-sexualized cross-dressing, visual gags, and satirical and pop-culture references, which make its humor very specific to Japanese audiences (much in the same way The Simpsons is often not as accessible to non-American audiences).
The story takes place in the year "300X". The evil "Margarita Empire"(マルガリータ帝国), lit. baldshaven empire, unrelated to the drink Margarita, led by Emperor Tsuru Tsuruiina(ツル・ツルリーナ) (his name is a Japanese onomatopoeia for something slippery), are taking over the world by stealing people's hair. The hero, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (whose name is a string of the mimetic word bō-bō-(ぼうぼう) used on rush vegetation or unkept hair), is an adventurer who as a child learned to "hear the voices of the hair", and can command his own body hair (including his nostril hair, chest hair, and armpit hair) to perform various martial arts dubbed Hanage Shinken(鼻毛真拳), lit. true martial art of nostril hair. The series follows his various escapades as he teams up with many different oddball sidekicks to fight the Margaritas.
The series mocks existing manga and anime conventions, making fun of more than a few fairly specifically: Doraemon, Sailor Moon (and the whole magical girl genre in general), Pokémon, Dragon Ball and many others are used as humor fodder. The series also operates as a mockery of stereotypes in Japanese literature (for instance, the ideal of noble self-sacrifice) and Western popular culture (such as action films). While Bo-bobo is ostensibly the hero, his behavior is frequently self-important, childish, arbitrary and incomprehensible. However, this is also often how he deals with his enemies — by confusing them into submission. At various points the top of Bo-bobo's head pops open, revealing a scene that is either an allegory for the state of Bo-bobo's own mind (i.e., when his powers fail him, we see a pair of boy-and-girl cartoon squirrels going through a painful separation), or to unleash weapons. Bobo-bo even turns into a giant robot (or at least emulates its functions) a number of times.
The manga has also been adapted into a TV series by Toei Animation and TV Asahi, which follows the original story (and preserves its surrealistic tone with surprising fidelity).
List of Main Characters
- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo(ボボボーボ・ボーボボ Bobobo-bō Bō-bobo) – The cool and incomprehensible hero. Swarthy and musclebound, with a large blond afro and a pair of sunglasses. Takes no hostages and shoots his own friends when not sacrificing them for the sake of his own well being.
- Byuti (ビューティー) – Transliterated English word of beauty, she is the only sane person on the block and a stereotypical teenage manga heroine which doesn't mean a thing in this world.
Music
- OP: Wild Challenger by JINDOU
- ED: Shiawase