Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature
| Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature | |
| Anime |
Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature (大自然の魔獣 バギ, Taishizen no Majuu Bagi) is an anime movie that premiered on the Nippon Television network on August 19, 1984. It was written by Osamu Tezuka as a critique of the Japanese government's approval of recombinant DNA research that year.
Synopsis
Template:Spoilers Deep in the South American jungle, a Japanese hunter named Ryo and a local boy named Chico stalk a monster that has been terrorizing the local countryside. Ryo, however, is quite familiar with this beast, and the story flashes back to his childhood.
Teenage Ishigami Ryosuke, the delinquent son of a crime reporter and a geneticist, is out with a motorcycle gang when they encounter a mysterious woman. Some of the rougher members of the gang accost her, and she turns out to be anything but normal, landing the gang with serious injuries. The gang leader returns to the woman's hideout for revenge, but the gang members are torn apart, except for Ryosuke.
The woman is not really human at all, but a catgirl named Bagi — and it was Ryosuke himself had rescued her and raised her as a kitten. As Bagi grew and people became suspicious of the precocious "cat", who was able to walk on her hind legs and even learned to write her own name and speak, she escaped and grew to adulthood on her own.
Upon their reunion, Ryosuke and Bagi join forces to find out the truth of her origins. Ryosuke's own mother is found responsible for Bagi's creation — Bagi is a product of recombinant DNA research between human and mountain lion cells. They then follow Ryosuke's mother to South America to confront her about the reason for Bagi's existence, but find a far greater peril. The officials in charge of the laboratories there are creating a strain of rice that has the potential to destroy humanity. Ryosuke's mother sacrifices her life to have Bagi destroy the "Rice Ball" and Ryosuke pins the blame on Bagi, vowing revenge.
Meanwhile, Bagi is quickly losing her human traits and becomes extremely feral, attacking any humans that come near. When Ryosuke catches up to her, he shoots her only to find out that Bagi has actually the one entrusted with his mother's final words. The next morning the body of Bagi is gone, with footprints leading off to the distant mountains, and Ryosuke is content to pray for Bagi to live on in solitude far away from mankind.
Characters
- Ryo / Ryosuke Ishigami
- A young Japanese man who was in a member of a biker gang and does not care much about his future, as his parents were both busy working. His father is a crime reporter, while her mother, Prof. Ishigami, works in a laboratory without mentioning much about it nor coming back home often.
- He reunites with Bagi on his 15th birthday and becomes a hunter five years later. Bagi was his "pet" when she was not yet fully grown.
- Bagi / Baggy / Baghi
- A pink female genetically modified with the DNA of a puma, perhaps by way of artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation. She and her mother were the only living animal survivors of the lab animal outbreak at the Center, but her mother was eventually hunted down. Bagi's wander ended in becoming Ryo's "pet cat". As soon as Ryo's family recognized that Bagi was "overgrown", she left for nine years and disguised herself as a human girl to find those of her kind, until she met Ryo again.
- Bagi's physical abilities: high jump, wall jump, long leap, aerial somersault, glass-breaking tail-swing, ground burrowing, writing, and perhaps reading.
- Her mental abilities: human intelligence, perception and understanding of linguistic, psychological and social stimuli with their responses, quick wit, and hypnotism.
- She is considered by fans, albeit not explicitly mentioned, a playful, skilled, seductive and even sexy female.
- Chiko / Chico
- A Mexican boy who suspects that Bagi killed his father and decided to take revenge on his own first. He then meets Ryo and gave him information about a possible sighting of Bagi.
- Prof. Ishigami
- Ryo's mother as well as an important leading research professor at the SuperLife Center, believing that anything could be improved with science. She was responsible for the creation of Bagi and her kind. After the President forced her to mass-produce the poisonous rice balls, she had a change of heart due to feelings of guilt, and decided to follow her conscience. She is killed, but not by Bagi as Ryo mistakenly assumes. In her last letter, she expresses great regrets about being a bad scientist and a bad mother.
- The Chief
- The man in charge of the SuperLife Center, who is cunning and ambitious.
- Cemen Bond
- The man responsible for keeping Ryo in custody at the Cucaracha Research Lab, known for his remarkable marksmanship. His decisions solely depend on coin flipping.
- Colonel Sado
- President
Trivia
As one of the first films to treat an anthropomorphic character in a realistic manner, Baghi is often cited by furry (kemono) fandom as an important work in the genre. Tezuka most certainly did not foresee this, as his primary motivation for creating the film was to highlight the political cause of opposition to recombinant DNA research.
The character of Bagi is not half housecat, but half mountain lion. However, her pink coloration is almost undoubtedly a reference to Hello Kitty, as this film was partially funded by Sanrio. Why her tail is able to shatter glass or sever large cacti in half, or why she has hypnotic powers over humans, is never explained.
Bagi is variously transliterated as "Baghi" (to make it clear to use the hard "g" sound, since g followed by i normally takes a "j" sound) or "Baggy" (an inappropriate attempt to convert the name to an English word).
Although Bagi is not one of Osamu Tezuka's more famous works, it is still considered a notable production of the kemono genre, and is remarkable among those involved in furry fandom, with some possible reasons listed here when compared with other productions using anthropomorphic animal characters:
- Bagi's ultimate identity is an average animal.
- She has the self-awareness that she is originally a beast in the wild nature.
- She expresses her personality as with the feature of her species- a feline.
- Her abilities are greatly originated and extended from that of her animal counterpart, but only from her instincts.