@Amazon.com
The director of Audition and Ichi the Killer (as well as the upcoming Gyakuten Saiban - Phoenix Wright movie) directs a...family friendly...superhero parody movie? Well alright then let’s do this.
The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was directed by Takashi Miike. Unfortunately that didn't really help define the movie in any way as Miike has an extensive list of films he has made of multiple different genres.
I was wondering if I would be able to jump right into the action of Zebraman 2 without having watched the first Zebraman but the movie does a short recap for the audience at the beginning of the film. Third Year Elementary school teacher Shinichi was granted powers to transform into the hero Zebraman to stop an invasion of alien parasites that tried to take over the world. A month after the invasion ended Shinichi does not seem to have attained the happy ending he deserved after saving the world…
At some point Shinichi is captured and taken to a facility for having supernatural powers, what occurs there is left a mystery…
Now we flash forward to 2025. Tokyo has officially been renamed Zebra City, and an older Shinichi with stark white hair and amnesia wanders the streets aimlessly as soldiers in black and white masks begin marching through the city with guns hunting down anyone in their path. The opening credits of the film are a musical number (which is admittedly catchier than it has any right to be) by the self-declared Zebra Queen.
The Governor of Zebra City has instituted the policy of “Zebra Time”, a set of five minutes at both 5am and 5pm each day when police and citizens are absolved of any and all crimes that occur during that time. The Governor declares that this is an attempt at affirming the dual nature of mankind and that with evil no longer repressed, crime has been reduced directly. With the Zebra Police as well the special Mini-Skirted Zebra Police Force (this is their actual name) the governor rules the city with his daughter Yui Aihara who is also the Zebra Queen.
Shinichi is wounded by the Zebra Police, and Yui is similarly wounded revealing a connection between the two. A young man named Asano who was a student of Shinichi’s runs a local urgent treatment center as a nurse since there are no doctors around. Shinichi reveals that he has no idea where he has been for the past 15 years and does not remember being Zebraman…
As the Zebra Queen continues her homicidal hooved crime spree on the people of Zebra City Shinichi must rediscover his super powers to save the day. This help comes from the young girl Sumire who is the last earthling to still have a parasite inside of her (though this one is apparently not evil for some reason). Despite her childlike appearance Sumire opens up to Shinichi revealing she stopped growing 15 years ago due to the parasite. Somehow the ‘white’ aspect of Zebraman has been left in Shinichi and the ‘black’ aspect is in the Zebra Queen which technically makes them the same person…which is just a little bit awkward.
The two aspects of Zebraman are inevitably drawn to one another with the Zebra Queen attacking the treatment center to capture Sumire for her nefarious plan. So Evil Black Zebrawoman vs. Good White Zebraman occurs and evil wins because good is dumb. But considering the reveal of the Zebra Queen’s horribly thought out plan it would be fair to say that both aspects of Zebraman are rather dumb. Can White and Black work together to stop the newly resurrected alien parasite!? Will Zebraman save the day once again!? You’ll have to watch to find out!
