Anime is the Japanese cartoon art form that boomed in the 1970’s and 80’s. Often in anime cartoons, the content is violent, the body features and facial expressions are exaggerated, and the mood is melodramatic. I recently discovered (and became obsessed with) a wealth of videos on YouTube from the wrestling anime known as Tiger Mask. If you want to check these cartoons out on YouTube, search for “Uomo Tigre” — the Italian words for Tiger Mask (since the cartoon has been translated into Italian.)
Over 100 dramatic, exciting episodes of Tiger Mask were created, and I think most or all of them have been uploaded to YouTube. The video quality of these uploads is excellent and the artwork and wrestling action are just awesome. The dialog, however, is in Japanese or translated to Italian, so unless you know either of those languages (which I don’t), you won’t always know what’s going on. I can vouch for the wrestling action, and I must say it is very good. The artists really “get” the psychology of pro wrestling and present the most compelling, exciting in-ring scenarios, situations, and events in this epic cartoon. There’s also some barely concealed erotic elements coded in the action as well, which I discuss or allude to in the comments within my captured images.
Each episode of Tiger Mask has some non-wrestling scenes where the characters go about their daily lives, but there are also extended pro wrestling matches and plenty of scenes of fantastic violence and fighting. Tiger Mask and his cute friend Ken are forced to get in the ring with a wild range of killer opponents, some that look like lions, tigers, sharks, shrouded ghosts, or just muscular bad-asses. The villains bring weapons to their matches as well, and the violence is sick. One Tag Team even uses hawks with sharp claws to fly down and scratch their opponents during the match (which is apparently not cause for D.Q. in Tiger Mask world!) Blood, sweat, and tears flow freely during these matches, sometimes wrestlers are brutally killed, and you wonder if this cartoon was really intended for kids or for adults with kinky tastes.
The best thing about cartoon violence is that there are no limits. The action can be as sick or twisted as the writer wishes. Wrestlers are routinely thrown 200 feet across the arena, sliced open, slammed into spikes or hard surfaces, and after a brief display of agony and some sweat on their brow (very common in Anime cartoons), they often pop right up and keep on fighting. This allows the Tiger Mask series to explore some of the kinky fantasy elements of pro wrestling — the kinds of twisted, violent, erotic scenarios that filled our dreams (at least my dreams) as young wrestling fans: foreign objects, cage matches, net matches, fighting against monsters, beasts with venomous stingers, deadly moves that can kill, biting and scratching and trampling, etc.
So go search for “Tiger Mask” or “Oumo Tigre” on YouTube and check out this impressive anime series. You can relive the drama and excitement of pro wrestling that first drew you to this sport in your younger days — this is the stuff that lifelong obsessions are made of!
This is the best wrestling cartoon I’m aware of — Japanese kids were so lucky to get to watch this stuff. Just to warn you, I’ll be featuring more galleries from Tiger Mask in the coming weeks, at least until my obsession fades, so bear with me if you’re not a cartoon geek like I’ve just become!
Why is it that there ain’t nipples on the drawings?
You don’ t know Uomo Tigre. But where are you ?