Tarzan is a very iconic hero, his adventures are countless and exciting but his companion and love interest, Jane, is often relegated to the typical damsel in distress role. I can't think of any adaptation that features Jane in an active role and much less shows her going full savage. They tried doing something with her in the Disney series but it wasn't enough. Although, I think I found the closest thing to that, at least when it comes to film versions.
1934's Tarzan and His Mate was an adventure movie that served as a direct sequel to Tarzan, the Ape Man, released the year prior, which started a whole series of movies featuring Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. However Jane wasn't as consistent, in this movie she's played by Maureen O'Sullivan.
Jane seems to have liberated herself after meeting the savage jungle man, she dresses in a very revealing loincloth and swims naked, far from the classy civilized lady we knew her as.
Perhaps the most important part of this movie is the stretch of the story where Jane believes Tarzan to be dead and joins the white explorers who want to take her to the city once more. The exciting thing is that Jane isn't shy about taking a gun and shooting her way through enemies during these action sequences.
She also enjoys some time with the animals and the jungle in a previous scene, she's saved by Tarzan in that sequence and when she’s attacked by lions in the climax but at least they tried to spend some time with her alone.
It's a shame Jane seems to be forgotten and repressed in many ways in these stories, at least she seems more sexually confident and free in this iteration. However, I think there's potential for a wild version of Jane to learn the way of the jungle and become a full on action lady.
In this issue we are introduced to the number one Wonder Woman enemy: The great Cheetah.
We begin with Wonder Woman doing a show, her strength demonstrations take away the spotlight from Priscilla, a socialite and actress who leads the Junior League Committee for War Work, she ends up being jealous of Diana and her ability to amaze audiences. Priscilla then sabotages Wonder Woman during an escape show but the heroine manages to come out alive.
When Priscilla looks at the mirror she sees her alter-ego, a cheetah-like creature who is a reflection of her envy. Soon she creates a plot involving framing Wonder Woman for a crime and trying to tarnish her reputation.
Cheetah´s plan is not successful as Diana and Trevor see through her plot. Cheetah presumably ends up dying after falling into the flames she created herself at the end of chapter one.
In the second story, Diana is called into a beauty salon by Priscilla, who uses a woman and with special equipment manages to enter Diana's mind and take the information she needs in order to send it to Cheetah, who turns out to be alive. Wonder Woman is smart enough to uncover the scam and interrogates the henchwoman. As it turns out, two girls were kidnapped by Cheetah and she forced them to work for her.
Next, Wonder Woman detours and goes against some Japanese soldiers and let me tell you, the racist caricatures didn't stop in the first few issues, they are still present here.
In the final chapter, Wonder Woman is underestimated by a sexist army man, who eventually realizes women are also strong and capable, so many women are tested and taken to Paradise Island in order to prove themselves to Wonder Woman and the amazons and perhaps train them. One of the girls is missing, this is because she is being kidnapped and impersonated by Cheetah.
The amazon girls prove to be vastly superior to the earth women and Cheetah gets even more jealous. So she plans a scheme involving stealing their special ornaments that give them powers. With that, she also kidnaps the queen and holds her captive as a way to get Diana's attention and fight her.
What follows is an intense woman-to-woman rumble. Ultimately, good triumphs, Wonder Woman defeats Cheetah and saves her mother.
Quite an awesome issue with interesting stories, a cool villainess that would become iconic and it's nice to see some female empowerment themes once more.
Let's talk about a rather underrated anime from the nineties. Ghost Sweeper Mikami was a manga created by Takashi Shiina. The original manga was very popular and ran from 1991 to 1999, so obviously an anime adaptation had to be made. This one lasted from 1993 to 1994 with around 45 episodes and a movie. Not bad for a show but hardly in the tier of 200+ episodes shows like Dragon Ball or Naruto get.
The series deals with Yokoshima, who works as an assistant for a ghostbuster named Mikami, the teen boy is afraid of ghosts and has little to no fighting skills, he just likes money and thinks Mikami is hot so he takes the job without thinking too much about it. Soon enough, both encounter a variety of ghosts, demons and monsters they must battle in order to get paid.
The series incorporates all kinds of creatures and ghouls, mostly legends and myths from Japan but also modernized ghosts such as video game ghosts and space ghosts as well.
How is it action-lady wise? Well, it's more than satisfactory in that field but I strongly believe it could have been better. You see, while the show bears her name Mikami isn't the focus of the series or even the main character. She's a secondary character with a lot of screen time but most of the plots and character moments are occupied by Yokoshima, who gets in trouble trying to see Mikami naked or by attempting to escape from danger. He shouts, he runs away and does exaggerated faces when weird or supernatural things happen to him, which is virtually all the time. These moments aren't badly executed and he has some funny scenes, but the "silly boy and competent sexy girl" trope is not really my cup of tea overall.
He really is a hormonal young man.
Some of the issues I have with the show are noticeable, such as not being about the title character herself, the ironically tame raunchy comedy (rarely any female nudity or fanservice is seen, not complaining but it's worth pointing it out) and the off-beat jokes that fall flat from time to time. However, these are minor compared to its virtues. It's a great looking series, both because of its designs and animation, the plots are fun, the tone is consistently light and there's a lot of really well done action. To add to that, there's a variety of fun female characters, Mikami herself being a really good one. She's a skilled and knowledgeable ghost hunter, strong and smart. A nice lead with a hard personality and she's tough as well. I could watch her all day.
There's also the ghost girl that tags along with them after the first episode, Kinu, who doesn't do much but adds a lightheartedness and compassion to the main group. A sweet ghost lady but not an action star.
There's also Mikami's rival: Emi, who is a voodoo exorcist and does black magic, a nice contrast to Mikami's more orthodox and christian type of exorcism magic. Emi has the hots for Pietro de Bloodeau (a vampire boy) to the point where she's just straight up harassing him, often ripping off his clothing and gushing at his state of undress... those were other times. Other than that, she's another amusing lady on the show who often is competent enough to fight against Mikami, even if a lot of times they have to work together in order to stop a bigger menace but that quickly turns into a race to see who gets rid of the ghost first, with Emi's cheating and trickery often blowing up in her face.
Meiko Rokudou is probably the most powerful human gal of them all, which is ironic considering she's the weakest of them all. A rich and soft lady that wouldnt hurt a fly is the most dangerous person due to the 12 shikigami that live within her and spring out of her when she gets upset about something in order to protect her. These ghastly and numerous creatures are fierce beasts, she would be the greatest threat Mikami would have to face if Meiko were evil but instead she's obsessed with Mikami and considers the ghost sweeper to be her best friend, much to Mikami's dismay and annoyance, so their dynamic is actually more comical than anything.
Meiko and her ghouls.
Let's Not forget about the duo of robotic sisters created by Dr. Chaos: Maria and Teresa. Who engage in an awesome but long fight in a two parter titled: Maria and Teresa (Episodes 39 and 40). In these, Maria finds a more human and noble side of her, clashing with the cruel and cold Teresa. Two highly recommended episodes.
Sibling rivalry.
There's also a bunch of episodes featuring Shoryuki, a goddess dragon warrior who helps Mikami achieve her greatest power level during training. However, she can't fight for longer than 3 minutes outside of her realm, crippling her helpfulness in the real world.
There you have it. A solid collection of anime heroines and female villains. There's also some more episodic ones and even more characters in the manga, we might get to them when we look at episode overviews and the full manga eventually. There's also a video game with a cult following of it's own.
This sums up the dynamic. Ladies are wiser and dignified here.
Rivals in handling spirits.
I definitely recommend the show to all anime lovers out there. The shonen (teenage boy) pandering isn't as bad as something out of modern anime shows but it might make the experience a bit disappointing if you are looking for a more female-centric series. This is female populated for the most part which is also appreciated. On that regard, a similar show titled Phantom Quest Corp actually fixes that issue by making the female character the lead, but that´s a blogpost for another day. Either way, Mikami is a really good show with some fantastic spiritual ladies all around.
