Mezzo Forte (1998) (V)

Director:

Yasuomi Umetsu

Release Date:

13 November 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Comedy | Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Double The Girls! Double The Guns!

Plot:

A young woman and her mercenary for hire team run afoul of a violent mob boss and his sociopath daughter.

Plot Keywords:

Gun | Daughter | Kidnapping | Mercenary | Baseball

Cast

Tomoko Kotani	...	Mikura Suzuki
Takumi Yamazaki	...	Tomohisa Harada
Taichirô Hirokawa	...	Kenichi Kurokawa
Shôzô Iizuka	...	Momokichi Momoi
Akemi Okamura	...	Momomi Momoi
Norio Wakamoto	...	Hirooka
Shin'ichirô Miki
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bob Bobson	...	Guy In The Toilet Stall, Bodyguards (voice: English version)
Ivan Buckley	...	Kurokawa (voice: English version) (as Felix Cooper)
Marie Court	...	Mikura (during love scene) (voice: English version)
Melissa Fahn	...	Mikura (voice: English version) (as Tina Dixon)
Lynn Fischer	...	Momomi Momoi (voice: English version)
Melvin Katt	...	Detective (voice: English version)
William Knight	...	Emoto (voice: English version) (as William Frederick Knight)
Lex Lang	...	Bodyguard (voice: English version)
Sean Mitchell	...	Harada (voice: English version)
Bob Papenbrook	...	Momokichi Momoi (voice: English version) (as John Smallberries)
Tony Pope	...	Bob / Announcer / Bodyguard (voice: English version) (as Anthony Mozdy)
Jamieson Price	...	Hirooka, Bodyguard B (voice: English version) (as James Lyon)
Michelle Ruff	...	Sex Robot / Little Girl / Waitress (voice: English version)
Herman Schurman	...	Bodyguards (voice: English version)
Peter Spellos	...	Rob, Bodyguards (voice: English version) (as G. Gordon Baer)
Doug Stone	...	Tagami / Bodyguards / Urinal Guy (voice: English version) (as David Orosco)

Directed by
Yasuomi Umetsu

Original Music by
Tooru Shura

Production Management
Christian Alexander Moran	....	post-production manager (english version)

Art Department
Kôichirô Nagano	....	color key

Animation Department
Tatsuya Abe	....	animator
Masaji Andoo	....	animator
Takayuki Gorai	....	animator
Takehiro Hamatsu	....	animator
Nobuo Horii	....	animator
Kunihiko Inoue	....	animator
Shinji Ishihama	....	animator
Shuichi Kaneko	....	animator
Yoshitaka Katô	....	animator
Kazuya Komai	....	animator
Hiroshi Kyouai	....	animator
Masahiro Kôyama	....	animator
Hideo Maru	....	animator
Aguri Matsumoto	....	animator
Tsutomu Miyazawa	....	animator
Takaharu Moriyama	....	animator
Minoru Murao	....	animator
Mitsunori Murata	....	animator
Kazuto Nakazawa	....	animator
Takahiro Nishioka	....	animator
Hiroshi Ogawa	....	animator
Masakazu Okada	....	animator
Toyohiro Okada	....	animator
Fumihide Sai	....	animator
Jersey Sawa	....	animator
Masahiro Sekiguchi	....	animator
Rin Shin	....	animator
Yuji Takahashi	....	animator
Masae Tanabe	....	animator
Takahiro Tanaka	....	animator
Yasuomi Umetsu	....	animator
Yasuomi Umetsu	....	character design/animation director
Mayumi Watanabe	....	animator
Motoyoshi Yagi	....	animator
Akira Ôtsuka	....	animator

Editorial Department
Kimiko Kitazawa	....	color coordinator
Ryôta Tanaka	....	color coordinator

Production Companies

• Arms Corporation
• Green Bunny

Distributors

• Banzaï (????) (France) (DVD)
• JONU Media (????) (Spain) (DVD)
• Kitty Media (2001) (USA) (VHS)
• Media Blasters (2001) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Arts Pro  post-production sound services
• Brain  Avid editing facility
• Suwara Production  foley design studio
• Toei Audio Visual Art Center (TAVAC)  adr recording studio
• Tokyo Laboratory Co. Ltd.  film processing
• Tokyo Laboratory Co. Ltd.  telecine transfer

Runtime:

60 min (2 parts) | USA:55 min (cut version) | Japan:80 min (International version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Australia:MA (cut) | New Zealand:R16 (cut) | Chile:18 | Spain:18 | UK:18 | Argentina:16 (cut) | Peru:18 | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | USA:NC-17 (DVD uncut version)

Company:

Arms Corporation

Trivia:

Behind Kurokawa's seat in the car, he has guns stored away there. The second gun is the assassin gun that Sawa used in "Kite".

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Anime Abandon: Mezzo Forte (#2.4)" (2012)

You should feel dirty.

Mezzo forte is a nice little action, comedy. The animation flows like water. The guns are well displayed, and Mkura is one of my favorite characters ever. The fight scenes were some of the best I've seen in any anime, rivaling that of Cowboy Bebop.

Now to the bad news. The story is okay, but many things don't seem to come all the way together. Like Mikura's ability to tell the future at random moments. If you're asking, "How can she do that?", your question will never be answered. Many others have commented on the rape scenes, and I must agree that they are totally out of place here. Somewhere between the guy getting hit in the balls with a baseball, and some other guy running out of the bathroom stall with his pants falling down in fear, the scenes don't fit in at all. Also the sound design isn't up to par for modern times at all. The music sucks also.