Series Review: Wolverine Anime Episodes 4-6

Madhouse’s Wolverine The Anime continues with episodes 4 through 6 of the series, the latest in the anime company’s production of classic Marvel characters (the next up in the series is X-Men The Anime, due for release sometime this spring).

[Spoiler Alert!]

Episode 4 features a showdown between Logan/Wolverine and his classic adversary Omega Red.  I have to say, it’s pretty weird hearing Omega Red talking in Japanese with a strong anime villain voice, but whatever.  Yukio comes back to save the day, although Mariko’s father Shingen is still hanging around looking to take out Logan.

[You guys know who Omega Red is, right?  He's the Russian superman designed with carbonadium tentacles, carbonadium (of course) being the Russian goverments attempt to supercede the North American adamantium.  Wolverine gets on his bad side back when he was a government agent by stealing the carbonadium synthesizer, which Omega Red needs to prevent his body from reacting to the artificial carbonadium.]

At the end of episode 4, Omega Red returns after appearing to be killed in a warehouse fire and in Episode 5 he’s still looking to take out Wolverine.  Wolverine defeats him for good and then travels with Yukio to Yashida Shingen’s mansion where Shingen and Mariko are gone but the dude with the adamantium katana coming out of his hand is still hanging around and looking for a fight.

In Episode 6, the X-Men’s Cyclops comes out of the blue to help Wolverine and Yukio deal with all of their foes in Japan.  This might be a preview fo the type of Cyclops we’ll be seeing in the upcoming X-Men Anime, also from Madhouse.  So far, Wolverine The Anime is watchable, but it sacrifices a believable and well-thought out story for non-stop action.  We’ll keep you posted as more episodes become available!