Patarillo

From the article by Mary Kennard, written for CF/O, with additional material by Jeanne Johnson

Colour illustrations courtesy of Mycean and DB

Japanese animation has had its fair share of strange series, but on April 18 1982 one of the oddest (and least likely to make the transition to American television) made its debut- a gonzo comedy titled PATARILLO! later changed to I, PATARILLO (Boku, Patariro). Produced by Toei Doga and Fuji Television, the anime was taken directly from a popular manga written and drawn by Maya Mineo. This began its run in the December 1979 issue of the biweekly comic Hana to Yume. Forty nine anime episodes later, the show came to an end. (The manga however is still alive and well in the pages of HtY.) Apparently enough people watched it to justify a theatre release movie (Stardust Project), at least eight albums of soundtrack and original music, and a mass of assorted goods. Patarillo has also garnered a small but fanatical following in the United States. This fact and the oddities of Japanese phonetics is what accounts for the different readings of the title. The Japanese can be read as either Patariro or Patalilo in English, depending on how your ear hears the Japanese liquid sound, which is actually halfway between the English r and l. There's no real reason outside of fannish convention to double either of those letters, and in fact the name as spoken in the anime actually sounds more like 'Patario' than any of the accepted spellings.

Patarillo! is set in a society much like ours in most ways, with one decided twist. The manga on which it is based is one of the much-read works produced for adolescent Japanese girls that features a healthy proportion of gay men and beautiful teenagers aka bishounen (beautiful boys). Most of the action takes place in Marinera, the land of eternal spring, located somewhere in the South Seas. The country is a major producer of diamonds; they provide much of the basis of conflict in the anime series. They come from one of the most prolific mines in the world, owned by the king of Marinera, the vertically challenged but horizontally endowed boy-king Patarillo himself. The International Diamond Syndicate - a huge semi- criminal organization/ secret society dedicated to taking over the world's entire diamond supply- wants that mine and will stop at nothing to get it. In the early episodes they send off a number of bishounen assassins to do in Patarillo, which necessitates his having a bodyguard, the English MI6 agent, Major Jack ('Bishounen-Killer') Bancoran. Bancoran's nickname doesn't mean he shoots bishounen in cold blood. The soubriquet comes from the fact that no male under the age of 17 can resist his sexual fascination. This, to Bancoran's eternal disgust, includes Patarillo himself. The action switches often from Marinera to MI6 headquarters in London (London seems to be an easy two hour's flight from the South Seas) or Bancoran's palatial condo in the suburbs of same. (MI6, be it noted, looks a lot like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, while Jack's 'apartment' bears a passing resemblance to Randolph Hearst's spread.) The action also goes into the past and future and out into space. Patarillo evidently gets around.

MAIN CHARACTERS

PATARILLO

Full name Patarillo du Marinel VIII, but just call him baka (fool) or aho (idiot)- everyone else does. Standing at 140 cm (4'8") and weighing in at 36 kg (79 pounds)- a statistic which throws him into a frenzy when brought to his attention-, with bloodtype Rh+ null alpha, he's the pint-size tyrant of Marinera, with an enormous penchant for trouble of all kinds. Carping, tyrannical, cheerfully sadistic, greedy, spoiled, and the most powerful person in the kingdom, he's a ten year old's power fantasy made flesh, and drives the adults around him to raging imbecility. One has to love him. A genius inventor with a computer-level intelligence, he's a master of instant disguise, is able to time-travel at will, and (most importantly) can do the 'cockroach run'- his feet move so fast it seems as though he has eight legs... He is also the inventor of the Cock Robin dance (Dare ga koroshita Kokku Ro-o-bin? or Who killed Cock Robin?), an infectious little number which was originally used to express surprise and wonder, but can also be used to cheer people up (or annoy them terribly.) Inebriated Japanese salarymen have been known to do the Cock Robin dance en masse, rather than forming conga lines.

JACK BARBAROSSA BANCORAN (VANCOLAN, VAN COLAN)

A top (well, let's face it- *the* top) agent for MI6, a double-0 number, licensed to kill. From his initial assignment as Patarillo's bodyguard, his fate becomes entangled with the boy- king's problems. A no-two-ways-about-it biseinen (age perpetually 27), he affects very long black hair, blue-eyeshadow, brown leather gloves (even in bed)- and packs a Walther PPK Special as the favorite weapon in his arsenal. He's a very cool, competent character, but has a short temper which Patarillo pushes to the limit. He is not without his own peculiar talent, in this case his inheritance of the family's specialty, the Bancoran eyes, which have the hypnotic and aphrodisiac power to compel young boys to fall madly in lust with their owner and obey his every (sexual) whim. A congenital tomcat, Ban makes it with all and sundry, occasionally abandoning his mission when a sweet young thing crosses his path.

Bancoran has had a tragic past. At ten, he discovered that his father's fatal car accident was arranged by his father's brother KEENE, but could find no-one to believe him. Keene added insult to injury by killing Bancoran's little dog Fungi. After that Bancoran never smiled again. It took 17 years before Ban had a chance to revenge his father and his dog, which he did in typical gentlemanly fashion by defeating his uncle's nefarious plot and then letting him live with the knowledge that he owed his life to his hated nephew.

Bancoran's mother, MADAME BANCORAN, a Spanish aristocrat with expensive tastes, ran through the estate after her husband's death and wound up in the hands of a wealthy upper-class loanshark, Schrenger. For 50,000 pounds and the clearance of her debts, she sold her son's sexual services to Schrenger, rationalizing that she was doing it for Ban's own good since the money would go to his education. After one night of 'education', Ban left home for good, a fact Schrenger took philosophically. He figured it was worth it.

On the run from Schrenger, Ban was recruited by Carl Grosvenor, a retired British Army general who had opened a private academy for training Intelligence agents. While there, Ban roomed with DAMIAN KNIGHT who seduced the sexually traumatized youth and introduced him to the delights of love. Ban immediately profited by the lesson and began breaking his schoolmates' hearts in droves. Damian disappeared on his first solo assignment and was discovered later, a physical and emotional wreck whom the Russians had made into a heroin addict. Ban repaid the favor he owed Damian by nursing him back to health and returning him to sanity. Alas, on a later mission to America, Damian was intellectually seduced into Communism by a double agent, and once again turned into a junkie. At their second re-encounter, Damian made the mistake of laying hands on Ban's lover, and was killed by him during a shoot-out at Heathrow Airport.

Ban is a devoted rationalist who believes only in what he sees, but he also has a romantic soul and is capable of deep attachments (though not of monogamy.) The various bishounen assassins sent by the Diamond Syndicate (like JUNIOR and MARION) invariably fell for Bancoran; the strong suggestion is that the feeling was mutual. Fortunately Bancoran met his match in assassin #3--

MARAICH (MARAIHI)

Not one to take Ban's infidelities sitting down, Maraich is pathologically jealous and given to inflicting serious damage on the Major when said infidelities come to light. Sometimes an efficient agent and seducer in his own right, Maraich is at heart a domestic hausfrau who's read too many bodice-rippers and tends to have high-flown melodramatic emotions. For lack of a mother to go home to when he's pissed at Ban, Maraich has taken to running off to Patarillo who cheerfully lies to Ban for his sake: 'Maraich? Haven't seen him in ages. You two been fighting again?' he says, with Maraich standing at his elbow. Maraich too has his peculiar abilities: heavenly or demonic powers take a more than passing interest in him, and his crowning achievement is to become pregnant by Bancoran and bear his child- an uncannily gifted prodigy called Figaro who may some day give Patarillo a run for his money, when he learns to walk.

Go to part 2