June 12: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Cartoons!

Back in the pre-Internet days of buying fifth-generation VHS dubs at conventions, Battle Royale High School was one of the first anime I owned. There were no subs or dubs—just demons and karate while wearing a Tiger Mask.

Based on the Shin’ichi Kuruma manga Majinden (Legend of the Demons), this starts with high school asskicker Riki Hyōdo, who loves to fight. He’s also the chosen body for Lord Byōdo, demon king of the Dark Realm, who comes to Earth to challenge him. There’s also Space-Time Continuum Inspector Zankan, a robotic man who has come to protect reality from the demon, and Toshimitsu Yūki, a student who knows how to fight these dark creatures.

They all face Fairy Master Kain, who has started to take over the bodies of students and attack others, like Megumi Koyama, who is in love with Riki.

As you can imagine, a 50-minute adaptation of a long-running manga leaves a ton out. Director and writer Ichirô Itano worked on tons of famous anime, including Fist of the North Star, Violence Jack, Tekkaman Blade, Gantz and started as an in-between artist on stuff like Galaxy Express 999 and Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: Warriors of Love before graduating to being an animator on Mobile Suit Gundam. Today, he designs kaiju for anime like SSSS.Dynazenon and SSSS.Gridman.

This is the kind of movie that has a woman explode all over the hero, then he rebuilds her from a gore-filled mess and says, “Nice tits.” You can only guess how much 15-year-old me loved this.

You can watch this on YouTube.