Updated :  12 February 2008

WHY?

While the Western societies seem to frown on the humble motorcycle, the Japanese have made it into a prominent focus in their animation.  I'm not making comparisons to the Disney stuff as it would be like comparing it to the infamous South Park !!  Think I'm too old for this sort of thing ? Well, you really must check it out before passing that judgement.  All commentary is my opinion only, if I am wrong please convince me !

Japanese animation absolutely kicks butt.

Why ? The animation is superior, the story lines are definitely more adult, but with a tad of childish humour occasionally or maybe it's Japanese humour.  Regardless the graphics, particularly the hardware or MECHA as the term is used to describe them is superb !!  Furthermore, how often do you see very graphic violence, beheadings, blood, guts, HUGE battles and chase scenes, nakedness and sometimes sex  in a cartoon.  Mind you not all the different series have this sort of thing, remember Astro boy ?!!  The music is refreshingly different but always upbeat.  Remember though that some of the story lines have been diluted by the translation to English, including their titles.

Manga or Anime is hard to define as a genre apart from being animated.  Essentially its a cartoon with usually deeper meaning than it first appears.  Sure there's fantastic graphics and battle scenes but there's also the music and Mecha.  On the motorcycle side of things, its the only place where you'll see futuristic bikes as weapons and as commuter transport. (scooters feature quite often) check out the range in the Bubblegum crisis series - original version.

Japanese society in my admitted limited experience with the culture, but from what I understand bikes are seen as cheap transportation.   The 400cc class in general is seen as a big bike, although as you know they make far bigger capacity machines.  The licensing laws until last year made it difficult and expensive for them to have anything bigger.  According to the latest stats, large capacity machines are still selling slowly (relatively) ! 

The Japanese are very trend and gadget orientated (that's surprising ! - not).  Packaging of a product is very important, it has to look good before anyone would buy it.  Hence a huge range of colours and gadgets that we in other countries will never get to see.

See a Yamaha R1 in the Bubblegum Crisis for an example, the thing is that this anime was completed in 1988, 10 years earlier than what we see in 1999.  (well it looks like an R1, or perhaps one of the Y2K model year Kawasaki ZX-6 of ZX-9 ?)   You'll also see the Batmobile design, well in advance of the motion picture version.  The graphics for 1988 are just as good as the stuff we see on TV today.  Well, if you're comparing animation quality.  

You'll see the links between this sort of art it's influence on the design of the Hayabusa.  Admittedly I haven't seen an anime with a direct Hayabusa look alike just yet !  But a few that could be with a bit of work.

Motorcycle Highlights

Bubblegum crisis - The heroines ride bikes that transform not only into robots but also battle suits.  Priss one of the girls also has a 750hp bike which she manages to destroy twice !!  Unfortunately some of the bikes sound like 2 strokes !  There are also some very graphic scenes of what happens when you fall of a bike without adequate clothing !! - Episode 4.  Great and numerous chase and battle scenes.  I also noticed that most of the bike scenes are on straight roads !

Note that there are 2 versions of the Bubblegum crisis series.  I'm referring to the first series.  The second series have the bikes eg Priss' sounding and looking a bit better.  The story though has been thoroughly changed which is interesting as it appears to be trying to be a tad more controversial.  The music is not better but there is a scooter vs bike chase which is a hoot !

Akira - The hero (Kenenda) has a red bike that's just plain desirable.  It's even got electric discharge powerup effects !! A few really great bike chases and fights.

Venus Wars - The bikes here only have 1 wheel ! Made up for by having a armour piecing cannon !  Yes these bikes do battle with tanks !  Lots and lots of mono-bikes, but all look the same.

Angel Cop - This Manga has the heroine (Angel) riding a Black and Blue CBR1000F throughout the series.  The CBR1000F is the CBR model featured was the initial 'flying condom' model.  She's part of a special forces group and she turns up on the scene and chases with the bike.  The bike sounds in this Manga sound taped from the real bike.  There are various other unidentified bikes in this Anime too.  Her partner Raiden has one of these, appears to be a naked bike of some sort.  He later has a mecha type bike which is too powerful for a un-enhanced human to ride.  As this Manga is set in the present time hence the bikes themselves do not do anything un-bike like !  My fav phrase in the series is 'Ice bitch'.

Sailor Moon - This Manga is harmless enough.  I'm sure most of you in Australia at least have seen this on the Big Breakfast in the mornings.  Well, even this show has Tuxedo Mask or Darien, one of the heroes and Sailor Moon's love interest riding a motorcycle.  Sounds like a proper bike too.

Battle of the Planets - Surely everyone knows this series !

Anyway if this wets or appetite for more information, I have got a links site that's almost ready to direct you to ALL the Anime that feature bikes, boy will you be surprised !! (There are a HUGE number of Anime/Manga sites) and I swear that you'll start watching the stuff just for the action scenes - Please stay tuned and check back soon !

By the way, I haven't included many images on this page as they would take far too long to load and you'd probably lose interest.  So please do check out the links etc... as they are worth visiting.   I couldn't maintain the effort some of these people put into the sites on a part time basis.

Here are some links if you want to find out more :