Whoa! Blast from the past! Completely forgot the name of it, but was the baseball bat bent on the end and he wore a mask (hockey-ish mask)? It was creepy and kinda suspenseful (at least to my young mind watching cartoon network at the time). The guy even drug his bat on the pavement to make sparks for scary effect while he roller bladed about, terrorising the city at night. That one seemed cool.

Yep that was the one.   I didn't watch much of it.  I just kept thinking how this s___ wouldn't have played well had he tried the same thing over here.  He'd have likely got shot in short order.   

This thread definitely took a different turn then I thought it would.

QFT
---who knew there were so many anime fans here?

Whoa! Blast from the past! Completely forgot the name of it, but was the baseball bat bent on the end and he wore a mask (hockey-ish mask)? It was creepy and kinda suspenseful (at least to my young mind watching cartoon network at the time). The guy even drug his bat on the pavement to make sparks for scary effect while he roller bladed about, terrorising the city at night. That one seemed cool.

Paranoia Agent.  Remember it from Adult Swim, back when I was in college.  It made prettymuch no goddamn sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_Agent

Tsukiko Sagi, a shy character designer who created the immensely popular pink dog Maromi, finds herself under pressure to repeat her success. As she walks home that night, she is attacked by an elementary school boy on inline skates. Two police detectives, Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa, are assigned to the case. They suspect that Tsukiko is lying about the attack, until they receive word of a second victim.

Soon the attacker, dubbed Lil' Slugger (Shōnen Batto in Japanese, meaning "Bat Boy") is blamed for a series of street assaults in Tokyo. None of the victims can recall the boy's face and only three distinct details are left in their memories: golden inline skates, a baseball cap, and the weapon: a bent golden baseball bat. Ikari and Maniwa set out to track down the perpetrator and put an end to his crimes. Their hunt is unsuccessful, however, and the investigation eventually leads to both men losing their positions as police detectives.

As the attacks continue, it is revealed that they are not random. Instead, Lil' Slugger seems to target people in crisis, and the attacks, though violent, lead to some improvement in the life of the victim. Maniwa becomes convinced that Lil' Slugger is a supernatural force, driven to rescue the desperate from their tragedies through violence. He becomes obsessive, broadcasting his warning about Lil' Slugger via shortwave radio and seeking a way to kill the supernatural assailant.

As public fear of Lil' Slugger intensifies, so do his (supposed) attacks, and the line between truth and fiction becomes blurred. At the same time, public anticipation for the launch of the Maromi television series reaches a fanatical high, almost as if the fear of one is feeding (and feeding off) the anticipation for the other.

Things come to an end on the night that the Maromi show is set to air. Ikari, now a private security guard, and Maniwa, now a wandering "knight," attempt to battle Lil' Slugger, now an incredibly powerful force. They confront Tsukiko, and she confesses that Maromi was based on a real puppy that Tsukiko had in childhood, whose leash she had one day accidentally dropped, allowing the puppy to run into traffic where it was killed. Instead of taking responsibility for the puppy's death, young Tsukiko invented a story about a bat-wielding, skate-wearing puppy killer—Lil' Slugger's first "attack."

Ultimately, Lil' Slugger is a paranormal figment of Tsukiko's guilt and fear, brought inexplicably to life when the adult Tsukiko desperately needed to escape her responsibilities and then fed and nurtured by the fear of the populace. In a way, Tsukiko does fulfill her job by creating a character (Lil' Slugger) that becomes just as big a sensation as Maromi. When Tsukiko finally confesses the truth, and in doing so accepts the guilt for the death of Maromi, Lil' Slugger is defeated.

The series was weirder than the description.  The girl's creation-given-life ultimately destroys Tokyo. 

Thanks for that in depth post, NC.

On one hand, "wtf Japan?" On the other hand, scary monsters which are some physical amalgamation of guilt? That is an interesting fictional plot point and one which I've seen before.

Reaching a little bit here and on unsteady ground due to being a fly by fan, but if memory recalls correctly the videogame silent hill 2 had a monster in it by the name of pyramid head which was the amalgamation of the main character's guilt and grief about his dead wife. The monsters were only vanquished after he came to terms with the situation (just not before he had personal loss of one of the other characters in the game whom was killed by pyramid head, which there are several theories behind of why).

Similiar plot devices and seeing as the maker of the game was Takayoshi Sato I never even drifted the thread, cos we are still in Japan.

I either stumbled into something philosophically brilliant or it is late and I need to get some damn sleep. Probably the latter .

Just watched episodes 18 and 19 of Fate Zero.  They detailed Kiritsugu's origin story.   The guy would have made an excellent MCB agent if he was in the MHI universe. He was gunning down evil mages, vampires, and zombies like a pro.  He wasn't quite as ruthless as Franks, but only because he actually felt remorse after he did bad stuff for good reasons.  If you like the MHI books, I'd recommend checking them out.  They are standalone from the rest of the series,  so you can watch them out of order.   

http://www.crunchyroll.com/fatezero/episode-18-distant-memories-681041
http://www.crunchyroll.com/fatezero/episode-19-where-justice-dwells-681043

WTF?   Of course, I'm pretty sure we could easily find the same thing here in a place like Portland. 

Meh, regular corn dogs were boring anyways...

Seems like it ought to at least have a NSW rating before just scrolling down and finding it on the screen .   .   .   

 

WARNING: CONTENT INAPPROPRIATE FOR NEW SOUTH WALES.

Now, here's some Burger King perfume:



Chicks love flame-broiled beef.

Those corn dogs will be very popular in San Francisco.

I was stationed at Misawa from 1997-2001 and I can tell you Japan can be a very weird place...but also extremely cool at the same time.  For all of the anime that's imported from Japan, I really didn't see much of it on TV, maybe some Naruto, Doremon(sp), and a few others.  There are more variety shows than anything else and they are pretty wacky.  I did like Rock Fujiyama with Marty Friedman & Rolly, that was a really cool show and you didn't have to understand Japanese to watch it.  I did marry a Japanese woman from Sapporo and imported her back to NC, but she was really off the rails and I had to escape that mistake before it got too expensive...but that's a whole 'nother story.

That's really cool mattitude, thanks for sharing! 

Um, the being stationed in Japan part, not the marriage part. Granted, marriage can sometimes be as strange as Japan itself  .

Well, at least they all seem to be wearing something....

  Japan.....Kanamara Matsuri....That about sums up Japan's weirdness....

ABSOLUTELY NSFW or  for sensitive veiwers!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri

Think of that the next time you jump on your Kawasaki, Yamaha or Honda....No wonder they lost the war...