Ask John: Is Story of Ricky Based on Anime?

Question:
I was just on a message board and the discussion was about The Story Of Ricky/Riki-Oh. This one dude wrote on an older post that the two animated volumes of Riki-Oh were better than the live action one. What I’m asking is was there really an animated version of Riki-Oh because I couldn’t find nothing?

Answer:
Riki-Oh originated as a manga series written by Masahiko Takajo and drawn by Tetsuya Saruwatari. Originally published from 1988 to 1990, the story was compiled into 12 tankoubon volumes. The manga was adapted into a pair of OAVs. Riki-Oh Violence Hero OAV 1 was released on June 25, 1989. Riki-Oh 2: Horobi no Ko (Riki-Oh 2: Child of Destruction) was released on August 24, 1990. The successful manga and anime were then adapted into the live action Chinese film Lai Wong (Story of Ricky) in 1991. It’s this live action movie adaptation which is best known in America.

The original anime OAV, for fans of excessive macho violence, is quite good. The live action film is a relatively faithful adaptation of the first anime OAV, which I presume is very faithful to the original manga. The differences are mainly that the live action film is even more brutal and excessive than the original anime. For example, based on my recollection of the OAV, the original anime did not contain a scene of a yakuza attempting to strangle Rikioh with disemboweled intestines; the anime did not have the prison warden store breath mints in his glass eye; and the original anime did not have the prison boss transform into a hulking monster. The second anime OAV pits Rikioh against his evil brother Nachi in a martial arts battle that involves an army and psychic powers. I also vaguely recall the second Riki-Oh OAV being one of the worst single anime episodes I’ve ever seen.

As far as I can tell, the two Riki-Oh anime OAVs were re-released on bargain priced VHS in Japan as recently as December 2000, but seem to be out of print on Japanese home video now. Neither OAV has ever been released on Japanese DVD. The anime has never been officially released in America.