Let's go, Bub!
A 12-Episode Anime beginning in early 2011 as the second of four Marvel Comics series produced by anime studio Madhouse, Marvel Anime: Wolverine follows Logan's journey to Japan in search of his lost love, Mariko Yashida. As it turns out, Mariko's father, Shingen Yashida, is the head of the criminal organization known as Kuzuryu (Nine Dragons) and intends to marry her off to cement an alliance with Hideki Kurohagi, leader of the tiny island nation of Madripoor.
After trying and failing to rescue Mariko from her father's clutches, Logan is joined by Yukio, the daughter of an assassin who was killed by Shingen, and is now seeking vengeance. Together, they follow Shingen and Mariko to Madripoor where the wedding is to take place.
The series is based on the same Frank Miller/Chris Claremont storyline that inspired the later live-action film The Wolverine.
Tropes:
- Action Heroine: Yukio is a badass ninja. It's In the Blood, after all.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- Hideki Kurohagi is originally called Noburu-Hideki in the original comics.
- Tesshin Asano is originally called Asano Kimura.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Wolverine is a Pretty Boy here.
- Attack Its Weak Point:
- The Reason Omega Red goes down so fast in his last battle against Logan is because at this point Logan figured out a vital piece of equipment on Omega Red's suit is his weak spot, and immediately targets this.
- The first time Logan fights Vadhaka, he is badly beaten and only wins when Min unleashes hot steam into Vadhaka's eyes, blinding the giant. Logan thus figures out that the eyes are Vadhaka's most vulnerable spot, so in their next fight he immediately targets them. Too bad AIM also realized this weakness and gave Vadhaka a protective visor that even Wolverine's claws can't penetrate.
- Bad Boss: Hideki. He shoots one of his own henchmen with a horrifyingly lethal nerve toxin for no other reason than to demonstrate its effects.
- Body Horror: Happens whenever Hideki's AIM-designed nerve toxin shows up.
- Badass in Distress: Yukio for most of episode 8, where he is held captive by Kurohagi's men and has to be rescued by Logan.
- Faux Action Girl: Although a badass and an all-round skilled ninja, Yukio spends most of the episodes being either knocked out, injured or held captive and needing to be saved by the protagonist.
- Badass Normal: Shingen, who has no superhuman powers, but due to his superb swordfighting skills can hold his own against Logan just fine. Yukio to a lesser extent, as she is a skilled assassin.
- Battle Couple: Yukio's parents.
- Canon Foreigner: Some characters were only created for the anime:
- Kikyo Mikage
- Min
- Agents Takagi, Tsukino, and Machida
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Shingen Yashida, an elderly, unpowered Yakuza boss who is, by a considerable margin, Wolverine's most dangerous opponent in the entire series, and doesn't even have to go all Combat Pragmatist to accomplish this. Although he's not above a little bit of pragmatism here and there.
- Continuity Cameo: Cyclops shows up to give Logan a ride in episodes 5 and 6.
- Darker and Edgier: Wolverine racks up a bigger body count in the first episode alone than Tony Stark did in his entire series.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Hideki's pistol going off when Logan tackled him in a manner that just happened to fatally wound Mariko.
- Does Not Like Guns: Kikyo.Kikyo: Guns are for cowards!
- Downer Ending: After all the fighting and deaths of many characters, Mariko died in the end. See also Doomed by Canon.
- Easily Forgiven: Yukio, for killing Logan's friend. Possibly justified, though, as Logan saw she was truly remorseful for it, and she was dying anyway.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Kikyo draws the line at harming children, something Vadhaka learned the hard way.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: With the exception of Kikyo and Logan himself, every character that had some revelance to the plot is dead by the end.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Very much averted by the bandits on either side of Hell Road. Once Logan and Yukio clear out a section's traps, the first thing they do is start attacking each other.
- Evil Sounds Deep:
- Shingen, courtesy of Fred Tatasciore.
- Omega Red, courtesy of JB Blanc.
- Vadhaka, courtesy of Jamieson Price.
- Foil: Kikyo to Logan. Just as Wolvie's an Anti-Hero, though, so is his Japanese rival an Anti-Villain.
- Friend on the Force: Asano, Wolverine's contact with the Japanese police.
- Hammerspace: Where Yukio must have pulled the truly ludicrous number of kunai from in episode 11, given that her outfit doesn't allow for Victoria's Secret Compartment.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the end, Hideki is killed by a dose of the same poison he shot Wolverine with, and which it's implied he used against his own father.
- Honor Before Reason: While dueling Logan, Shingen insists on a fair one-on-one match, even though he apparently has no way of countering Logan's Healing Factor.
- Although in his rematch in the finale, he does wear a suit of armor.
- Immortal Hero/Invincible Hero: Wolverine gets the crap beat out of him and normally lethal injuries numerous times nearly every episode by more skilled, powerful, or numerous enemies. Thanks to his healing factor he always lasts long enough to squeak out a win. By the end, the villains are trying to figure out how to kill him since he keeps getting up no matter how badly they wound him.
- Living Statue: Vadhaka is either this or a robot of some sort. It is left ambiguous.
- Little Miss Badass: Min, who will knife you in the face. And if that doesn't work, will shove a steam pipe in your eye with her bare hands, then laugh off the burns she gets from it.
- Mighty Glacier: The Vadhaka statue; it's a giant compared to humans and immensily strong and durable, but rather slow.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Yukio wears a Spy Catsuit with a neckline so deep that it reaches her stomach.
- The Neutral Zone: Hell Road is a narrow buffer between two of Madripoor's rival ethnic groups, and is loaded with traps by both sides to keep the other at bay.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Omega Red, the result of a Soviet project to turn a Serial Killer into an undead cyborg superweapon.
- Noble Demon: Kikyo, an assassin with a strict code of honour.
- Old Master: Koh, who was the chief rival of Hideki's father for control of Madripoor back in the day. He's still quite dangerous. And is Yukio's actual grandfather.
- Pendulum of Death: Among the various traps found on Hell Road, one involves trapping people in wet cement and then kill them with these kind of pendulums.
- Pet the Dog: Kikyo hates anybody who attacks an unarmed person or otherwise can't fight back.
- Properly Paranoid:
- Even though she's chained securely, Hideki makes sure to check in on Yukio. This gives the opportunity to shoot her in the back before she can slaughter the mooks guarding her.
- In the finale after shooting Logan with a nerve-toxin dart, Hideki figures he'd better decapitate Logan while he can, in case his Healing Factor saves him. It does.
- Posthumous Character: Kurohagi Juo and Yukio's parents all contribute heavily to the motivations of most of the living characters.
- Razor Wind: Both Shingen and Kikyo can summon it with their swords as one of their most devastating attacks.
- Redemption Equals Death: Koh and Yukio both get to make amends right before dying. Must run in the family...
- Revenge Before Reason: Koh. He eventually gets over it.
- Samurai: Shingen and Kikyo are both absolutely in love with the samurai style.
- Satellite Love Interest: It's remarkable how few alterations they would have had to make to the plot were Mariko replaced with an inanimate MacGuffin.
- Self-Made Orphan: Hideki, though he insists it was pre-emptive self-defence.
- Soft Water: In the finale. Made even more ridiculous in that both of them just keep fighting, even though one of them has a metal skeleton and the other is wearing a full suit of chainmail.
- Something We Forgot: The mystery of who killed Asano is completely dropped for the entire second half of the series, only for Yukio to confess to it out of nowhere in the finale.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Invoked by Yukio, who killed Asano in order to further incense Logan against Shingen.
- Tattooed Crook: Shingen sports some elaborate dragon tattoos during his Shirtless Scene.
- Tempting Fate: Logan, you really shouldn't have told Shingen that it was impossible to cut someone's head off with karate...
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The voice-activated password to Logan's handheld computer is simply his name. Yukio reacts accordingly.
- Urban Segregation: Madripoor is split into two sections. Lowtown is the poor, filthy slum area, and Hightown is the clean, modern area where the rich people live. The only thing in common between the two sides is that they're both completely populated by criminals.
- Villain Decay: Omega Red gets hit by this hard. When he first makes an appearance Wolverine spends an entire episode and part of the next one fighting Omega Red; Wolverine only wins because Omega Red's equipment malfunctions. Omega Red is repaired and sent after Wolverine again... and dies after about ten seconds.
