Seite - 52 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 03/01

52 | Theresia Heimerl www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 45–57 uki Motohiro/Naoyoshi shiotani, JPN 2012–2013),18 an intellectually ambitious as well as commercially successful 22-episode anime tV series whose underly- ing theme is a post-Orwellian surveillance society, where both hero and villain are fighting for individual freedom, albeit with wildly different methods: evil Makashima holds a former classmate of female police officer Akane Tsunemori hostage before he kills the young woman by cutting her throat right before the horrified policewoman’s eyes. This is preceded by a cynical discourse on the policewoman’s dependence on the surveillance system while Makashima holds his scantily clad hostage directly in front of his body, repeatedly caress- ing her throat and body with his razor-armed hand. the sexualisation of this scene is blatant, yet no sexual action in the strict sense takes place. instead, we witness a murder committed out of pure delight in power and in the ter- ror the villain can thus instil in the heroine. total power is presented as power over the female body and its sexuality. this is even truer of instances where sexual violence does indeed occur in a way clearly comparable with the above- mentioned damsel-in-distress scenario from The Dark Knight (2008): provoca- tion and humiliation of the hero through the exercise of violence and the threat to kill the hero’s woman. The final scenes of Berserk (toshiyuki Kubooka, JPN 2013),19 a film trilogy from 2012/13 based on a famous manga that appeared from 1989 on, present the following showdown between the villain (Griffith), who has transformed into a demon (and, in truly classic style, is also the hero’s former best friend), and the hero (Guts) and his girlfriend (Casca), who is also secretly desired by the baddie: while Guts is struggling to free himself from the villain’s hench-creatures, Griffith, who has become evil incarnate, rapes Casca repeatedly before the eyes of his former friend while keeping his cynical glare trailed at the hero. This is a near ideal-typical embodiment of the difference – only hinted at in the screen adaptations of Marvel and DC comics – between the good, “normal”, consensual desire of the hero, as depicted earlier in Berserk (2013) between Guts and Casca, and the perverted desire also revealed through the villain’s transformed and perverted body.20 Admittedly, Berserk (2013) does not restrict itself to hints; rather, we witness first the hero’s highly passionate but entirely consensual sexuality amid intact green nature and later, in a quasi “unnatural environment” cast in red-violet hues, sexual violence forced by the villain on the hero’s beloved. The villain’s objectives are clearly spelled out: (1) to demonstrate his absolute power and the impotence of both hero and wom- an, (2) to psychologically break both, i.e. the hero and his woman, and (3) to 18 Psycho Pass. Anime tV series (22 episodes, JPN 2012–2013), manga developed after anime. 19 Berserk: Hakusensha 1989–, Kentaro Miura; Berserk: The Golden Age Arc III – The Advent (toshiyuki Kubooka, JPN 2013). 20 On the transformation of the body as a symbol of the transformation into evil, see feichtinger 2010, 21–25, 43–55.