First there was Iron Man which quite clearly ripped off Evangelion. Each episode featured a robot modeled after a sign of the Zodiac as a stand in for Evangelion's angels. Tony Stark gets involved because he is in Japan selling the new Iron Man Dio, a unit that functions liek Iron Man only without any human inside the suit so no human is ever in danger on missions. Of course, Zodiac wants the Dio project and all the trouble that goes with it falls on Stark. His other connection is that his back story is tweaked and the man that helped him build the original Iron man suit got left behind during Tony's escape years earlier and now he wants revenge for that and he's part of Zodiac now. Also they introduce a new ally in Captain Nagato Sakurai who uses a suit called the Ramon Zero, which is quite simply Iron Man with a samurai asthetic, serving little purpose other than being Japanese Iron Man.
Next was Wolverine. Now I am given to understand there is a canon storyline involving Wolverine visiting Japan, but I do not believe this was it, or at least they twisted it almost beyond recognition. Logan had been in love with a woman named Mariko who was the daughter of a Yakuza and her father forces her to return home to marry another crime boss to secure an allegiance in Madripoor. Madripoor was already established in the Marvel Universe, but after wathign this, it seemed eerily similar to Roanapur from Black Lagoon, given that both are crime ridden areas somewhere in Southeast Asia. Wolverine is teamed with a ninja named Yukio but the real fanfic friend here is Kikyo, a mutant who like Wolverine has the powers of regeneration and retractable blades, only his blades are fully formed kattana with ornate hilts. Frankly I think Kikyo's blades are a little out of range for Marvel's mutants, but whatever, he's the Japanese Wolverine. Kikyo is in the story because he's an assassin hired to take down Logan, but at the last moment he spares Logan because while he appreciated the challenge of fighting a worthy opponent he loses interest when his employer poisons Logan to counteract his regeneration. No way in a western story would that "I will not kill him because it is dishonorable" crap fly, but in Japan, that's how it's done. Kikyo is also awesome because he is voiced by anime voice actor super star god Steve Blum. Speakign of voice actors, Wolverine was voiced by Milo Ventimiglia and Iron Man was voiced by Adrian Pasdar, who geeks may recognize as the Petrelli brothers from Heroes.
Steve Blum also comes back to voice Wolverine himself in X-Men. I was disappointed in this one because Wolverine makes cameos in Iron Man and Blade and appears the same as he does in Wolverine, but here, Logan is completely different, meaning that the the other three are all in the same world and X-men is apparently separate from the others. X-men is simply a rip-off of Akira. They go to Japan to find a new mutant they call Armor because she is able to create protective force fields. While there they get caught up with a plot involving the U-Men who want to take powers away from mutants and give it to themselves. Ultimately the whole thing comes down to Professor X's son Takeo who has relaity warping powers that threaten everybody until the X-Men are forced to kill him. The final scene is where is becomes totally Akira.
Finally Blade. If you've seen Vampire Hunter D, Blood, or any other similar anime that features a vampire hunter or demon hunter with a half-blood heritage that makes it personal, you know the story of Blade. In this version, Blade's nemesis has been experimenting with a way to become the perfect vampire and has created a number of other vampires in the process, though each group is unique for the episode. It was cool enough, but the awkward moment for me and absolutely nobody else, was the final battle. The villain a silver haired man with regenerative abilities sprouts blades from his arms to fight Blade and his sword. Change blade from balck vampire to Japanese cyborg and this was the ending of 7th Moon, though I wrote mine first before seeign this, I just hate that the comparison can be made and suggest I ripped off Marvel. On the other hand, it was one of the coolest battles I have ever seen!
As someone who is familiar with both the real Marvel and anime I was impressed with the effort, however, honestly, it seemed like fan fiction crossing popular Marvel characters with popular anime, ripping off some other anime and adding a couple characters which exist only for a Japanese audience to relate to. Still for fanboys and fangirls, this was a worthwhile romp. I haven't bothered to check where you can get these now, but if you can find them, give it a go.
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