Japanese artists are celebrating the recent release of a gay crime film with their one interpretations of the main character.
When it comes to movie releases, Japan typically gets the short end of the stick. Typically, at least a month passes from when a Hollywood movie releases in the U.S. to when it releases in Japan. And the same can be said for El Angel.
Last year, we started to report on El Angel. The movie, which premiered in the U.S. in November of 2018, focuses on a seventeen-year-old in 1970s Argentina named Carlitos Robledo (played by Lorenzo Ferro). Robledo grew up with an obsession of taking other people’s things, and that naturally evolved into an adolescent stage buried in crime.
The film then shows Robledo meeting another teen named Ramón (played by Chino Darín). Together, the two become a “Bonnie and Clyde” ask duo who end up at the center of a major murder investigation. And thanks to his good looks, Robledo is given the title “The Angel of Death.”
The film, which was based off of real events with a gay romance plot based on an exaggeration of public suspicion, made $1,515,339 in Argentina on its opening weekend and received critical acclaim. It was even Argentina’s submission for the “Best Foreign Language Film” category at the 91st Academy Awards in 2019. Unfortunately, it didn’t win.
And now, a year after its original release and 3/4ths of a year after its U.S. release, the film is making its way to Japan. In order to honor that release, BL (Boys’ Love or gay romance) comic artists have joined together to release a series of artwork inspired by the film.
Asumiko Nakamura(Classmates), Delico Psyche (Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit), Dayoo (Young Bad Education), Mushiba (Tengoku in Hell), Billy Balibally (Mayonaka no Orphe), Uri (Akuma wa Fancy Allergy), and Kyōichi (Flowers Bloom as the Night Unravels), created their own versions of Carlitos Robledo.
The artwork will be exhibited at Shibuya Sine quint theater for the duration of El Angel’s film distribution in Japan, which starts on August 16.
Sources: Comic Natalie, Anime News Network
