You couldn't imagine that this character was designed by a Japanese artist, eh?

The ever-expanding French softco Titus have secured the rights to publish Manga-style Japanese beat 'em up Eretzvaju. But we can't pronounce that, so it's been renamed Evil Zone...
Steve Bradley

Lawks! Yet another beat 'em up?
Oh yes. Evil Zone differs from many bashers in that it's keenly influenced by the whole Japanese Manga scene, the celebrated form of animation found in comic books and cartoons in the Land of the Rising Sun. Anime characters tend to be very westernised in appearance, with huge eyes and pointed noses. It's a very stylised form of pop art and hugely popular. Each of Evil Zone's 10 pugilists are drawn in this style and those familiar with Manga will be shocked to learn that one of them is a schoolgirl.

Any other cool characters?
The Japanese love their character biographies and some of them are delightfully over the top. Take Laindowell Reinrix. He's into the occult, he's murdered his parents, he takes drugs and he's an unemployed rock musician. Actually, by the time Evil Zone is released over here, Sony might have taken steps to make these biographies a little less graphic. Nevertheless, they're delightful guff ('He has a 'soundless piano' which converts the powerful one's power into a sound, and he is very interested in Ikadulka, whose power is capable of making the piano produce sound'). There's also a robot, the fulsome chick Eril Prose ('A Perenially Cheerful Girl'), and the usual magicians, warriors and martial artists.