Patalliro! - S01

Patarillo! takes place in a society that is much like ours in most ways, with one clear twist. The manga it is based on is one of the many works read by adolescent Japanese girls that includes a healthy share of gay men and beautiful teenagers, aka bishounen (beautiful boys). Most of the action happens in Marinera, the land of eternal spring, located somewhere in the South Seas. The country is a major diamond producer; those diamonds provide much of the basis for conflict in the anime series. They come from one of the most productive mines in the world, owned by the king of Marinera, the vertically challenged but horizontally endowed boy-king Patarillo himself. The International Diamond Syndicate, a huge semi-criminal organization and secret society dedicated to taking over the world's entire diamond supply, wants that mine and will stop at nothing to get it. In the early episodes they send a number of bishounen assassins to kill Patarillo, which makes it necessary for him to have a bodyguard, the English MI6 agent Major Jack ("Bishounen-Killer") Bancoran. Bancoran's nickname does not mean he shoots bishounen in cold blood. The name comes from the fact that no male under the age of 17 can resist his sexual fascination. This, to Bancoran's eternal disgust, includes Patarillo himself. The action often switches from Marinera to MI6 headquarters in London (London seems to be an easy two hour's flight from the South Seas) or Bancoran's palatial condo in the suburbs of the same. (MI6, be it noted, looks a lot like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, while Jack's "apartment" bears a passing resemblance to Randolph Hearst's spread.) The action also goes into the past and future and out into space. Patarillo evidently gets around.