Ever have an "Oh my God" moment when spraying on a fragrance and taking it in for the first time? Well, I certainly had one with this little doozy, but more on that later. Bogart brought in some big guns with a young pre-Firmenich/pre-Guerlain Thierry Wasser, fresh off his perfume debut with Salvadore Dali Pour Homme (1987), coupled with Ron Winnegrad, the late-70's wonder perfumer who brought us both the original Lagerfeld/Lagerfeld Classic cologne and Dunhill Blend 30 in the same year. The two combined crafted a masculine floral that was part of a brief late-80's resurgence of the old Victorian style, but like several of it's contemporaries, was augmented with powerful animalics, building up and making more sophisticated the basic one-two punches of earlier powerhouses such as Kouros (1981) or Bogart's own One Man Show (1980). Furyo was part of a new but short-lived generation of slightly more unisex and friendlier powerhouses that were meant to carry men into the 90's in place of the heavy bergamot/oakmoss/woods battle axes they were still wearing, but history would see to it otherwise. Furyo, just like classmates Balenciaga Ho Hang Club (1987), Paco Rabanne Ténéré (1988), Azzaro Acteur (1989), Balenciaga Pour Homme (1990), and Jacomo Anthracite (1991), would be swept away mid 90's after their competition for the future of men's fragrance defeated them: aromachemical aquatics, ozonics, and "fresh" fougères. These much lighter, simpler, easier-to-understand fragrances rebooted men's perfume aesthetics back to all the smell-alike barbershop fougères of the 60's, but with the added plus of being cheaper to produce and eventually focus-group-tuned for mass appeal. Poor old Furyo and friends would be lumped into the same dinosaur exhibit with the stiff oakmoss powerhouses they sought to replace, but with even less chance at legacy buyers because they were on the shelf for not even half as long. It's a crying shame really, but ultimately I can see why, as like with everything else in this special club, Furyo is very much a niche scent, just before ultra-high-end niche-interest perfume was even a thing. Furyo has a similar built-in sprayer like most Bogart bottles, but comes in a gorgeous red glass presentation with faux-gilded details on the sprayer head/cap mechanism, giving it an ultra-high-class feeling compared to other bottles at this time which were going for modern art aesthetics or blocky 80's industrial minimalism. Not only does the juice inside smell profound, but the visual presentation is one of Bogart's classiest and most profound as well, without looking pretentious like bejeweled Lalique bottles of ages past.
Furyo starts with a bizarre dandy-like fruits and flowers opening that instantly sets it apart from anything else in it's rare class. Traditional opening notes of lavender, artemisia, coriander, and bergamot are joined by fig leaf, juniper berries, and laurel. The berries and fig make themselves readily apparent right away, with the more conventional top notes blurring into a smooth accompaniment. Before long, you realize just how floral this actually is, and how it's predominantly a rose scent much like Ténéré and Acteur, sitting somewhere between Ténéré's dry rose (and unfortunate slight carpet deodorizer vibe for that reason), and Acteur's sweeter near-feminine damask rose. The middle is where this rose lives, supported by indolic jasmine similar to another rare latter-day masculine dandy scent called Aramis 900 (1973), but unlike the grassy galbanium used to slightly neuter the femininity of the rose, here in Furyo it's augmented further with geranium and spicy cinnamon. The top and middle are pretty wild, but in the base we get both urinous civet and the sharp, almost waxy castoreum, imbuing Furyo with the projection and sillage of Caesium-137, just without making your skin glow like a drum of nuclear waste after you've sprayed it on. This sumo wrestler base has it's twin animalics further buffed with amber, patchouli (which definitely comes through after some skin heat), vetiver, vanilla, oakmoss and white musk. The end wear of Furyo is rich, sweet, inviting, yet frighteningly muscular and challenging, making me wonder if this was made to be both attractant and passive vetting of potential romantic liaisons all in one. He or she who dares is he or she who wins when approaching a person wearing Furyo, that's for damned sure. Several people who tried this before me warned of a heavy nag champa note, and I have plenty of various nag champa incense (most of it from Shrinivas Sugandhalaya and the like), but I've burned enough of it to say that maybe this slightly compares to the smell of the box, but not the actual product when burned, and I don't really get that powdery-piquant nag champa vibe at all after the opening, although I do understand that such a swirl of fruit and heavy florals in the top and middle could make a nag champa ghost at the very end, where I can finally detect it.
What I do get here is the Alpha Male of the late-80's masculine floral pack. It's strong where Ho Hang Club isn't, sweet where Ténéré isn't, animalic where Acteur isn't, and is only really rivaled by Balenciaga Pour Homme, which also has a respectable animal growl but only with one such ingredient and not two like Furyo, making it the beta if anything to Furyo's alpha. Furyo deservedly gets recollections of room-clearing might from folks who used it back in the day, and despite it's floral delicacies, is every bit the horny monster -if not more- that the earlier powerhouses were. I don't believe I've smelled much stronger. Perfumer Thierry Wasser seems most likely responsible for the very flirtatiously floral top and middle, while Ron Winnegrad, knowing his past work, was likely responsible for the monster base that has not one but two scary animalics in it. The key underlying difference between Furyo, and something like Antaeus (1981), is Furyo achieves it's massive power without being overly macho, since the animalics work under the other notes and not over top them, making it strong in a more general way like some of the siren-song feminine powerhouses of the decade. This is easily my favorite of this late-80's transitional floral crowd, because it doesn't even try sitting on it's hand, but rather just goes out and gets what it wants, with a rose corsage to soften the blow it lands. It's easy to see why this is the among the most difficult to find and more expensive of the universally-discontinued lot, since it's got both performance and unique character (with Balenciaga Pour Homme again being the only rival), while the rest usually have just one or the other. If you do end up tracking this down and buying a bottle, please be careful with application, as even a standard three-spray to neck, chest, and face will leave you gasping in a cloud for a good hour. You don't have to apply this to your shirt to extend the top notes either, as just having that shirt touch skin will inevitably scent it, this stuff is that potent. I mean, what do you want for a fragrance with a name that translates roughly from Japanese to "prisoner of war"? I was excited, enticed, and scared all at once, hence my reaction. Epic stuff for sure but really very niche in interest, especially in the 21st century. Furyo doesn't feel made with a context in mind, but just as "perfume for art's sake", which is a mindset not typically afforded perfumers working for designer houses, even highly-reputable ones like Bogart, which makes this that much more of a gem. Just please, whatever you do, sample this if at all possible before you believe all the hype (including mine), or you may regret it. This stuff pulls no punches AT ALL.