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| From http://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/9/1/6/5/ 165c5fe0-dd29-012d-2040-0050569428b1.jpg |
Director: Akiyuki Simbo
Screenplay: Tatsuhiko Urahata
Based on a manga by Saki Okuse
Voice Actors: Toshihiko Seki (as
Shijo Tsunami); Emi Shinohara (as Tachibana Shizuka); Hiroya Ishimaru (as Tenku);
Akira Kamiya (as Huang Long); Urara Takano (as Chen Long)
Viewed in Japanese with English subtitles
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| From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/ film/twilight-of-the-dark-master/w1280/twilight-of-the-dark-master.jpg |
The month is October, and
Halloween is on the horizon, so its apt to cover horror or supernatural themed
anime. What's surprising is that in comparison to manga and live action cinema
in Japan, there's not as much in anime in the genre as you'd presume there to
be. There's still a bit to dig through, but not a lot, and only some of it is
known well and less than that has high regards to it. Even with the issues of
censorship on television placed aside, as supernatural horror could be done
without gore or adult content, there's not a lot in comparison to other genres.
This means the existing horror anime is an eclectic bunch from various decades
and formats.
The first starting off this month
is an early entry by director Akiyuki
Simbo, who's had an interesting career trajectory since this
straight-to-video OVA, his later work very well regarded and popular such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011-2013),
certainly the kind of work that'll be covered in the future. Twilight of the Dark Master is from an
entirely different era than today, a short less than fifty minutes long, a
snapshot left open with only tantalising details to digest. Set within a
futuristic metropolis, there's no qualms as in other anime of mixing genres,
mixing dystopian sci-fi with demons and magic not that far a stretch for the
medium. The stereotypically debonair and bidanshi male hero Shijo Tsunami is
the protagonist, a white haired magical being who hunts down monsters whenever
they appear, blowing them up with ease with his supernatural powers. Alongside his
more human buddy Tenku, they are requested by a traumatised woman named Tachibana
Shizuka to locate her fiancée for her, a man who transformed into a demon
causing her to lose an arm and suffering further mutilation, wanting to put his
out of his mystery with Tsunami and Tenku's help. The search leads to sinister
activities around a sex club and pharmaceutical company owned by the same
organisation, making illegal steroids that turn people into monsters and have
the fiancée locked up in the club's secret rooms for nefarious purposes.
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| From http://www.silveremulsion.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/10/twilightofthedarkmaster_7.jpg |
The result is a nightmare of
gory, sex filled plotting in a grimy setting where there's no daylight, only night-time
atmosphere and bright lights, a place a skyscraper can be cut in half with
magical powers but no one seems to care about the possible destruction and
large body count that is caused by it. What appeals about these pre-Millennial
OVAs is that even terrible ones show an unpredictability and style to them. Speaking
of this in the context of the Halloween season, they managed due to whatever
trends were taking precedent at the time to blend genres into dark, moody
pieces. Moments are so blatantly lurid but in a serious way that it's quite
shocking to see some of the content in this, even if it's far from the annuals
of sleaziest and bloodiest anime ever made, the sincerity of say, the Chinese
brother and sister combo on the villain's side with their incestuous, sadistic
personalities more pronounced when it's clear the anime is doing it more
deliberately and to purposely get a jolt from the viewers. The areas of body
horror and transgression in Japanese storytelling have always been an art form
in itself, a league of its own where even the most tasteless examples are still
stupefying inventive in how they distort the human body or mix mythology, pop
culture and plain nonsensical ideas together into images.
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| From http://movies.livemall.co/movie/1010162 |
The bloodier, sexually explicit
anime made for video showed this immensely, this example willing to throw up
images briefly onscreen that distort human anatomy into various startling ways.
From the melding of flesh and machinery, Tachibana Shizuka gaining a metal arm
and steel plates on her mid torso since the traumatic incident with her fiancée,
to a brief moment of two sets and legs and arms caressing someone like they
were almost a phallic figurine, there are the sorts of visceral images and
ideas here that are distinct to Japanese pop culture, that which you don't seen
in other countries' takes on these genres. There's a uniqueness to the level of
distortion and manipulation, of symmetry against lack of it, the notions of
beauty and ugliness, sexuality to violence, man against beast or demons, that
are only found in Japanese movies, animation, comic books and literature.
What's also interesting, as seen with
Twilight of the Dark Master, is that
for every horrifying one in terms of their politics, they're a lot more (perversely)
palatable in depicting transgression than a lot of the anime past the Millennium
I've seen. Even when there's stuff that's just titillation, a surprising amount
of sexuality and nudity in this anime than I remember, it still feels more
considered and beyond purely fan service even when the plot is slight.
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| From https://chinesecartoons.files.wordpress.com/ 2011/03/vlcsnap-2011-03-20-19h11m49s90.png |
A problem now, especially with
sex comedies that try to have serious tonal shifts or don't plot their scenes
out well, is that there's a shocking amount of moments I've encountered in more
modern anime that are not transgressive but just uncomfortable and tasteless, wherever
they include badly presented content or just make ill-advised decision
prioritised by titillation the audience. That a lot of it is in the treatment
of female characters makes it worse, and while this might sound insane to read,
at least for how shocking and disgusting Urotsukidoji:
The Legend of the Overfiend (1989) is, it was as much a work of shock value
as well as an elaborate narrative. There's something far worse even then Overfiend in moments of innocuous and
dumb shows like High School DxD (2012),
(entry #6 of the blog), where they go into transgressive content briefly but in
context of abrupt tonal shifts and in the context of shows where they feel
badly out of place. Something like Twilight
of the Dark Master, even if it's still a lurid, esoteric sci-fi fantasy,
feels like it's using the moments of gore and sex to more thoughtful reasons
rather than merely planting it repeatedly through scene after scene.
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| From http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-LJv3_10f7E/hqdefault.jpg |
That the short anime takes itself
seriously helps. The atmosphere you find here has been lost in a lot of anime
now as well. That its hand drawn animation is as much part of it, the great
moody anime of now of a different type of style. Here there's a tone to the
story which saves the short anime from its derivative aspects, the sight of a
cyber metropolis skyscrapers looming above the streets potent, imaging and
seeing the grotty urban streets below and the demons lurking there, saturating
the scenes like decoration. The visuals for the anime help, exceptional anime
and memorable character designs, an atmospheric score by Keishi Urata evocative and adding to the tone.
Brief moments of arcane imagery
stand out against bio-horror imagery of machines and medical tubes, moments of
Cronenbergian imagery with a Japanese twist here, such as what takes place in
the sex club, not a single bared breast seen but enough to see to shock a
viewer, naked flesh covered in living technology, of semi-transparent
multicoloured claws and tendrils wrapping around people, as a soundtrack of
pained orgasms fill the viewers' ears. That this is back in an era where OVAs
had a lot of adult characters, rather than now when you seem to trip over high
school set anime, adds to this, feeling as if on a different perspective in its
content. For the lack of an overreaching plot, little time to cover a great
deal, Twilight of the Dark Master has
an ominous tone even when set in bright rooms, a mood palatable in the animated
frames that makes up for the plot's lack of content. The mix of the horrible
and beautiful stands out far more than the utterly hockey bits, making it an
anime that I cannot help but find enjoyable despite the flaws.
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| From http://www.anime-kun.net/animes/ screenshots/twilight-of-the-dark-master-1106.jpg |
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