#247: Makura no Danshi (2015)

 

Studio: feel., Assez Finaud Fabric

Director: Sayo Aoi

Screenplay: Ayumi Sekine and Yuniko Ayana

Voice Cast: Natsuki Hanae as Merry; Ayumu Murase as Hareto Enokawa; Daisuke Kishio as Yonaga Sagiri; Daisuke Namikawa as Sōsuke Tanaka; Kousuke Toriumi as Shirusu Mochizuki; Nobunaga Shimazaki as Nao Sasayama; Shinnosuke Tachibana as Yayoi Sagiri; Sora Takahata as Eiji Kijinami; Toshiyuki Morikawa as Yūichirō Iida; Yoshimasa Hosoya as Kanade Hanamine; Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Yū Maiki; Yuichiro Umehara as Ryūshi Theodore Emori

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Your butt gets tense...

Using that quote because I am incredibly juvenile, I was hoping to come into Makura no Danshi as a curiosity, not like any anime I have yet encountered, and with a significant change of pace in terms of its gaze being entirely on men as attractive figures which I deliberately wished to sort out. Even as not the target audience as a heterosexual man, this was a deliberate choice to place myself into the position of another audience, apt as when I get into this mini-series, it is entirely from first person. Sadly I have to damn this micro-series, twelve episodes and four minutes each, for one episode which is incredibly insidious and undefendable, and honestly, and as an anime series I had heard of as it appeared on lists of one of the strangest ever made, I also felt disappointed with the rest of the episodes as it completely misses the intended goal.

Broadcast summer 2015 originally before Crunchyroll brought it to the West on their streaming service, Makura no Danshi has a very idiosyncratic structure. Each episode presents a new male character who directly talks to the viewer, helping them to sleep in the end. Until one of the later episodes, the gender of you the viewer is never mentioned, only making the faceless protagonist female in that later episode, opening up an entire spectrum of perspectives for this show. The unfortunate episode undercuts this, but the point is that whether it is a male librarian to the slightly dim-witted hunk in school, you are to crush on this representations of archetypes animated and voiced by male actors. The title translates to "Pillow Boys", the idea of men who help one to sleep just by talking to them or as you never hear your own dialogue, just one half of a conversation, them talking to you. There is clearly a fetishishtic side to this, but is also something which in itself here is not a bad thing at all as a concept even with that attractive allure of these characters, especially as the opening credits are more explicit then the show itself in having some of these characters, drawn with abs of pure steel, with their shirts almost dissolved off in a dishevelled sexy look. This premise in a form already existed as well as a Japanese live action drama series Shima Shima (2011), in which a business ran by a divorced woman sent handsome men to help female customers sleep, sending them over for the night not as sex workers but a form of emotional conform for those suffering from sleeping issues.

The anime itself is very idiosyncratic as, with mentioned, the other character is you the viewer, and most of the conversations are half one communicating to the viewer from the first person. The anime, in one of its flaws structurally, does break this continuity for no particular reason, which adds to the strangeness of the premise but does undercut the illusion. In terms of the "boys" themselves, they follow archetypes, be it the intellectual one, to the miscreant outsider who broads on the roof of the school like a cat who is unaware he is now human. There is also unintentional creepiness in the flower arranging twins. Their episode is an accidental case of creepiness in which their playfulness, including the game of find the flower in their clothes, feels less erotic and more the viewer trapped about to be killed. Also, it is about here we get to the contentious episode, the one which frankly as a viewer makes me wary to return to the series. That is Episode 7, which is about Hareto Enokawa, who is a five year old boy. It is creepy, even though the dialogue is the equivalent of having to babysit the son of someone you know, obsessed with a sentai show and the pair of you feeling tired as he wears you out as your charge, but in context, when these characters are meant to be fantasies, this is an alarm bell moment. Considering the point of each is that these are meant to represent various forms of guy of interest, it raises uncomfortable questions, even if accidentally distorting something innocence, of what the target viewer for this episode takes from this kid. It is a terrible creative decision for the studio feel. and Assez Finaud Fabric to have made as, yes, whilst others are teenagers, which is just as dubious, this in itself is the kind of thing even with the cheery context which has uncomfortable implications whether a pure misguided decision or intentional, which would be even worse to consider.

The work as well is missing a lot of potential. This is a curious premise, notwithstanding that episode I feel comfortable bringing up, but one which is missing that one touch to make it something far more rewarding. None of these pillow boys barring one ever stand out, the one who does managing in less than four minutes to show you could have done a whole series about him, set in his setting, and still keep the first person perspective where you the viewer are interacting with him. That being the one old guy, Yūichirō Iida, proudly calling himself the creepy one despite being the perfect dad fantasy figure, the oden food stall man who drinks on the job, reads shoujo manga for inspiration (shoujo meaning targeted for girls), shows off his appendicitis scar like a fight wound, and admits his body is breaking down despite looking (even as a drawn character voiced and animated) like the ultimate fantasy of the bumpkin some anime fans (of both genders) would want to sweep off them off their feet. The dialogue in this episode is actually funny, and I give full credit to their voice actor for the episode too, voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa, who at even this show was a veteran of the industry. He is also a veteran for the video game industry, and among the characters gamers will see as iconic he has voiced, anyone who has a passing interest in the legacy of Final Fantasy 7 (1997), in its tie-ins in animation and other games, will have heard Morikawa as Sephiroth, one of the whole Final Fantasy franchise's most iconic characters. In terms of how a seiyuu can make one appreciate even a show that is dubious and/or not great for their commitment, Morikawa in less than four minutes provided a memorable episode in what is, frankly, a weird curiosity which does not really get the potential of this show. As mentioned in this paragraph, imagining if this entire show as about the relationship between the unseen protagonist, you with possible narcolepsy, and the booze loving oden food stall man is an acquired taste not all viewers would like, but would have been a compellingly odd and enticing title if it had been pulled off. Even if they had made a show about a variety of "pillow boys" but had extended it out to multiple episodes with a few, and Toshiyuki Morikawa and this character were kept, we could have still gotten a good show regardless of its purpose and the target audience if the production focused on both a sleep aid but one disguising a set of character dramas.

Makura no Danshi even ends on a strange note with the first pillow boy bookending the show, the one behind the quote starting this review in his awkwardness, seemingly able to change ages and seemingly a sheep plush on your bed you imagined was a cute boy. This type of anime I admit fascinates me, when it is not just a narrative work but, with plot or not, it presents itself as deeply unconventional or with a purpose you rarely find in Western animation, in this case a sleep aid which is also depicts the various fantasies of men to gaze at as they talk to you. Unfortunately, one of these episodes means that I really cannot really recommend this, as it will be as creepy for many viewers as it was for me. Ultimately, as well, this is not a great anime too, a low budgeted affair which, even for its premise, even in terms of breaking its own cardinal rule of being entirely from first person, does not fully take advantage of its form and minimal production value to be something memorably quirky or a good sleep aid. It stays as a curiosity, from what I would call the "Crunchyroll era" of strange anime which you only get nowadays, when once it would have been fan made subbed releases, that only becomes available through that streaming service and others needing content. Stuff like this, especially these micro-series, are fascinating for what they are, even if as in this case, they are not always going to be great and even miss potential.