#101 to #150 Retrospective [Part 3]: The Lovepon Award and Strangest Moments

The Lovepon Award for Voice Actor Commitment

One of these days, I hope to talk about the craft of voice acting more. Namely my hesitance stems from the face, through a language I do not know, because I am unsure yet whether I can gauge a great Japanese language performance fully yet. Sadly, whenever I have had only the English dub available, I have encountered many which were terrible or bland, hence why I became a "purist" and watched the Japanese language versions. That is not to say there have never been great English dubs, but the reason switched to the other side was never purism, but quality.

But, let us have one award, originally for an entirely different type of category when I joked of it for The Lost Village (2016), which is now an award for two halves. For those in voice acting who work so professionally with very dubious material, this shall be a reminder that voice acting in Japan and the West is still a job for pay, where I nod to those who still gave their best even with material of questionable origins. For those in voice acting as well, in great material, who yet have to stretch themselves to absurd lengths, a dexterity when even in a good anime you encounter bizarre content.

A) Commitment to the Dubious

3) And yet we will start with an English dub, despite my negative comments earlier, because Brad Bradford for Mr. Mystery in Arcade Fighter Fubuki (2002-3) was one of the few striking virtues, playing a masked hero and mentor to the main female character with all the exaggerated bombast you would hope for in such a character in a comedy. Yes, Mr. Mystery was sadly still fixated on her "passion panties", but we also had someone who acted like a theatre performer to the backseats, and had to be stoic as one of the few characters who, if he was hurt or jumped through a glass window, actually felt the pain and injuries. I have found English dubs, returning to them, excessively broad for me for the most part, with this an exception where, if you are going for this tone, a silly comedy is perfect for it.

2) Speaking of dubious, Ahegao W Peace Sensei from My Sister The Writer (2018) could have been a very transgressive and fascinating character, a female erotic artist whose tastes however are for material which is still very uncomfortable and difficult for many in terms of eroticised degradation and dark fantasies. However you can only think for actress Chinatsu Akasaki, for a show clearly catering for male heterosexual viewers. That as well as having a day job where you have to star in this incest romance, one line is literally her character saying "I like degrading rape porn" cosplaying in a bikini as casually as possible like regular human conversation. Bless Akasaki, even if that is uncomfortable for most viewers, the bubbliness of the performance, for a stereotypical big breasted and blonde character with an added lack of censorship in discussing fetishes and sex, nearly soften the experience.

1) But, the award stems from Lovepon from The Lost Village, a bizarre show where I am unsure whether it was intentionally a parody or the production drove its bus off the road immediately. The Crunchyroll comments section added so much perverse entertainment to my viewing, although the vitriol to one character, Lovepon, was so severe it might have led to this fascination with the character, even empathy for a fictional creation, and creating a gag blog post section here. Eventually revealed to be a very psychologically damaged teen girl, she is also however already visible deranged in a cartoonish way in the first episode, before the tour bus ever gets to the titular village, and has voice actress Ai Kakuma screaming "Execute!" over and over again per episode.

And Kakuma commits to this. This side of the imaginary award is a recognition that voice actors - like the animators - have to work and they have to continue regardless of the quality of the final creation. So this joke merely to amuse myself comes with empathy that helps grow my appreciation of Japanese animation much more.

 

b) Commitment to the Virtuous

3) When it comes to great work, any production from gdgd Fairies alumni usually means heavy improvisation and expecting the unexpected each week as a performer. For Himote House (2018), whilst it has major flaws, you have the female cast - Satomi Akesaka, Suzuko Mimori, Sumire Uesaka, Kaoru Mizuhara, Tae Hongou and Asuka Nishi as their talking cat Enishi - having to be on the ball for improvised sketches to acting out even a card game. Like gdgd Fairie, everyone looks a greater performer as a result, a great form of acting training just to be in these quirky micro series that became popular in the 2010s of characters just conversing about weird things.

2) The stereotypical tsundere, common in anime and manga, is the character (usually female) who is stand offing and cold, only to show a warmer side as they are comfortable with another character. In broader comedy, that can include beating the main male character up. It is a role that could just be generic, but Satsuki Yukino as Kaname Chidori, in Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (2003), shows how it is a great character type for comedy. Even if the animators at Kyoto Animation were not as on top as they were, managing to bring in facial ticks and body language in for the punch lines, Yukino committed to the role beautifully.

1) A lot of figures from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (2010) could have been on this list. Particularly Arisa Ogasawara as Panty as, sadly not acting as much as Mariya Ise (Stocking) has, she has to play the most abrasive of the titular duo and stands out, also probably one of the few Japanese voice performers who can credibly make English cussing work. But, what is true actor commitment to a production than to play the comedic mascot, who is maimed, run over, diced into cubes, and treated like a joke whilst only being able to say his name? Hence, Takashi Nakamura as Chuck gets the prize. The irony is that, whilst not a slight to anyone at, all, Nakamura has no other credits unless it is Takashi Nakamura the animator/animation director/director, a veteran who has been working since at least the seventies on shows like Yatterman (1977) which, if the same person, adds a greater sense of humour.

 

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The CGI Bus Award for Strangest Moments

Another indulgent award, but with a spoiler warning, as this reflects on all the bizarre sequence I have witnessed and titbits I have encountered. I've decided not to include the ending of Adolescence of Utena (1999) as, whilst exceptionally strange, it is also exceptional. This is for all the weird moments which, good or bad, are definitely memorable. A reminder that the least expected should be appreciated as they are the scenes (or episodes) which linger for you.

Someone turning into a bowl of ramen in Aragami SS (2010) is a great example, unexpected especially for a realistic romantic comedy/drama, even if it has parallel realities as a gimmick, this was never signposted beforehand. The Lost Village in general - because abrupt plot shifts, weird CGI penguin monsters and the CGI bus which christened this award are just among the many curious moments which could have been chosen. How death by toilet transpires in Calamity of a Zombie Girl (2018), or that the protagonist of Mad Bull 34 (1990) coming to a night-time sting operation with grenades tied to his pubic hair in his trousers. Yuri Seijin Naoko-san's end credits, for the 2010 anime, where being on a train in the countryside manages to make an already bizarre six minutes weirder, and the two avant-garde episodes of Serial Experiments Lain (1998) make an already more esoteric show, including a cameo by a little grey man, more unconventional than it already was.

All honourable mentions alongside times where a show can deliberately catch you off-guard, such as the Gainax ending to Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt that concludes the series on a cliffhanger and an abrupt heel turn. Some of you will be aware of the "Gainax Ending", where Gainax productions suddenly change tone drastically or end curiosity, though this one after the end credits on the final episode was clearly a mean and funny joke. Especially as, barring in comic book form, we never got a second season. Sometimes it is something that makes a show better, such as Sarazanmai's obsession with butts, which is funnier knowing a) in Japanese mythology, kappas actually eat a person's soul by sucking it out of the anus, and b) Kunihiko Ikuhara snuck it past the producers without them realising. Sometimes it does not work but you cannot help but think about it, such as sexy versions of Die Hard (1988) and Saw (2004)? Yeap, the final OVA for My Sister, The Writer felt bombs that had to be disarmed by incestuous arousal and being locked in the same grimy bathroom of the first Saw film were sexy.

 

5) Starting off with a mildly odd sequence however, but perfect as it helped a show gain personality, is when Lunar Legend Tsukihime (2003) not only asks the question of how an immortal female vampire has money to hide in human society, but shows that she has being counterfeiting it much to the male protagonist's surprise, an amusing joke that really helped soften a show that really had flaws

4) Gun x Sword's swimsuit episode, in which a matriarchal town still demands its all female residents to wear ultra skimpy swim wear, is abrupt, only managing to work because the episode is both ludicrous and hilariously is needed for the whole series' plot. That there is a TV cut, despite the uncensored version still being tame, really adds to the strangeness.

3) The penultimate episode of Key the Metal Idol (1994-7) is a strange experience, which could accidentally undermine a great series for a viewer. It is a feature length exposition dump, much needed and surreal by the end, but even if it is compelling, it comes out of nowhere in what has to be explained.

2) La Blue Girl Returns (2001-2) has a sequence where, to be blunt, two female characters apply magic lotion to each other by tribbing. Yes, the sensual act, thus having lead to the scene being permanently fixed in my mind over the years, even from a butchered version of the OVA, for how weird it is. Especially because of how casually it transpires and is not even the focus of the scene, or an elaborate hentai sex, just happening in an exposition scene just because.

1) But, undoubtedly, and the reason behind the spoiler warning, is for the shock of how Arcade Gamer Fubuki ends, managing to make an entry on the Disappointing list still compelling. For the most part this was a dull show, only for the villain to be revealed to be a game developer mortified that his tech was being used for military purposes. Suddenly a problematic OVA series, which was on the worst list, has a flashback to him in a Middle Eastern desert using his martial arts strength to stop a ballistic missile in the air with his bare hands, as if the protagonist to an insane "jigoku" manga. It is dumbfounding but what you remember, for good and for bad should have the random impact and unpredictability of such a scene. Also considering this OVA has a velociraptor who could play videogames, even this title has a few aspects which could qualify as weird.

#101 to #150 Retrospective [Part 2]: Best Score and Best Song

Best Score

Honourable mention has to go to Sarazanmai (2019), composed by Yukari Hashimoto, with the added factor that it is also a musical. Yes, there are repeated songs, but they are good so there is nothing to complain about.

5) How strange is it that Zaion: I Wish You Were Here (2001) is both on the Most Disappointing list but also this one? This has happened entirely because you hired Kenji Kawai, regular collaborator with Mamoru Oshii, and his New Age infused score pulls this disappointing GONZO production to something which has an aspect to fondly remember.

4) Continuing the electronic based scores is Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985), which is of note as, when last time legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was mentioned, another member of the seminal band Yellow Magic Orchestra, its leader Haruomi Hosono, is nodded to this time as he composed this sombre film's sombre music. Of the era but suitably ethereal for this unique production, it adds to such a beautifully haunting film.

3) In contrast, Tekkonkinkreet (2006), a very idiosyncratic work adapted from a Taiyō Matsumoto manga, choose a soundtrack appropriate for its distinct art style in its energy and sense of bounce. Also befitting the production, the first with Michael Arias to be directed by a non-Japanese anime director, the composers are an English duo Plaid, adding a nice international flavour, especially as the film in its clear influence from Japanese crime films is taking their influence of their "borderless" aesthetics.

2) For distinct music, obviously Adolescence of Utena (1999) has to be mentioned, following on from the groundwork laid, and iconic, in the original 1997 television series. Alongside the pieces by Shinkichi Mitsumune, both the series and the film are of note for their songs by J.A. Seazer. Seazer, a theatre and film music composer, had only worked on one other anime, the notorious ero-guro independent production Midori (1992), and it is of note that one of his famous collaborators, the avant-garde filmmaker and polymath Shuji Terayama, was a huge influence on Kunihiko Ikuhara, making their collaboration symbolic. Mitsumune's music is exceptional but Seazer's - rock opera crossed with theatrical choral voices - is the magnum opus of the "cherry on top" for any production.

1) But...if I did not have Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt (2010) win the award, I would be an idiot. For a very odd production from studio Gainax and Hiroyuki Imaishi, the music is the one thing that even those who hated the show should have adored. So much music was created per episode by Taku Takahashi (M-Flo) and TCY Crew (TeddyLoid) which is admirable within itself, but the tracks which are repeated stick in the mind and add such a huge part of the show's personality.

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Best Song

A trademark for anime productions, especially television series, is that they have opening and ending theme songs or music. Usually they are songs as, not surprisingly, anime has always been a vehicle for promotion as it is an art medium, but the best examples become iconic as their shows are. Even in the less than expected areas, you can find some great music. Honourable mentions go to two instrumental tracks for example - the spaghetti western theme by way of Japanese instrumentation and manly vocal chanting for Gun x Sword (2005), and the Enya-like track for Luna Legend Tsukihime (2003), which helped bolster a fondness for me for a deeply imperfect series. Whilst none of the songs stand out, I have to admire the ambition and execution for Amagami SS (2010), which had individual end tracks for every female character, sang by their voice actress, for each narrative arch surrounding them.

5) The first is for a pre-existing track, which is less common in anime, but in the case of Serial Experiments Lain (1998) made an obscure song by British band Bôa become iconic in its connection to this legendary series. Normally I am not a fan of indie rock, but Duvet became an iconic aspect of the series' reputation, something I am sure the band were gland to be historically linked to.

4) Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (2003) has evidence that, whilst I actually find most J-pop songs in anime bland, add a Santana approved guitar lick and strong vocals, and Kimi ni fuku kaze ("The Wind Blows to You") by Mikuni Shimokawa is a gem. The end credits to Fumoffu stayed with me over the years, simple with its chibi (diminutive) versions of the characters marching along happily with this delightful song playing over, the combination perfectly suiting a comedy spin-off to an action franchise, one which is loved by some fans more than even the main series.

3) On the opposite spectrum, when requiring a heart pumping track, say for a giant robot show, I see why JAM Project can sustain a career as an "anison" (anime) theme band, as for the first series of Gravion (2002) they provide a great opening song. To the Gravion franchise's credit, whilst lyrically having nothing to do with the show, the pop punk show for the second series' end credits is also great, La♪La♪Bye by Honey Bee, but Nageki no Rosario is the kind of over-the-top and bombastic piece from this collective of a band that gets the blood pumping. Sadly, JAM Project's second song for the second series, whilst great, does find itself in the shadow of the first. Thankfully they bring it back once for the right dramatic moment possible,

2. There are many candidates from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, but it is not the opening and ending songs that became an ear worm, but D City Rock by TeddyLoid with Debra Zeer on vocals, introduced early on but even getting its own music video parody for one of the last episodes. It is the anthem for the show, and yes, it is catchy.

1) But, immediately from the get-go sinking into my heart, it would not be long after hearing Into the Night by Sario Kijima for the first time, for the fascinating OVA obscurity Key the Metal Idol (1994-7), I was enraptured by the song. A moody, jazz and electronica driven pop song of melancholia and desiring love, it fits the fact that, initially presuming this would be a quirky nineties production about a robot girl wanting to become an idol singer, I ended up instead with a structurally ambitious and dark sci-fi drama in its place.

#101 to #150 Retrospective [Part 1]: The Disappointing and The Weirdest

Another "best of" awards, but with one major difference - last time, between the 1st and the 100th being covered, there was over five years of a blog and also many titles to shift through for the last of these indulgent "awards". Feeling that was ridiculous last time, covering the last fifty anime I have covered is a wiser decision. It also offers a greater sense of introspection as, with fewer titles to go over, some may have a greater chance of recognition this year.

We start however with the "most disappointment". I am not happy to use the phrase "worst", and in fact, if anyone had a defence of these titles, I would be fascinated to hear their defence. They however mark out a common theme - the slippery slope of fan service, gross undercurrents in the depiction of sexuality, less than stellar CGI animation, very lazy screenwriting and a lot of padding.

The list is a testament that arguably the truly worse is not that which is compelling, as neither Mars of Destruction (2005) nor Skelter Heaven (2004) are not on the list. They are terrible creations, Skelter Heaven the most striking, but they are too short to have a negative impact, and compelling for me to watch. For some Mad Bull 34 (1990-2), a notorious Magic Bus adaptation of a Kazuo Koike manga, would justify its position on a worse list and feels even scuzzier nowadays in the summer 2020 with its take on an American bad cop with a heart and all its problematic interest in sexual violence. It yet is so bizarre, with so much that is weird within it, that I will feel even if it deserves to be on the list, there is material which is surprisingly worse and also without even that sense of a car crash fascination.

Oh, and likewise, La Blue Girl Returns (2001-2) does not get on the list for how bizarre it was too. Also, I had only covered the censored British release, which negates it for the list anyway as it is turned into something else for how much was cut out with scissors.

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The Disappointing

5) Arcade Gamer Fubuki (2002) starts off the list properly with a great premise, imagining if competitive video gaming contests were for the fate of the world, and even has Sega licensed properties, but instead is, urgh, fixated on young teenage girls' underwear instead. That elephant in the room, really creepy objectification which is presented even more here than in other anime, is found all alongside the fact this is an exceptionally lazy production in pace and story, only getting any interest when the final episode gets ridiculous in its plot details. That it is this low on the list is for the fact it is the most technically accomplished in production on the list, and for there to be some good moments (like Mr. Mystery's English voice actor) to soften the experience.

4) Out of all these titles Zaion: I Wish You Were Here (2001), studio Gonzo's attempt at an ONA (straight to online anime) early into their foundation and when this format existed, is unfairly among titles which are far more problematic. It also has one huge virtue in the score by Kenji Kawai, which is exceptional. It is also unfortunately the blandest title I covered, all the usual plot points reduced to their most apathetic. Worse is that this has a similar plot to Mars of Destruction - an alien infection turning people into mutants, sci-fi super soldiers, empty streets and shanky 3D models - but has less personality than the notorious bomb made a few years later, and feels worse as that production was less the nineteen minutes long. Hence, it has to be here.

3) Back to the unfortunate sleaze, and if there is any virtues with Sorcerer Hunters OVA (1996-7), a) it is the main theme, which is catchy, and b) I do want to see the original television series these were created for. These three episodes, which are allowed to be more adult and explicit, are fluff but unfortunate that also means the episodes suffer from their worse moments, baring a sweet final one surrounding a tree that only blossoms after long periods of time. These worse moments are unfortunately creepy sexual aspects, including what is the main hero, a klutz, effectively having a rape fantasy playing on in his head, and a gay stereotype. It is not a technically bad show, sometimes fun, but the combination of generic plots and the more problematic aspects means this deserves a place. It says a lot that one of your heroines' alternative forms, in her S&M costume, being based off The Night Porter (1974) is not the concern to have than other aspects.

2) Into the 2020s, unfortunately COVID-19 has left a drastic mark on life that is more significant. Anime has been affected, but titles were already completed before the brunt of it still were released, so even if television series and theatrical releases were delayed into the later months of 2020, and others until 2021, there are titles out there. It has also left the potential for The Island of Giant Insects (2020), unless it has been forgotten already from its Crunchyroll premiere, to be a significant title for the year too. Having seen Calamity of a Zombie Girl (2018), which I came to with zero expectations due to reviews, only to actually find a bit I liked, we can still touch back upon the older era of very lurid OVAs occasionally in the modern day.

The thing I do not want, which sadly this feature length production does, is this. Where, despite being a throwback to the eighties and nineties OVAs involving gore and sex, the violence was censored in the version I saw, and presents problematic sexual content that is very different from a deliberate ero-guro presentation, presenting as well how this is a production based in a schism. That it is, in its premise about such an island of giant insects, a hyper-sexed up and gorier take on an American fifties b-movie, but it is a modern anime production designed to sell nudity of drawn female characters, one that is both chaste and yet for more perverse in an uncomfortable degree than a deliberately transgressive version could have been. It is also a production, between its bad 3D insects and an egregious moment of padding involving a character walking down a corridor, that it is neither the compelling trash anime or something great but utterly inert.

1) Well, what else should be here but My Sister, the Writer (2018)? A production so notorious you have sympathy for the animation staff, which was leaving distress signals in the production credits. It is perversely not the incest plot, or even the character of Ahegao W Peace Sensei as a female creator with a taste for problematic transgressive porn, which will make one feel filthy, but how utterly innocuous the entirely ten episode show is. It is an incredibly bland series, and that is before we get to how bad the animation gets, a cavalcade of misaligned character faces and torsos, captions posted online as this show was sinking like a capsizing ship just two episodes in. It is not even a compelling bad work, but something utterly inane in spite of its problematic subject treatment, a downward spiral of when productions go wrong we will evoke in time to come if it is ever remembered.

 

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The Weirdest

The last time I made this award, and also again this time, the Weirdest will be the longest list as the strangest titles in pop culture have always fascinating and enticed me, with their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. Last year, the top spots were taken by the best, but this year, the rules have been changed (for the most part) to emphasis the weirdest, good and bad.

10) It is probably unintentional meanness to include Virtual-San Looking (2019) - this is not dissimilar to a large variety of shows about characters talking, but adding a new take is that it is a television series starring "virtual YouTubers", who take on moving avatars and personas, with the show filmed with these stars in character moving, to the point the digressions about the camera being unable to follow them are probably real. Virtual-San for an outsider, full of references I did not understand and with hyped up stars wanting to succeed springing about full of enthusiasm, is strange and compelling for a sight of an obscure community. Also, it is the one title on the list, to avoid it sounding a crass nomination, when it is given with affection like a parent to one happy to see their children creating something by themselves and trying their hardest.

9) You would be thinking a metaphysical contemplation of death, with the cast (mostly) depicted as humanised cats, with a scene of a character capturing candy birds, would be higher on the list. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985) is also a sombre film, methodical even in context of anime, arguably making this material much more meaningful and actually synthesize together into something truly profound. Undeniably though it is strange, including the fact that this is based on a novel unfinished by its creator by his death, with multiple versions before one finally became one of his most beloved pieces of literature, that this was also originally meant for children as a novel and the fact that the production felt it could only work by making the cast mostly cat humanoids, that becoming iconic to the point that whenever Kenji Miyazawa is depicted or adapted into anime, cat humanoids characters have been used multiple times. It is strange enough still but in a meaningful way.

8) And in the opposite direction, a lot of Gundam Reconguista in G (2014-5) feels like it makes no sense. The reason why what should be a very straight forward giant robot show drama, another entry in the iconic Gundam franchise, both gets onto this list and was, until 2019 and 2020, never even getting a compilation film or two afterwards, as is traditional for entries in the franchise, is because of Yoshiyuki Tomino. Tomino helped create this franchise, but it is also evident that he is a great idea man but a very erratic creator, here even penning the screenplay as well as directing like some mad auteur. Character mood swings of the extreme sort, tonal shifts, a main male character who comes off as a sociopath by accident and that is not even taking into account that, nowadays, a twenty six episode is rarer and, as a result, a long series which builds to a greater level with the confusing layers. Who knows what would happen if, like other Gundam series which were successful, this managed to have over fifty episodes.

7) Mad Bull 34 (1990-1992) is a deeply problematic OVA, the scuzzy tales of a New York City police officer and his new partner which will likely age far worse nowadays as the hero is both the cop on the edge, who uses violence and trigger happy justice, but has a heart of gold. As a Kazuo Koike adaptation, the legendary manga writer is notorious for never taking any conventional direction, and likewise in-between the uncomfortable levels of sleaze, you also however have someone having to gamble on which drink can has not been rigged with explosives, and a final episode which is the best for jettisoning the unsavoury content in favour of weirdness. As in someone killing police dressed as a Predator, involving a fight in a stadium with a cameo by an Alien franchise power loader and ending on a marriage-suicide pact on a snowy night.

6) La Blue Girl Returns (2001-2), even without the drastic censorship for the UK DVD release that makes the last two episodes incomprehensible, would have gotten onto this list for the first two, which have been permanently sketched into my brain for a long time. An unholy combination of hentai erotica and body horror action, where God or the creator of this world can be entered inside as a dimension, even into Their colon, and sexual ninja skills allow a woman to project acid from an intimate area alongside other talents. It is also meant to be a comedy despite all the rape that was excised, and everything as this is just after the 2000s began is colourfully gauche. And the studio, mostly known for a lot of non-hentai ecchi and erotica programming, also made Elfen Lied (2004) which now baffles me as, whilst it was a notorious and imperfect show with nudity and extreme gore, is one I will defend and had fans. How the same studio for that is also the same who made this, just a couple of years earlier, is a perplexing question.

5) The Burning Buddha Man (2013) is perversely more wholesome in comparison, and when the creator's nom de plume is "Ujica", the name for green tea ice cream, it reveals we have something special on our hands (and coming to the UK on Blu Ray with Violence Voyager (2018), thanks to Third Window Pictures). The innovator of "geki-mation", paper puppet stop motion done entirely by himself, his art style with grotesque detail is already distinct before you get to the plot, where a shady organisation are fusing themselves to stolen Buddhist statues to cheat in attaining enlightenment superpowers.

4) Yuri Seijin in Naoko-San, either the 2010 OVA or the 2012 OVA, are strange but the first is a holy grail of concentrated weirdness about a female alien from the Planet Yuri, wanting to make the world gay. Her attraction to little girls, which borders on a line between both OVAs as tasteless but also sickly funny, as is her habit in the second of leaving porn magazines everywhere even on the street. Here a super punch is super because a train can materialise on the tarmac of a street to hit the opponent. You can even ride said train, and someone suddenly has an existential crisis voiced in monologue by an increasingly deranged male voice. Yes, Yuri Seijin is peculiar. Unlike Utsu-musume sayuri (2004), a notorious three minute sort which never got on this list or the Disappointing one, because it just felt slight, together these two OVAs despite being only thirty six minutes together are memorable.

3) In the Aftermath (1988) marks the only bonus episode of the last fifty anime covered, but woo, what a curiosity it nonetheless was, made stranger knowing this alternative Roger Corman produced cut of Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg (1985) has even had Blu Ray releases in the West, even a British release through Arrow Video in 2019, but the original gem from Oshii is clearly stuck in a licensing or pricing issue. The history is weird enough and a warning of how "foreign" titles were once cut about to sell to English speaking countries - someone at Corman's New World Pictures, when they acquired the rights to the original existential gem, felt they could make the film better by adding live action sequences and turning an existential avant-garde sci-fi about loss of faith into a regular post apocalypse story. Their attempt to make the film better, reeking of narrow-mindedness, managed to make even less sense as men cry about there being no fish and spirit girls being spanked with meteorites. I openly admit I enjoyed the film but, yeah, managing to be this weird when trying to make something make more sense is also hilarious.

2) Whilst I said this list would have more emphasis on the weirdest anime, there are exceptions and Adolescence of Utena (1999) is both one of the oddest things in even Kunihiko Ikuhara's career, which speaks plenty, but also exceptional. The idea behind the theatrical follow up film to his seminal 1997 television series is strange already, trying to condense a thirty plus episode story into under ninety minutes, is a challenge as is the fact it is clearly meant to be seen when you have already seen the series, much more darker in tone and franker about its LGBT romance in the centre.  (This was something which MVM Entertainment (bless their cotton socks) missed when they first licensed the film for a British DVD release.) A popular character only makes a cameo as a cow, and the world is a fairy tale high school crossed with an ever shifting M.C. Escher drawing. That is not even mentioned that someone in the ending turns into a car. It's one of the best sequences, one of the best conclusions, to an animated film of any origin, but it is certainly one of the weirdest too.

1) So, is it blasphemous that instead The Lost Village (2016) is number one? Well we can explain why Adolescence of Utena came to be as it did from Ikuhara, even in knowledge that he can be deliberately coy on interpretation, but with The Lost Village so much has to be asked. Mainly about what the hell transpired with this horror series even in terms of its existence. How did this turn out as erratically as it did? Was this an off-day for screenwriting superstar, and future director, Mari Okada, or was this deliberately a parody of horror as Nick Creamer at Anime News Network had argued. Can the blame be put on director Tsutomu Mizushima, who gained recognition in notorious black hearted comedies like Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan (2005), and whose work on horror like Another (2012) was never subtle to begin with?

Before we even get to the village, by episode one characters like Love Pon, a girl with distinctly shaped irises, are already visibly insane, and the CGI bus not only does stick out from the 2D animation, but also becomes a viable MVP for the series for all the times it appears out of nowhere and just misses running over a nearby character. One episode ends just about when a character confesses a truth, mid-sentence, like the ultimate tease to annoy viewers. Then a literal giant boob, a silicon implant the size of a mountain, appears to terrorise a character alongside other monstrosities, also rendered in CGI and thus a 3D boob. That is before The Lost Village really stumbles about dazed and ending with little concluded as it begun. Hence, a true candidate for the strange, and a possible candidate for a cult audience if a whole bunch of us deliberately watch this on Crunchyroll over and over, and confuse the people who run the site.  Oh, wait, Crunchyroll even published a defence of the series, so I think they would be smirking if we did.

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

#150: Tokyo Revelation (1995)

Director: Osamu Yamasaki

Screenplay: Mamiya Fujimura

Based on the Megami Tensei franchise

Voice Cast: Hikaru Midorikawa/David Lucas as Kojirō Sōma; Nobuyuki Hiyama/Alexis Lang as Akihito Kobayashi; Hekiru Shiina as Kyōko Shibusawa; Hideyuki Umezu as Gagyson; Kōichi Yamadera as Takehiko Kuki; Kotono Mitsuishi as Saki Yagami; Manami Komori/Debbie Derosa as Marika Kusaka; Toshiyuki Morikawa as Yōsuke Miura

Viewed in English Dub

[Some Major Plot Spoilers]

 

Teddy bears and knives, kinda weird.

An odd choice a special occasion, but also fitting as, to my surprise, the director of this obscure OVA also helmed Gesalt (1997), an obscure OVA that was the first I had ever covered. Also whilst one could have celebrated a rounded number with a known title, something like Tokyo Revelation is fascinating as much for what it stems from in terms of anime especially from the OVA era.

Tokyo Revelation is also not as special as I remember it, but I still see the strange if maligned aura it had that intrigued me. This is also another title from The Collection, a DVD series of old Manga Entertainment licenses from their VHS era that I am probably the only person obsessed over. Out of all of them, this is definitely one of the weirdest. It is also an apt choice for a special occasion as it's alternative name is Shin Megami Tensei: Tokyo Mokushiroku, which means it is a piece of a multi media behemoth called Shin Megumi Tensei that some of you might have recognised. Video gamers may know this franchise more than anyone else, if not from the Megumi Tensei games, but by its spin-off Persona, which is a big title from the 2010s on at least.

Megumi Tensei originates from a novel series Digital Devil Story by Aya Nishitani. Notable, the pieces of this franchise are not all necessarily connected, but instead can have separate single tales. In fact, reading on the franchise, it has always been drawing on many different inspirations - religion, occultism, philosophy, even Jungian psychology - which offer a great deal of variety of influences to the material. It is a branching tree as a result that has allowed a vast number of narratives to grow from its roots. Tokyo Revelations was the second anime in this franchise's history to be created, originally a two part OVA production at only an hour altogether, compiled as a fifty five minute film by Manga Entertainment. There is immediately the issue that this leaves very little time for this peculiar take on apocalyptic drama, crammed in details including its dated interests in virtual reality and really idiosyncratic touches.

The protagonist is Kojiro, who is likely a reincarnation of Masakado, the guardian of the Kanto region. This is explicitly Taira no Masakado, the real life samurai from the Heian period of Japan (794 to 1185), and a figure referred to other source, notably the lengthy Teito Monogatari, a seminal novel series (and debut) from polymath Hiroshi Aramata. Alongside becoming a figure of supernatural folklore, Masakado can claim credit to having influence a novel series which was adapted twice to live action, including in Akio Jissoji's blockbuster Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (1988) and, in another Manga Entertainment license which did not translate over to the DVD era, the notorious Rintaro OVA adaptation Doomed Megalopolis (1991).

The villain, one of them, is Akito Kobayashi, introduced deliberately causing an airplane to explode midair to harvest a force known as "magnetite". He is an old childhood friend of Kojiro, coming to his school as the mysterious transfer student, a trope common to many anime, and interesting in his classmate Saki, a virtuous female student rich in magnetite, a magical essence of life needed to summon a major demon. There is another force trying to protect Saki. There is another, never really defined or detailed in the slightest, which stay out of this conflict and is only of note for another female student with supernatural abilities called Kyouko, a freshman who has a crush on Kojiro and wishes to protect him. Even if it means giving him knives imbued with moon energy on school grounds abruptly.

The OVA for me is both evident of the absurdity of the formal's golden era, but also how it could be brimming in creativity even if such examples like this are mocked decades later in YouTube videos. On one hand, when a group of four girls are immediately smitten with Akito, he has them brainwashed in a demonic ritual circle to have an orgy with each other until demons can possess their bodies and go kidnap Saki. It is utterly lurid and silly. On the other is the major plot point, even stressed in body language, that Akito is actually a tragic villain, explicitly attracted to Kojiro, his interactions (at least one clearly) with a romantic attachment that Kojiro sadly rejects. Of course, there is the stereotype of the tragic gay character, which is just as problematic if frequent by suggesting that not being heterosexual means a life of tragedy. That said the ending, with a huge spoiler, was always the aspect of Tokyo Revelation among others that stayed with me. That, redeeming himself, Akito is able to get his wish by way of what is effectively a synchronicity of souls, as he sacrifices himself but still exists in another body of a female character and her consciousness intermingled with his. Still potentially problematic depending on how you read it, but this no matter how rushed the production is stood out as surprisingly bold for a simplistic story.

Also this type of pulp, when it works or even has some nifty ideas, was always rich in creativity even when silly and lurid, even the ritual circle scene orgy matching the mood of the erotic and the grotesque anime is imaginative at. Another example comes when a female member of the good side is brainwashed, mouth to mouth, with an exceptionally phallic worm monster designed to spring out the same way at their base. It would work, with its explicitness, whether the host was male or female never feeling like it is crass or objectifying, all because the creature design and horror is appropriately nasty.

The other factor of interest for me, common in so much Japanese pop media, has been how these tales are always explicitly set, unless period tales, in modern Japan and especially in urban environments, empahsised more by how this obscure OVA even refers to a real life ancient samurai, a reminder that we forget that these are pieces of Japanese culture. It feels more of note when, for this one's OVA dub or any old Manga Entertainment dub (like many from The Collection DVD series), many of the voice actors are stumbling over Japanese names and terms frequently. True, we have tales like this in the West, but there is as much an attempt to distance them from us unless slasher tales, to the point we pushed the supernatural into gothic castles or underground clubs of the producer's imagination. Here, you have someone walking his dog in one scene in a park only to be attacked by a Cerberus dog at night in the middle of a city. In the logic of anime, even a messy and deeply OVA like this, you can have the atmosphere of the supernatural and the unconventional but spliced with the added later of the banality of modern life. Even the anime logic and clichés - a secret group of demon hunters, the mysterious transfer student, a second transfer student who is a cool motorbike riding young woman with pink hair - have to be threaded through these ordinary environments, helped as much by the fact (whether the case here or not) many productions have used real life locations and painstakingly copied them into animated form.

It cannot be ignored that Tokyo Revelation rushes along. Even without the Manga Entertainment dub, which has their notorious habit of additional swearing to the dialogue to up the age rating for the United Kingdom release, you have ridiculous combination of how much is just abruptly introduced and what exactly that entails. Such as the demons creating their own virtual reality back when that was a buzz word in the nineties, leading to one of my most beloved pleasures in anime of characters being sucked into strange environments, here one with a chequered black-and-white floor and floating metal orbs in the air, all whilst the characters are attacked by a jumble of mythological creatures like a harpy. The short space of time to cram so much of the plot, over what were originally two episodes less than thirty minutes each, including an apocalyptic scenario, is also one of the huge perils of the OVA format, even if this was a case with an actual ending. It feels hastily put together by the last act, ending in a battle between hero and a demon which you have no emotional weight to. In fact, the huge surprise for the story, involving the character Akito, is a virtue considering you could not give a damn about most everything else in the denouement.

Said ending is  also helped by how, in the final minutes, it is a strangely poetic one who's cast monologue in voiceover about the endless cycle back and forth between life and death, and how death comes to life again, befitting what in the plot for me was a sweet conclusion. If it is, truthfully, a deeply silly piece of pulp from this era, which did not mean it did not have its enjoyments and virtues.  So, add it in a growing list of animated guilty pleasures from Japan, doomed to be lost outside of web rips unless we think of them. The story is a generic mortal versus demons story crammed into 55 minutes which is not paced well in the slightest...and the results show. What makes it a pleasure though, aside from humorous moments that happen out of nowhere, is a surprising sexual streak in it that would give a Freud wannabe a field day and the surprising emotional layer to that area as well, all in spite of how abrupt it can be. Normally portrayals of sexuality in anime from what I have seen are toe curling at best, but here it is close to becoming surreal and in one case surprisingly progressive and inspired. If even this lurid OVA can pull that out of nowhere, then it says a lot of how good anime can be as a medium. Hence, it is perfect way to celebrate a hundred and fifty anime.

#149: Amagami SS (2010)

Director: Yoshimasa Hiraike

Screenplay: Yoshimasa Hiraike

Based on the videogame by Enterbrain

Voice Cast: Tomoaki Maeno as Jun'ichi Tachibana; Shizuka Itou as Haruka Morishima; Rina Satou as Kaoru Tanamachi; Hiromi Konno as Sae Nakata; Yukana as Ai Nanasaki; Ryoko Shintani as Rihoko Sakurai; Kaori Nazuka as Tsukasa Ayatsuji; Kana Asumi as Miya Tachibana; Takuma Terashima as Masayoshi Umehara; Risa Hayamizu as Maya Takahashi; Yū Asakawa as Hibiki Tsukahara

Viewed in Japanese with English subtitles

 

I can't believe you tried to eat me.

In terms of premises, this attempt to adapt a Playstation 2 era light novel does take a distinct approach to the whole issue with that medium, that many are designed around forking paths in the narrative based on one's choices. Here, instead of merely one romantic comedy/drama over twenty four episodes based around one figure our lead Jun'ichi Tachibana is attracted to, you have six narrative arches over four episodes each, all based around one of six female school students the male protagonist becomes romantically involved with.

If anyone wants to raise concerns immediately, than yes, whilst this show has surprisingly more nuisance than most, it does have to struggle over its own structure being around choosing and picking a perfect girlfriend, a concern as all the narratives do end positively one way or another, from simple romance to even one leading to when the couple married and had a daughter in the conclusion years later from high school. If taken negatively, it is fetishistic unintentionally. Positively, it is a nice touch of odd cosmic unpredictability that we can see six different worlds where six women can cross the lead Jun'ichi's life. It is never addressed why the structure exists, and baring the end episode preview for the next one, nor does the show ever get self aware of this structure until the OVA episodes that came after. Thankfully, whether the source material is wholesome or insidiously more problematic than it looks, Amagami SS is a show with a lot more heart than anything more duplicitous, especially in mind there are worse works in existence in anime about multiple female love interests.

Boiled down, each arch is about one female classmate. Haruka Morishima begins Arch 1, the flighty and eccentric popular girl. Kaoru Tanamachi, for Arch 2, Jun'ichi's tomboy best friend. Arch 3 is about Sae Nakata, a first year and friend of his youngest sister Miya, who is timid and quietly spoken. Arch 4, about another first year and a friend of Miya called Ai Nanasaki, at arm's reach in mood and standoffish. Arch 5 is about Rihoko Sakurai, a childhood friend of Jun'ichi's, who is always concerned about her weight, likes to eat, and is a very sweet person. Arch 6, the last, is about the school head for the Christmas Founder's festival Tsukasa Ayatsuji, which is apt as all these arches follow that Jun'ichi was spurned at Christmas two years before each story on a date, and each story involves or concludes around the Founders festival for Christmas, both leading to dramas for their female characters but also his own anxieties about having his heart broken once before.

Tonally, Amagami SS is a high school romantic comedy with some drama and a bit of sex humour. It is the type of show that is prolific, and can be argued as placating to fetishes of the perfect high school, as it is common in anime and manga, to the point it is probably an uncomfortable testament to how gruelling adult life in the work place is in Japanese culture. It is also the kind of show anime criticism I listen to tends to warn people like myself against, which lead me to being hesitant coming to this show despite being intrigued by the premise. Thankfully, the show always stays on the side of charming, helped for once by our male protagonist Jun'ichi having some actual characterisation. From the extreme of a first person camera stand in who never talks, any male protagonist remotely with personality would raising the bar to the better, but here we have someone we can actually like.  He is still the meek and polite male stereotype, and girl crazed, but he shows virtue, shows a clear sense of kindness that would lead him to being attractive to his female classmates, and has little touches which help considerably build his personality, such as acrophobia, a fear of heights, which is never a plot point but naturally comes up as it would in real life in situations like going to a tall building with a glass floor on a date. The only really exaggerated aspect about him, with his best male friend Masayoshi Umehara, is that the pair trade "porn" between each other, which is absurd especially when you realise they are treating magazines with bikini models as precious contraband. To Amagami's credit, Jun'ichi is depicted as still being a horny heterosexual male, but one with actual aspects to him which you can admire, just happening to also been a young adult and thus in a time where romance is still a confused experience.

Knowing the cast are mostly between sixteen and seventeen, which is surprisingly older than I had presumed for anime high school, you can see the case as being more mature in aspects, but still having the prangs, hesitancies and concerns of being young adults. Likewise the female cast is given time to grow, especially as even in other characters' arch the other five female characters still appear in the stories. Fanservice is there but thankfully minimal, the focus on romance and character development. Personally, my heart sides with Kaoru Tanamachi being the real narrative path as, alongside being the best arch, it did touch upon the fact that, having a female best friend when I was a teenager, there is a chemistry there even if you remain merely friends, something which is played upon in this case when Kaoru as the female tomboy with Jun'ichi joshes and teases him. The same can be said for Rihoko Sakurai as, showing what a sad sack I am, I am naturally going to be more sympathetic to the character who is a childhood friend who has hidden her crush for him, especially as her arch is more from her perspective. Interestingly hers is the only with there not being any romance, only the optimistic hope for one, set around her tea club instead.

Honestly, everyone in the female cast, in the annuals of characterisations I have encountered, are a lot better depicted here. Haruka Morishima is the only one I would not want dating the lead as, whilst her arch as the first starts the series, the eccentric Japanese-British student eventually, even if unintentionally, has a potential gay reading which is so much more intriguing then a generic romance. This flighty figure who skirts around school clubs and collecting images of cute dogs is much more interesting when she (questionably) is spying on the female swimming team, as she also finds them cute, or (more positively) in the relationship with her best friend, the sane person to reprimand her indulgences, whose relationship together yet is sweet and even involves in one arch participating in a best couples competition which is meant for male and female couples but they compete in for a lark. Even in terms of a character like Tsukasa Ayatsuji, the last and in danger of being such a bland figure from how she is only in the other arch the person getting the Christmas festival ready, plays that off actually to an advantage as she is insanely complex with many layers, to the point of even being very manipulative and dark just to complete a noble act when she finally loses all her masks, even playfully toying with the idea the show will turn into horror story for a joke.

Structurally as well, there being two opening themes throughout the series, each narrative arch has a different end credits and song, from the perspective of the female love interest and sung by their voice actress. If ever Japanese anime evokes the old era of the variety entertainer, it's in examples like this. The arches themselves do not really differ from each other. Amagami is paradoxically able to create feature films effectively with their four episode stories, and have a leisured pace between them, story wise gentle with any tension coming from seeing parts of the female lead's own personal lives which affect them, never any drastic. Production wise, it is bright but naturalistic in depiction, the characters not as exaggerated and in this world none likely to have pink hair unless any dyed their locks or for a single scene joke. The only real exception is for Sae Nakata. She is the character in most danger of the show revealing its hand as a stereotypical "perfect girlfriend" show. A freshman, meek and shy, she can easily be confused as being a middle school student (i.e. younger), as it found when she wants to go to a tokusatsu team performance for kids as she loves the show in question¹, but as a common running gag has a big bust even her female friends wish they had.

It is a character, especially for the last detail, you could roll your eyes at. The arch however decides to go for a broader tone, noticeable in a male narrator you never hear outside this arch, his melodramatic delivery deliberately adding to the more comedic tone of the arch. He is also voiced by Jouji Nakata, whose career in anime but also video games has allowed him to voice a lot of bold, mighty voiced figures between M. Bison, Albet Wesker, Alucard and Megatron among many, characters I have mentioned if you look into suggest why his inclusion here is an inspired comedic touch. There is also the haunted house sequence, when Junichi takes Sae to the amusement park, which is the weirdest moment of the series and legitimately strange. Somehow this attraction has been allowed access to a powerful hallucinatory gas, which alongside creating creepy monsters in an ancient Egyptian pyramid setting, also leads to Sae turning into a bowl of ramen, which gets kinky when Junichi cannot stop himself from considering eating her. Yes, even I was caught off-guard that this transpired.

In fact, whilst a quaint series altogether which pulls away from lurid fanservice, it is amazing how Amagami SS get kinky a lot in unexpected ways. Kissing a girl's belly button over an extended period of time, kissing the back of another's knee, the obsession with swimming team uniforms, a reminder that Japanese culture if merely viewed from a stereotype of being very meek and polite forgets that eroticism can appear in unexpected places in their pop culture quite a bit. For Ai Nanasaki's arch as well, it is just explicit, romantically having them eventually taking a bath naked (to his surprise) in a secret outdoor hot spring on land her family owns. I have to admit, whilst the kinkiness of some of this series is odd, especially the bowl of ramen scene, I am happy the show does not shy away from this as, whilst nothing is consummated, it does deal with the likely tension of having someone stay over you like and having to share the same bed as takes place. It also, for all the aspects that are usual in anime, like someone accidentally seeing something out of context or accidentally stumbling in on someone in the bath, usually the lead's sister, the decision to not ogle its cast means that when it does decide to be more sensual, it is in good taste for once.

The two OVA episodes, if you are a completist, do end the show on a poor note. Thankfully, they are bonuses, two regular length episodes, both offering tantalising attempts to cross all these divergent paths but having points that undermine them. The first offers a really interesting shift, actually radical in context, as it interconnects all the beginnings of each romance, only to have a female admirer break up potential relationships between the female cast and Junichi by bringing each one to the same back alley at the school and lying that he has a girlfriend already. It is still romanticising a stalker mind, and the problem with the two OVAs is that they are one episode for two different stories. As a result, what could have been a redeemable character, who is attracted to Junichi and becomes romantically attached to him, is just left as a problematic figure even if the end credits sequence is her actually apologising to everyone one set to music.

The last is about Junichi's little sister and meat bun obsessive Miya, thankfully the show never turning into an incestuous romance like a My Sister, The Writer (2018), instead from the perspective of a regular character trying to figure out why her older brother has no girlfriend yet, learning that he is yet surprisingly popular among women as she (alongside the girl introduced in the first OVA) secretly follow him on a day. It is in many ways a sweet episode, the sister bonding with her older brother in the end. The problem with the episode is that it does stumble badly into bad taste, namely not having enough time to address her obsession that he has to have a girlfriend, less like a natural concern but one implanted into her thoughts as necessary. There is also a scene where she does wonder if he is gay - if this had been a four episode arch, this scene where the two characters blunder into toe curling defensiveness could have worked (even shot by shot and same dialogue) if he had learnt from it and Miya especially grew up a lot during an arch. If she has to accept her brother is his own person, then what could have started as a first episode to an interesting, non-romantic arch would have been special. More so, in a scene that would grow in a longer arch, that she even rejects interest from a boy her own age smitten with her and thus has a bit of complexity to work on.

Thankfully those OVAs are side material, though any material which builds into a canon narrative sadly does shadow the final result even if you can separate them, especially those bonus episodes shoves the series' own foot in its mouth with questionable aspects, raising the issue this series' premise always had of the "perfect girlfriend" to the "perfect (i.e. bland) heterosexual couples" story regardless of tact. Excluding them, than the show as it transpired is actually quite nice, because really, beyond this, I enjoyed Amagami SS a lot and am fond of it. A guilty pleasure? Partially, entirely because, as mentioned, you cannot help but read ideals into the material that are an issue even if accidental, a greater issue of there are a lot of anime (and visual novels) about dating from a heterosexual male perspective, a lot of which I will eventually also be getting to. There is also the existential concern, which the premise accidentally raises, that you think of all the female characters sympathetically as Junichi is dating someone else in another timeline. That definately is unintentional; who would have thought that a romantic comedy anime would offer the perils of omnipresence?

That in itself was why I found the premise fascinating coming to the series, unconventional in content but one of the unique premises in spite of the show never being unconventional or weird in tone. The juxtaposition adds a distinction the more you think about it, baring one scene with ramen tonally normal.

Usually a premise like this is a Groundhog Day scenario or Jorge Luis Borges'  The Garden of Forking Paths, the later a famous short story talking about parallel realities and all the various forms of it.  Whilst one would usually hope for any show to tackle this existentially, anime with a great record of accomplishment for exploring these ideas, for once I am glad Amagami never went that direction but instead played with it for fun. It was more concerned with being the teller of the romantic stories, and it did so with a wink, as even the OVAs for all my issues ended the show perfectly...the final episode preview being for the first arch, creating an ouroboros.

 

================

1) At this point in my anime viewing, I am now aware that these live "hero shows", for tokusatsu programs, are more than likely common at Japanese theme parks and events. This is not surprising and actually ridiculous for me to have only considered now as, if you have live spectacle shows at Western theme parks, why wouldn't you have similar ones for tokusatsu programming?

#148: Calamity of a Zombie Girl (2018)

Director: Hideaki Iwami

Screenplay: Kenichi Kanemaki

Based on a Light Novel written by Ryō Ikehata and illustrated by Hagane Tsurugi

Voice Cast: Saori Hayami as Euphrosyne Studion; Yui Ogura as Alma V; M.A.O as Yui Minagawa; Miyuki Sawashiro as Sayaka Kamoshida; Mugihito as Miyake; Ryoko Shiraishi as Mako Takanashi; Takahiro Miwa as Hiroshi Azuma; Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Masahiro Abe; Tomokazu Sugita as Shūichiro Takanashi; Yurika Kubo as Noriko Sudo

Viewed in Japanese Subtitles

 

Your text book kung fu won't work!

[WARNING - Some major plot spoilers are to be had in this review.]

Calamity of a Zombie Girl is an odd creature. Undoubtedly, this ONA (original net anime) feature length tale is one of the few modern titles to edge close to the old school era of adult, lurid OVA titles of the yesteryears, back when it was for videotape. Titles with that old school attitude, usually the gore, are rare nowadays. Most OVAs focus on extra story or selling nudity of the female cast, whilst even a throwback like The Island of Giant Insects (2020) does this (and in a version on Crunchyroll which warns of adult content) even censors the gore. It has been a while since I have seen a newer title which even renders spilt brains and detached eyeballs. Call it prurient, but it has a distinction for the tone and immediately stands out.

It is not quite a work like Genocyber (1994), because this light novel adaptation, which has surprisingly gained a UK blu-ray release in 2020, does feel of two sides. It is split between those old weird and lurid one-off genre titles Manga Entertainment used to release, who have now become more mainstream and safer for the most part in their releases whilst this is the release of Anime Limited, and a skewered tone that is partially because the tastes of the target audiences have changed over the decades. It is also because this is its own trashy and perplexing curiosity most have dismissed.

It is also a GONZO production. Co-made with studio Stingray, it is oddly befitting that this company that once dominated anime in the 2000s when they began, only to fade when finances eventually dealt a fatal blow, returns to the ONA format, something they did early in their first years with obscurities like Zaion: I Wish You Were Here (2001). Seeing Kadokawa in the credits, the Japanese publishing company to which the light novel was a release of their Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko imprint, also raised a smile as they have had an interesting relationship with anime over the years, specifically when Haruki Kadokawa, son of its founder Genyoshi Kadokawa, inherited the presidency of the company and stepped out into the film anime industries. In the eighties, his name as an executive producer can be found on titles like Rintaro's Harmagedon (1983), a figure of the era where he had so much money that he could have a full-size replica of Christopher Columbus' flagship Santa Maria built, sailed from Barcelona to Japan, in his free time before his unfortunate 1994 conviction for drug smuggling. Seeing the company here felt appropriate, considering that this is evokes old anime titles from the time despite being very much of its own period.

The premise begins with an old but necessary cliché. A group of young adults, part of an occult club, break into the secret room in a university library to steal a valuable object; said object, which one of the female members secretly pockets, is a gem from inside a female corpse, one of two preserved in a mummified state in caskets held in the room. Obviously, this is always a bad idea, and whilst it confuses what these two figures are (Mummies? Zombies? Revenants?), it does play to the idea that tampering with the past for greed is always of a dangerous game. It was also a stupid idea as, upon waking up this figure Euphrosyne Studion, with her maid/friend Alma V, she is revealed to be an immortal homunculus from the past. From the "Holy Roman Empire" explicitly in dialogue, meaning she comes from a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western and Central Europe that originated during the Early Middle Ages and dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, she is in flashback shown to be the daughter of a baron who, when she died, was brought back by supernatural black arts and continued on with each Baron who succeeded her father. With what residue energy from the gem left inside her, she and Alma want it back, and she is superhumanly strong and thus able to acquire the object keeping her immortal back even if it means things will get bloody.

We however are in a surprising position though that Euphrosyne and Alma are clearly meant to be sympathetic as we follow them the most. Whilst their European origin does undercut the point, it feels befitting that, rather than follow the old and problematic chestnut of the foreign and exotic form attacking the status quo, the individuals who are behind the theft have instead made a terrible mistake, and are not as innocent for many of them as you would presume from the initial prologue. Consider that this plot point of the ancient form, which could have been found in an old thirties or forties American b-picture, has inherent issues of this sinister exoticism, it is befitting this Japanese production decided to show some love to that exotic figure just in her costume design over everyone else. Euphrosyne is also a goof as, constantly, there is a lot of comedy which undercuts the presumed nature of this film, such as her research into Japanese culture when she just wakes up involving a gag of Alma noticing she was on a gaming website. However, there is also a curious tonal and emotional position with these two too...considering that, by this point upon waking up, they will have already killed a harmless janitor. Accidentally from Euphrosyne because of her superhuman strength, but Alma deliberately knowing this would happen, as his cranium gone flying into a pillar in the library Euphrosyne is doing research in when she swats him away.  

This film also has death by toilet mind, which is abrupt when it suddenly flied into shot and crushed a man's head, clearly humorous in a ghoulish way. The context of the film changes constantly as it goes along as, unlike the ultra serious OVAs in the past like Violence Jack (1986-1990), this has a lot of comedy throughout it which tonally is a 180 degree turn from the more serious moments. Euphrosyne in particular can be a klutz and even has to superglue her head back on at one point, all whilst Alma has that awkward moment when, knocking on a possible victim's door, she is caught off guard, has to apologise in a shirt sizes too long for her, with the sleeves hanging down, and leave to try again later embarrassed. Considering Euphrosyne was the Greek goddess of Good Cheer, mirth and joy, it is befitting (if strange) the monster is voiced and acted as a light hearted, sweet figure who yet happens to be able to swing a grown human being around by a mere leg and bash their brains in if provoked.

Yet Calamity of a Zombie Girl can be serious and lurid. There is nudity, some very explicit and detailed violence and, in one scene that viewers would understandably find uncomfortable, we see how evil the real villains are, a scientist and his maleficent young sister, as their experiment to turn her pet dog into a zombie involves first strapping it to its distress on a medical table and bashing its brains in with a cartoonish giant mallet, the closest to those older anime nasties of yore which had scenes like this in them for shock value. Even Alma, as she and Euphrosyne are not precisely defined to what type of undead they re, eats corpses, even able to bite a piece off someone alive or dead to be able to turn into them for a temporary time period. Even the nudity story wise is connected to Alma's ability to shape shift and that clothes naturally do not change sizes, diguising as these figures so she can help her friend.

Is this meant to be sickly funny? Well, aspects are serious, such as one character's death being humiliating and a betrayal by those they thought were with them. We also however witness someone have his arm ripped off clean in one distressed reaction to him perving on Euphrosyne, yet run away and go crying for help despite the fact even in terms of adrenaline he should be in shock and suffering from extreme blood lost, barely reacting to an appendage being missing. That the Occult Club is more complex in who they are then initially expected adds complication. Students still at the dorms where this story transpires, in the middle of Summer, they have made the ill advised mistake to rob the secret room in their library but they are not necessarily evil. One is proven an arrogant coward, one succumbing to lusts, and one woman in the group tragically is being toyed with. It is early on established they are all being used - as the door one is meant to unlocked is done so from a control panel by the real villains - but as the stereotypical leads usually found in an anime, they are the normal mortals who have accidentally crossed into a world that they will be maimed and killed within.

Call it nihilistic, but with the actual heroines in a realm of the supernatural different to our world, this is a common trope in Japanese anime horror, of the world in its own rules, that befits a country where spirituality and the mythological is still relevant to their culture. Instead, it is sad that the home schooled kung fu girl, who is likeable, makes the mistake to goad a figure to protect friends, only for that to be her undoing, whilst another female character, the innocent of the bunch, is to be left traumatised by her encounter with emissaries of the dark for all her life.

So yes, this is a weird experience if you dissect the film, particular as this film cuts from a church, lingering on those who have died within one scene in a sobering moment, to abruptly being at an indoor basketball court where basketballs are being thrown hard enough to dent walls and Euphrosyne getting her head stuck in a basketball net. Bear in mind, dear reader, I have an undeniable obsession and taste for anime horror even when it is trashy, and unlike The Island of Giant Insects, which was tedious and felt like you needed a bath afterwards, this is lurid but far more interesting than a lot of reviews suggest of it. Animation wise, it is adequate. There is a curious nature to the character designs where everyone has a big saucer eye; that sounds ridiculous when the stereotypes of anime include schoolgirls with big eyes, but Calamity of a Zombie Girl has characters that are on one hand more realistically drawn, yet their eyes are big and wide. I suspect a bit of digital touch-up has been used, which gives everything a surprisingly clean aesthetic in spite of the content.

In fact, if I have one real issue with this ONA, whilst I am happy with the realistic look of the film, and that they will go as far as lovingly depict a ripped out heart in anatomical detail, everything is too clean and lit. One aesthetic, for how indefensible some nasty anime OVAs from the past can be, I wish was taken back from them is that they almost all had a rich and intense atmosphere, even in terms of their use of shade, a lot of use of the colour black and shadow. A problem with some horror nowadays in anime is the crisp, post-digitally animated work is without texture or mood with some cases, and this is unfortunately one such case. The music at least, whilst updated to current day instruments than the synthesisers, is appropriately atmospheric with a leaning of electronica, but this aesthetic is the one actual detriment to a project I had low expectations for.

Which is a shame as, unlike a title like The Island of Giant Insects, this manages to have a ghoulish nature which stands out. Those sickly comedic moments or the completely nasty ones do work. There is even a scene, where Alma has to reattach Euphrosyne's head to a spare body, which does bring in an ero-guro tone perfectly, between eroticism and perversity of a headless body that is sensual in its nakedness but the host's head having to be sutured on, especially as it can move by itself and the neck has a perfect cut at the top like a piece of cartoon steak. Certainly this could have been ickier, more creative and so and so, but coming to this thinking I was going to sit through a terrible, bland attempt at a horror story from yore (again, burying The Island of Giant Insects a third time), this was a surprise.

In fact, the entire nature of the story, murkier in its very simple pulp narrative, is still a hell of a lot more compelling compared to an example of this from live action American cinema which would never want to dare play this tone. And, again, when I said I came to this anime ONA with low expectations, I was thinking low expectations. In fact this type of production, Calamity of a Zombie Girl initially announced in 2012 and only being released in 2018, is the type I wished was more common still alongside the bold and unique productions in any format for anime. Whilst we thankfully moved on from the more problematic aspects of the old OVAs, this type of adult material which is not just to titillate the fan base would be more welcome once in a while just to keep us on our toes, the mad and constant production of OVAs leading to a lot of strange and idiosyncratic productions as much as junk. Certainly more one-off titles, the kind which do not need to have time invested in them for a television series length, were vital for encouraging the fanbase to grow back when Manga Entertainment focused on them, and I would not be surprised in between major hits like Makoto Shinkai's Your Name (2016) or canonical titles like Perfect Blue (1997) that Anime Limited acquired the license out of this mentality.

Because someone would spot this on a shelf or on Amazon, would be intrigued by it even though its Goth Lolita dressed protagonist would appeal more for an anime fan base, and buy it out of curiosity whilst it had caught their eye. This is a common practice in anime, be it the rental era for the American fan base or even the DVD era here in Britain when companies like Manga Entertainment especially where releasing one-shots, not necessarily gory horror either, which caught the eye. That in itself is a wise attitude to return to, and this thankfully scratched an itch of mine that I enjoyed. Even as cheese, such as the jump scare with a cat which bookmarks the start and post end credits of the film, it was enjoyable to have the experience I have had recovering second hand old licenses, many I have covered, only for this to be a brand new title that was released for once.