#78: Psycho Diver - Soul Siren (1997)

From https://myanimelist.cdn-dena.com/
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Director: Mamoru Kanbe

Screenplay: Tatsuhiko Urahata and Toshiaki Kawamura

Voice Cast: Michael Scott Ryan as Bosujima, Kate T. Vogt as Yuki (singing), Sherry Lynn as Yuki, Iona Morris as Angelica, John Demita as Kuroiwa, Julia Fletcher as Kyoko, Kerrigan Mahan as Kunimitsu, Matthew K. Miller as Funky, Michael Forest as Kudo, Scott Weil as Sawada

Based on the novels of Baku Yumemakura

Viewed in English

Synopsis: In the distant future, Bosujima is a "psycho diver" skilled in entering people's subconscious, brought out of retirement to help with a very young female pop star named Yuki plagued by nightmares. The assignment, as he learns more however, is clearly a trap.

[Spoilers Throughout]

From http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/e/e3/Psycho_Diver_Soul_Siren_shotgun_2.jpg/500px-Psycho_Diver_Soul_Siren_shotgun_2.jpg

It was a disappointment, expecting this to be a horror anime over all these years of learning it, that Psycho Diver isn't really horror. Neither in only forty nine minutes is it actually focused on the world of entering the mind, by way of advanced technology and a superhuman will to prevent ones' head exploding, the enticing premise of the anime OVA unfortunately of less concern to the creators than a conspiracy tale filled with seinen clichés.

And that's ultimately the issue with Psycho Diver that the production instead follows the kind of lurid crime story you could easily remove the more interesting pieces from and change little. A shame as, with its moody anime cyberpunk future and psychic treatment existing in this world, there's a lot to work from in even less than fifty minutes. What you get however is all the clichés - the tough hero involved in a conspiracy; the love interest who immediately, after they finally consummate their love physically, is killed for cheap emotional weight soon after; the post noir tropes and all - without a lot of interesting dynamic meat to them. This is particularly surprising as this is a story which brings in a religious cult who it awakening pop idol Yuki's psychic powers for their own means, the heir of the group, so alongside the barely used dream tech you have a very unconventional story at hand which is squandered instead.

From https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4b/f1/e8
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That and having a bland protagonist, beginning with how Bosujima looks like an utter dork despite the noir-like voiceovers in the English dub version. Hirohiko Araki and Akira Toriyama characters, which exist in a world where ridiculous hairstyles and vampires wearing love kneepads make sense to the tone, would point at him and mock him for having a pineapple on top of his shoulders. Spiked is one thing, this rigid is not only incongruous to his suits and debonair style, not to mention you could use his as a human javelin and hurt someone. How he barely registers his beloved dog being killed but screams to the heavens over another, like a tonal mess in one body, is another matter entirely.

He belongs to the ciphers, alongside sci-fi metropolises, I miss from older anime having never felt the same since the 2000s onwards, but is definitely not done as well here, the cool tough heroes of yore who represent the male target audience and their fantasies. However to make them work, whether rightly or not, the plots have to be dynamic and its disappointing how Psycho Diver barely covers that titular premise. When it does the anime I thought I'd get is briefly there, and where most of the interesting and rewarding moments are too. The strangeness, the stylised use of blacks and minimal colours like violent bloody red, alongside strange psycho visions such as a figure knocking over mirrors representing her memories or the very euro-guro moment where Yuki, the idol, uses Bosujima's severed but conscious head to pleasure herself, no way around that blunt description but as with ero-guro at its best more elegant and compellingly strange in its transgression on the screen than in text.

From https://assets.mubi.com/images/film/113308/
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Those sequences also evoke, now realising who directed the film, Mamoru Kanbe's later career. It's strange such a bland production comes from him as he also directed the notorious TV series Elfen Lied (2004), an anime I accept is deeply flawed but would defend to the death for its complex and uncomfortable content, let alone the greater nuisances in style including the Klimt referencing opening credits he was able to do with a TV series rather than an OVA which presumably had more creative control. That's the oddest thing is how Psycho Diver is not an anime which stands out in spite of its premise, its plot in a nutshell, and how people behind the production went on to have long and diverse careers. That it's a Madhouse co-production from the nineties makes this even stranger in its inaneness, even at their worst always striking out memorable material from this era into the 2000s in terms of their catalogue. It's a paradox nothing more vaguely interesting came from this raw material coming together. More time is actually spent, in terms of care, on the full music video with a film Yuki has where, Madonna-like, she is a rebel sent to jail. Sadly, the rest of the production isn't as unexpected as that entire sequence abruptly playing out.

Because of all this, Psycho Diver is going to have another short review, probably shorter than anime which lasts for even shorter length of time than Psycho Diver itself, who pads itself out with an elaborate music video but skimps on the nightmarish nightmare sequences, whilst stylish as they are, the story promised. There's really a sense that the production was stuck between Crying Freeman (1988-1994) in terms of action absurdity, pulp crime clichés set in the future, and the more interesting horror-science fiction premise, and not prioritising the best moments from one of these or all the base influences. Psycho Diver is still entertaining, in the lurid 90s anime OVA way, but there's far more worthwhile anime and far worse anime that's more rewarding in its awfulness, leaving Psycho Diver in the unfortunate middling middle. Even in terms of Manga Entertainment scraping the bottom of the barrel, as Psycho Diver is an obscure MVM DVD release in the UK, it's not even as memorable as those oddities and failures. A part of me says this knowing my reptilian brain might look back on the OVA and think it wasn't as bad as I thought, still horde the disc, but for you the reader just be aware that whilst a part of me might one day recant this review and wish Discotek re-released it, Psycho Diver even among its ilk from the nineties OVA era is not one of your priorities to begin with.

From https://pm1.narvii.com/6305/
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