#131: Parasite Dolls (2003)

Director: Kazuto Nakazawa, Naoyuki Yoshinaga and Yasuhiro Geshi

Screenplay: Chiaki J. Konaka and Kazuto Nakazawa

Voice Cast: Akemi Okamura as Michaelson; Kazuhiko Inoue as Buzz; Soumei Uchida as Kimbell; Kikuko Inoue as Angel; Masaru Ikeda as Takahashi; Toshio Furukawa as Myer

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

I like Chiaki J. Konaka, the divisive screenwriter of a lot of anime, and it is of immediate interest that he worked on the following project. The other figure of note, whilst there are three directors, is Kazuto Nakazawa. Nakazawa is the director who worked on Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) no less, the man responsible for the animated back story of the character O-Ren when Quentin Tarantino literally knocked on Production I.G,'s door, probably one of the biggest hit points in anime's mainstream popularity, alongside animating the video for Breaking the Habit, the Linkin Park song whose video was a mainstray of my childhood watching Kerrang television in the early 2000s. Parasite Dolls is also another interpretation of Bubblegum Crisis (1987-1991), a big popular OVA series (in spite of the fact its planned run was cancelled) that got quite a few follow ons At this point with Parasite Dolls, there was the very badly regarded sequel Bubblegum Crash (1991-2), A.D. Police Files (1990) which we will get to in a moment, and two parts of a reboot, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 (1998-9) which Konaka wrote, and A.D. Police: To Protect and Serve (1999), another TV series.

A.D. Police Files, the 1990 OVA, is appropriate to talk about here. That title had none of the main cast, a group of women armed with power suits, and was a prequel entirely about the AD Police, set up to deal with malfunctioning robots named Boomers in a world of futuristic Neo-Tokyo where they are mass produced for everything from manual work to even paid sex. It was a dark, violent and seedy OVA, one I have grown to admire in spite of its problematic gender politics because of its style, the three stories told as the dark cyberpunk side of the world where cybernetic implants and robots are commonplace in a rundown metropolis, and an eighties J-pop soundtrack which is endlessly listenable because of how moody it is. For two thirds of Parasite Dolls, you get something trying for this again. Something lurid but still attempting a very thoughtful piece, arguably more so then A.D. Police Files which came from the tail end of lurid eighties OVAs.

It does have the stereotype of the grizzled old veteran in just his late thirties, who never carries a gun and even plays a saxophone, which presents something a bit absurd to begin with, but for the first thirty minute episode, we get a fascinating snapshot of this world. This is a rundown city, drastically contrasted by the rich being behind dubious behaviour, be it the company behind the Boomers secretly covering up malfunctioned creations, to a dark pleasure to connect to Boomers on a rampage directly through the brain as part of a nude orgy. Building from this, side characters of interest are there, the naive but tough female or the lead's partner, a Boomer on the force whose attempts to gain semblance of human freewill make him a pretty good cop and an immediately rewarding figure to follow.

The style of the OVA is interesting, a very distinct one, matched by an incredibly rewarding soundtrack which immediately caught my attention. The depiction of Neo-Tokyo is not as sordid as A.D. Police Files, Parasite Dolls instead coming from a curious period where the OVA would diminish completely baring as tie-ins to other productions or porn. It's a handsome creation nonetheless, which is definitely felt in episode two when there are more unconventional aspects to consider, about a being killing female sex boomers. Ironically A.D. Police Files had a similar storyline about someone targeting human female sex workers, whilst this take is the episode where the virtues of Parasite Dolls appear, following the female lead and getting into both grotesque horror (the boomer sex worker killer) and weirdness as [Huge Spoiler] I keep coming across titles which teach viewers to distrust cats completely.

Episode Three, the finale one, takes a sudden and surprising direction where all hell breaks loose. This is not glib either, as it immediately gets darker than the other episodes just from the opening where an anti-Boomer fanatic is having sex with one in front of his cult and a corrupt police officer, monologuing only to then blow the poor robot's head off mid coitus and then talk of how they are just machines next to humans, proving this by shooting a young minion in the knee. This episode will eventually lead to most of Neo-Tokyo blown up, with most of the cast dead and a cultural shockwave to permanently scar the world. It would, in a full length Bubblegum Crisis film or series, be jaw dropping and an incredible conclusion.

Here however I have to confess, hiding this until now when I pull the rug under Parasite Doll's legs, I went from having an energy rush from just sitting through the three OVA episodes, thinking it was a forgotten gem, only for it to dissipate in my mind only a few days after. I entirely blame the finale, not its existence but that there's barely any build up to it and that the production shot itself in the legs by only having three episodes and not enough time to make this work. Characters we barely see die and little is witnessed, squandering a lot. That the episodes are only less than thirty minutes each, like a TV series, doesn't help as, more common later on, older OVAs like A.D. Police Files had over forty minutes per its three episodes alongside just being vignettes of separate stories in the same world, having a better effect as a result.  

Whilst I appreciate the technical quality of this anime, I don't feel the enthusiasm. The other thing is that, whilst I applaud the chutzpah with the ending episode destroying the world of a beloved franchise, I find this surprisingly normal for Chiaki J. Konaka. Disappointingly so as one of the few people who love his abstract leaps, which is also why Episode 2 is the best episode of Parasite Dolls, closer to his trademarks whilst taking from this franchise in its bizarreness (a bio-robot death machine), cerebralness (can a female robot have a personality?) in very little time to work with, and abstracting as said Boomer is haunted by a female ghost child.

It sucks how Parasite Dolls is affected by its own slightness as, if it had been longer, every episode here would work and the ending would be perfect. But as it stands, this does become an example of style over substance in a bad way, as there would've been a lot more to appreciate if we had actually gotten enough time for this material, where even the lead not carrying a gun is a reference to a tragic back-story which is abruptly included in at the end, rather than naturally introduced. The lack of balance between what wants to be a serious cyberpunk story and the presentation, which would've been more successful if it had just been an action work, is felt immensely. That this is the last Bubblegum Crisis animated production also adds a sadness in that, whilst I have somehow only seen the spin-offs, that original OVA series was popular. Of the time, as eighties as you could get, but one you'd think would get reboots. A work like Parasite Dolls might've been frankly too controversial, as there's nothing in the original premise here, but it was an attempt at brining the material to the new decade even if it has big problems structurally. Only an anniversary celebration or a drastic reboot coming to be might be the only way we get anything new.