#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.

#147: Project A-Ko (1986)

Director: Katsuhiko Nishijima

Screenplay: Katsuhiko Nishijima, Tomoko Kawasaki and Yuji Moriyama

Voice Cast: Miki Itō/Stacey Gregg as A-ko; Emi Shinohara/Denica Fairman as B-ko; Michie Tomizawa/Julia Brahms as C-ko; Shūichi Ikeda/Jay Benedict as Captain Napolipolita; Tesshō Genda/ Marc Smith as D; Asami Mukaidono/Lisa Ross as Miss Ayumi; Megumi Hayashibara/Lisa Ross as Ume; Yoshino Takamori/Anne Marie Zola as Ine; Yoko Ogai/Toni Barry as Asa; Sayuri Ikemoto and Daisuke Gouri/Marc Smith and Anne Marie Zola as Mari

Viewed in the English Dub

The known story is that Project A-Ko was meant to be hentai. Cream Lemon, a vast OVA franchise that lasted long past the eighties even if the initial series started in 1984 and ended in 1987, was what Project A-Ko was originally meant to be for until the producer had a change of mind^1, ditching the erotic nature and focusing on something more action and comedy based. The result was that they created a cult hit that spawned sequels.   

Project A-Ko is a title you could also point to for what made the eighties era of anime special for a lot of people, including for reasons which have sadly been lost over the decades with the transition to new technology and working procedures, as this openly silly action farce also happens to be a painstakingly elaborate, expertly crafted project that eventually got a theatrical run in Japan and even in France. It is all for indulgence, but what indulgence. Namely for a plot follow three female characters - A-Ko, B-Ko and C-Ko². A-Ko is a superhumanly strong and fast teenager, possibly the daughter of Superman in a final scene joke, always late to her new school.

C-Ko is her friend, but the joke is that she can be annoying and is in the trope of characters who are terrible cooks, which is signposted when not only does her homemade boxed meals have whole fish in them, but (in a nice use of actual photo collage for a single joke) the contents of an entire fridge and even an inedible alcohol bottle in a bumper bento box.. As for B-Ko, well, you cannot help but look at her desire at wanting to be C-Ko's friend and see this all so blatantly as a gay crush, leaving you to sympathise with a "villainess" wanting C-Ko, even if it means building giant robots and a fighting armour to confront A-Ko each morning before classes. The creators probably did not intend this characterisation to be there, but even in her thinking longingly of C-Ko whilst she bathes, as a ballad about wanting to be someone's friend plays, her desire to be C-Ko's "friend" comes off with a yuri subtext that cannot help but be read.

Oh, and this is a future where a meteorite hit a city, destroying it, and is now a sci-fi futuristic one that is not elaborated upon in the first of this franchise. It is strange that this action comedy is set during a world where the city and its inhabitants, Graviton City, were obliterated by a meteorite and is set sixteen years later when it was rebuilt in the crater. It does however set up the aliens who are searching for a princess, a story juggling many balls as a result and never feeling too padded out or not pacing itself well. A huge factor to bear in mind is that it is meant to be fun, a comedy that leans a great deal to action as well so that, even if there is a surprising amount of death and destruction, including two obliterated space ships, you are more riveted along.

A great of this virtue is because of how incredible the production is. For ever cheap production churned out in this era there were also many helped by all the money being pumped into the anime industry at the time, here evidence incredible technical and production design craft. Let us set aside one sequence to explain this, A-Ko having to run on fired missiles to reach an alien spaceship, which for a production like this insanely complicated in it to pull off in any era, especially as you have to animate the character and all the missiles in the background not being ran on. Aside from such an example, the production from robot designs to its aesthetic is strong to this day. It plays to the story too, as characters stand out just in their designs, or jokes such as showing how less practical a vehicle that turns into a robot is, which is greater in punch line knowing that animators had to hand draw each cel to depict its intricate transformation, that would have taken weeks if more to do well, only for the result for B-Ko to have an inherent design flaw with her machine.

Part of the nature of the feature length story is also referential jokes as, whilst most of Project A-Ko is over the top action, such as B-Ko continually waiting outside the school gate with a new robot or an alien henchperson's bad habit of standing in the centre of a road, some of the humour stems from referencing the anime of the era even English speaking fans may have known of especially if they were hardcore tape trading fans. So it will seem odd to newer viewers, who do not know the reference or never seen the influence, that one of B-Ko's friends, told to torment C-Ko so she can mock rescue here, is effectively a muscle bound male character from a fighting anime redesigned as a schoolgirl (i.e. redrawn slightly whilst wearing a dress and with pigtails), who in the either dub has a voice actress but also a male one for grunts, and does a weird ritualistic martial arts at one point. It works still, especially as this character is never joked about for her appearance, only once having to point out she is like any other girl except for having to shave every day, and helps the good guys eventually. It is also probably one of the first in a long history of jokes about Fist of the North Star, the legendary and influential Tetsuo Hara and Buronson manga, where such stereotypes of burly and ultra muscular male characters who came from a post apocalypse get turned on their heads, sometimes turned into magical girls from other franchises. Decades later, especially in dōjinshi manga, not even including officially sanctioned parody anime where they put the cast of this series in tonally inappropriate places for comedy, you would have this franchise crossed over with others you would never expect like Azumanga Daioh³.

One joke which might come off as tasteless nowadays is the alien ship's captain being a chronic alcoholic. It is softened however if you know the reference, that this is the inevitable conclusion to Captain Harlock, the legendary Leiji Matsumoto character who, as his own free man and space pitate roaming outer space on his ship being manly and heroic, had as a trademark his passion for drinking wine. Considering the character first came to be in a 1977 manga, and has been adapted over the decades even after Project A-Ko, the unsubtle and potentially crass nature of the jokes about "Captain Napolipolita" are softened knowing that this was created by a group of anime fans, making anime, wondering about the state of his liver over the near decade up to this point.

Beyond this, it is surprising how effectively put together Project A-Ko is, effectively three acts with its first and second (B-Ko trying to do in A-Ko with her plans after the initial set up of these characters) managing to stretch the length of a usual forty plus minute OVA without feeling padded, only to continue on to what is an extended fight scene between A-Ko and B-Ko which spirals into the alien plot. That there it is almost a joke in itself that, when A-Ko and B-Ko finally fight, B-Ko creating a suit for herself that can match A-Ko, they brawl and cause distruction blissfully unaware of a sudden alien invasion adds a lot to the climax when the film escalates into its third half. Many expectations are subverted in really funny ways, whilst others like C-Ko being really terrible at cooking, whilst clichés in the modern day let alone back then, were always funny when done well. It only gets lazy when the story uses short hand when it reveals the aliens are an all-female species, suddenly having a very big macho figure in a skimpy bikini, rather than be more creative. Even minor characters like Miss Ayumi, the put upon teacher of the girls' class, have enough here that, when the sequels came due to the popularity of the first story, leading to a series of OVA follow-ons, you understand how when there was a demand for them there was enough to run with in this world and premise. They even do reference the origins of the project being hentai by having one scene with B-Ko and bathing already mentioned that, whilst cheesy fan service, is likely in hindsight the production having a private joke of this origin before that knowledge was better known of.

Honestly the only thing particularly dated about Project A-Ko is the music, and even that is charming in being part of that era of eighties anime music, especially when a lot of the instrumental material is the great atmospheric synth that I think still works. It in itself is fascinating as, alongside Toru Akasaka, it was composed by two non-Japanese collaborators Richie Zito and Joey Carbone. Zito is an American songwriter, composer and producer whose career has varied between playing guitar on Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone to producing albums for the likes of Cheap Trick to The Cult. Joey Carbone, also American and having a huge list of careers (a composer, music producer, arranger, keyboardist, vocalist, advisor and educator) has a giant list of individuals and bands he has crossed with in his career that would be too many to try to list. It is of note, however, that his connection to the country since he first visited in 1982 has lead to him having a monstrously successful career in J-Pop in terms of hits in the Japanese music industry⁴.

By itself, the original Project A-Ko is awesome to revisit. To its advantage, this feature length film has also stayed in consciousness even in the West when it was first a 1991 subtitled release from US Manga Corps, getting a British recorded dub in 1992. It was a Central Park Media title, one of the titles they licensed to the defunct ILC in the United Kingdom, and that Discotek released the whole franchise as the other two did in the 2010s. Despite one major issue, that the master has vanished leaving the film unable to be restored, it still lasts even into 2020, when a service called RetroCrush was started, allowing one to stream classic anime on your phone or mobile tablet of choice with Project A-Ko one of the first titles on the service. This is entirely because, whilst obscurer nowadays, Project A-Ko has been of pride and place for a certain generation older anime fans and that, over the decades, there was thankfully never anything problematic you had to quickly brush over with the material either.

 

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1) The old ILC UK release (which is a copy of the Central Park Media release) has an interview with Yuji Moriyama that is barely a few minutes long but had a few choice notes of interest....sadly causing one to wish, whilst an audio commentary thankfully does exist with members of the production, that there was more than this tiny little stub.

2) Also from that DVD release interview, I learnt that the names are based on blood types, which are of interest in Japanese culture as reading one's star sign is said to show one's personality. It is a bit complicated, but A-Ko equals O type (energetic and headstrong), B-Ko equals A type (orderly and jealous), and C-Ko as B type (sensitive and impatient).

3) Here's one such example.

4) HERE and HERE.