#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.