#266: Le Portrait de Petit Cossette (2004)

Studio: Daume

Director: Akiyuki Simbo

Screenplay: Mayori Sekijima

Voice Cast: Marina Inoue as Cossette d'Auvergne; Mitsuki Saiga as Eiri Kurahashi; Kumiko Yokote as Hatsumi Mataki; Megumi Toyoguchi as Shouko Mataki; Rei Igarashi as Zenshinni of Shakado; Ikumi Fujiwara as Michiru Yajiri; Isao Yamagishi as Hiroshi Hakuta; Junpei Morita as Yukata Enokido; Mamiko Noto as Yuu Saiga; Masashi Ebara as Marchello Orlando; Shinnosuke Furumoto as Michio Hisamoto; Susumu Chiba as Naoki Katou; Yukari Tamura as Kaori Nishimoto

Viewed in Japanese in English Subtitles

 

Eiri Kurahashi is the lead of a one-off horror story about items, including a painting, of the daughter of a French family which is imprinted with her soul, a beautiful young woman named Cossette who he encounters first in his job at an antique store with a Venetian wine glass that starts to bring forth visions of her. Cossette was murdered by an Italian painter who became obsessed with her beauty, following the idea of how her soul or a form of her, especially after her traumatic death, has left her ghost in various items acquired and brought to Japan centuries later. This is a project, notably, from Akiyuki Simbo, is still early in his career, in context that he had already directed a lot of straight-to-video content and television series, but before he made a certain set of projects that caught on in a huge way. Undoubtedly, when work like Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) was becoming insanely popular, people would have not ignored him, and you see here already with Le Portrait.... the style and heightened melodrama that he would bring to that production. Other titles of this period, even when of different genres, like the surreal school comedy Paniponi Dash! (2005), showed his obsession with the style of his work, but this shows him bringing forth this surrealism with the horror genre.

The story, even if split into three under forty minute episodes, works entirely in the structure of a theatrical film, where after a blood pact Kurahashi takes the poisoned soul of the painter into himself, willing to become the sacrificial guinea pig to bleed and purge each of the cursed items connected to her death. This does have a melodramatic side more common, in how it is depicted, in anime such as how he transforms into a monster when the painter's form takes over, and how attempting to purge the curse items, including the attempt by one of the women surrounding him trying to help him, leads to magical noise and energy blasts. It is also however, in premise, a story you find in gothic literature and cinema, of becoming obsessed and falling in love with someone who is beyond the grave, abstract, an obsession with this love which robs him of his connection to reality. It is a timeless tale, retold here, as a quartet of women in his ordinary life, including one who is smitten for him, are trying to help someone who has fallen in love with a ghost and the memories he inherits of her.

This is over-the-top, where someone will literally paint in their own blood for the dramatic moment, but returning to this production, even as a pure style piece this feels like a nice production for horror anime in terms of unrestrained imagination and mood. As someone who gets a kick out of the trope in anime of figure entering phantastical worlds between realities, usually an eighties and nineties trope, this is full of such scenes, a feast of the eyes even if the strains of early computer effects are occasionally seen. Giant dolls, masses of sentient floating eyes, and a place where the living and dead can co-exist, built in the image of Cossette, which is both of a Gothic landmass, with so many hundreds of lit candles inside, and has flesh walls with pieces falling off. It is a cavalcade of stylistic tropes brought together with studio Daume, who produced their own work as well as in-between animation, only to sadly not do much into the 2010s onwards. As an original premise, barring a manga tie-in between episodes, this is the kind of production which has to be praised for its attempt at creativity, including moments in the first episode bleeding time and place to depict Kurahashi's disconnect from reality that create a sense of ill-ease.

Returning to this, even with music which evokes the use of the band Kalafina for Madoka, I see a lot of the gothic and horror aesthetic that seeped into that production, a taste for the aesthetical in beauty matched with deeply macabre storytelling. In the end, adding to the curiosity and worth of this production as its own story, Le Portrait... depict torture and has sever blood loss, but is not a work of gristly death but tragedy. This is a fascinating turn as the story progresses, becoming a psychodrama about our male lead trying to deal with this love beyond his mortal reality he is embroiled in, and how it ultimately becomes about the difference between a person and their image, literally an antagonist by the end of this. It is, for its over-the-top tone, pure romantic horror drama and really stands out.

#258: Pani Poni Dash! (2005)

 

Studio: Shaft

Director: Shin Oonuma (Series Director); Akiyuki Shinbo (Director)

Screenplay: Kenichi Kanemaki

Based on the manga by Hekiru Hikawa

Voice Cast: Chiwa Saito as Rebecca "Becky" Miyamoto; Ai Nonaka as Ichijō-san; Fumiko Orikasa as Himeko Katagiri; Kana Ueda as Kurumi Momose; Kayo Sakata as Sayaka "Rokugo" Suzuki; Satsuki Yukino as Rei Tachibana; Yui Horie as Miyako Uehara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Pani Poni Dash was a title I saw very early into my interest into anime in the 2000s – a strange period with hindsight, now ADV Films, who distributed this, no longer exist, and for some inexplicable reason we once bought anime in three to four episodes per disc as separate releases for one television series, this one such case in the day, without questioning the cost of this. Available together through the likes of Crunchyroll in the streaming era, one of the biggest reasons I was not a fan of this in the day was that I felt it was “too weird” back then and too random. Neither helping is that, back then, it felt like the version of Azumanga Daioh (2002) you had back home, which is mean to both shows, completely missing the point of both series. Daioh is very different to this, though one of the biggest flaws with this series still, whilst I have grow to appreciate it considerably, is that if this had followed the high school clichés more, I think this would have been a great show rather than a funny one, which starts to deviate too much with its indulgences than use them to parody that genre.

Starting with a Planet of the Apes parody, one of the many parodies Western and Japanese you will see, we are introduced to Rebecca Miyamoto, a Japanese-American prodigy who is able to become a high school teacher at eleven years old, teaching Class 1C at Peach Moon Academy. There are arguably too many characters, including the other classes, but to give you the idea of who we have in Class 1C in their anime versions there is: Himeko Katagiri, a hyper-active but lovable doofus whose cowlick is literally the source of her energy as reveal early on; Ichijō, managing to top the weirdness scale as a strange figure able to summon rain to willingly poisoning classmates, even able to see the aliens spying on Rebecca from orbit; Miyako Uehara, somewhat the geeky stereotype there to be annoyed and have a shiny forehead; Rei Tachibana, the most mature if capable of being vindictive, the glue to keep everyone together; Sayaka Suzuki (No. 6), who does suffer from a lack of characterization if with a lovable charm; and Kurumi Momose, where the joke is that she is the bland and normal one, giving her an existential crisis, as well as introducing a legitimately funny running gag that, as a result, she is the one who reacts to the increasingly insane events as most of us would, with bafflement, until the point she begins to accept the screwed up logic of the world. Then there is Mesousa, probably the most depressed rabbit in all of media, even over the insanely twisted humour of Andy Riley’s The Book of Bunny Suicides (2003) comic, in terms of the most depressed, put upon and poorest bugger of the species in media, whose depression and lack of fingers makes him hapless and lovable. Even before the cat in the school vending machine, who claims to be literal God, starts to torment him, Mesousa is the parody of cute animal sidekicks in dire need of a hug if Kurumi Momose was not already hanging out with him in the school rabbit hutch depressed she was call bland again. The aliens, as mentioned, are a Greek chorus, if accidentally breaking the rule to not interfere with the earthlings a few times, studying Rebecca as a subject and add their own amusement as a group too.

The show to its credit does have a good gag for everyone, but there are a lot of characters beyond this. Some of parodies of anime and manga, such as Behoimi, the magical girl who has no actual powers, whilst others include a very clumsy girl, an extravagant girl who brings exotic animals to class, the war between a film club and drama club pair of girls where they do not know their real identities and start to bond, and a few male characters, including the elderly teacher which a foot in the morbid and occult. A personal favorite are two other girls who are a double act, a shorter raven haired girl named Otome Akiyama who clearly has a friendship with the other girl, the considerably taller Suzune Shiratori who does have an affection for her, even if it means tormenting Otome and trying to constantly use the pressure point on her head to keep her permanently short. To say the show has a lot within it to accept is to realize by episode three, when the cowlick Himeko has is shown as not only sentient but has unnatural abilities, you also get a random Batman Returns (1992) Cat Woman parody, and some twisted jokes like the student ending the episode dead behind class 1C’s blackboard when trying to spy on them. A camping episode early on reveals kappa, the mythological creatures of Japan’s folklore, are experimenting in their own rocket space project in the deepest Japanese woods. By episode thirteen of twenty six episodes, the first of a few robot parodies appears, and by episode ten earlier, Behoimi and a newly introduced character, a maid named Media who knows her from their mysterious military pass, are disarming remote bombs around the school whilst everyone goes through their school vacation projects. It is that kind of show.

One of the hugest things about this show, and is one of its best virtues, is the production value, which is not a surprise when this is a studio Shaft production where, whilst he is not the series director, the director underneath Shin Oonuma is Akiyuki Shinbo. Akiyuki Shinbo, and Shaft in general, emphasize a distinct art style and willingness to experiment, such as in Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), and this is not different, a parody anime where the production team were just allowed to indulge in their most experimental side. The premise is blown up countless time and the fourth wall is constantly mocked, with scenes shown to be on a stage being directed by a film crew. Various visual gags transpire, such as “Punishment Pinball” in episode 7, or RPG game parodies, which change the aesthetic considerably, as there is the use of real images especially for food as collage. Even how to get around painstaking depicting the whole class, replicating the same character models over and over, is stylized and has moments when the production switch this up with figures from fashion magazines with disturbing open smiles. Weird sight gags, parodies or plain non- sequitur fill the screen, and you will see R. Lee Ermey in his Full Metal Jacket (1987) appearance as a screenshot at random times for no reason, like how the show starts to get more invested into parodying anime and manga the more episodes pass. It is not obvious things either like a Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), but ones which are explicitly for the Japanese viewership or those who get the reference, such as changing the characters’ designs to briefly match Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitarō, or explicitly referring to the work in character design of Riyoko Ikeda. Sadly they only start to appear near the end of the series, but some fo the funniest, because you do not need to get the references to appreciate the melodramatic clichés it is touching on, are all the elaborate excuses Himeko has for being late to class, most of which are shoujo manga parodies. Even the music is eclectic, with even yodeling bursting through the soundtrack at one point, and deserves credit for its unpredictability.

The randomness does need to be accepted – like the entire tangent about a lost Holed Pasta Civilization which learnt the ability to make them from aliens, at least to how Himeko views them, or how the aliens, when not causing problems or being noticed even by Ichijō’s todder sister through their viewing telescope, eventually start to look like the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Honestly the biggest issue with Pani Poni Dash is eventually the school setting is just a location by the final episodes, feeling like it is bored with the set-up and more concerned with the world being threatened by an asteroid, an Edo period chambara parody, or Himeko being possessed by a sentient space mushroom. The space mushroom is so strange it is funny, but honestly, the show starts to get too indulgent and baggy by its last episodes, when consistency would have been found more if this content was forced onto high school anime clichés fully.

The Azumanga Daioh comparison is apt even if entirely different comedies, where Daioh took the time frame of school events, from sports day to the cultural festival, and had moments of legitimately strangeness too to contrast its jokes about things real teenagers would go through with school. Pani Poni Dash could have been the weirder parody, where an episode mentioned early on, disarming bombs juxtaposed with the school vacation projects being talked of in class, fully shows when this duality works perfectly. The show is funny, visually creative, and I cannot have anything but admiration for all the female voice actors here; comedies, especially ones this idiosyncratic, where there is all the gags and vocal changes, even the idiosyncrasies of the casts’ like Sayaka Suzuki calling everything the “most ---- of the year”, provide Herculean vocal stretching to test anyone, and I admire the dexterity of all the cast for ridiculous some of the scenes and moments get. The reason as mentioned I was not a fan of this in the day was because this gets weird for the sake of it, to the point it seems like the concept of being a high school anime parody is a pretense. With time having past, how weird the series is was not an issue in the slightest, even when I am lost, but that it could have tried to force itself more onto its high school story premise becomes the lost opportunity. There is a cultural festival episode, but not for example a sports day one, and that feels like a lot of lost moments could have been done with all the idiosyncratic characters and reoccurring gags this show does have, leading to funnier moments.

Pani returned, abruptly in a 2009 OVA, effectively a one-off new episode also by Shaft, which was clearly used to advertise the manga, still going in from 2000 to 2011. It is obscure to the point I had no idea of its existence until I had returned to the original series, not included with the original work in streaming or a physical release in the West. Even the opening credits are the same, and it feels like a run back in nice comfortable shoes for the voice cast and the production team to a work they liked. Only some tame fan service, mild titillation, suggest anything remotely different, alongside the questionable decision to dress Rebecca, in an antagonist's role, in a tweens' size Germanic black uniform, which we will just ignore as a poor choice. It would have actually been a good episode in the source series, actually emphasizing the better virtue of having normal school activities distorted in an absurd touch, here how Rebecca's class and a couple others have failed exams but have a chance to avoid retest if they can beat the school tradition of "Kick the Can". This is an all day event where they have in a school day until 5pm, without all of them being caught by their persuaders, to kick the aforementioned soda can. It definitely has jokes to remind you this is Pani Poni Dash, such as the aliens returning with a parody of scenes of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, represented in close parody caricature, from Michael Mann's Heat (1995), but barring some of the more overt light eroticism, this has a lot more good jokes, such as Media the maid and the magical girl, on the pursuers'' side, wishing to protect the can by planting M18 landmines and military defense weaponry around the school. It is the last piece to a work which, baring an internet radio show and spin-off manga on specific characters, has a lot I admired but was in the animated version a show which is flawed entirely because the premise, whilst mad as a box of frogs in tone, has so much you can work with that it is actually not as interesting to be as unpredictable as it was, the punch lines missed of trying to pretend to be a cohesive high school comedy with this motley crew of lovable school girls and miscreants tantalizing in where it could have gone with that dynamic schism.

#15: Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

From https://3.bp.blogspot.com
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Director: Akiyuki Shinbo

Screenplay: Gen Urobuchi

Voice Cast: Aoi Yūki (as Madoka Kaname); Chiwa Saito (as Homura Akemi); Emiri Katō (as Kyubey); Ai Nonaka (as Kyōko Sakura); Eri Kitamura (as Sayaka Miki); Kaori Mizuhashi as Mami Tomoe and Tatsuya Kaname)

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

Spoiler Warning: The paragraph explicitly dealing with major plot twists with be signposted so it can be avoided.

Madoka was an emotional rollercoaster, so to try to write about the twelve episode series is going to be difficult. It could be summed up as a deconstruction of the Magical Girl subgenre which Sailor Moon is the famous example of, where a teenage girl develops magical powers and an alternative identity to fight magical enemies, but that would be like saying Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-6) is merely a deconstruction of the giant robot genre only. The same theme that appears in anime for decade now appears here, hope even in the worst of circumstances, even in a world that is unremittingly bleak, but what's different here is that it's through a novel, extreme concept of the magical girl stereotype character being created through a Faustian pact. Like Evangelion bringing severe emotional weight to its content, the same is found here when two fourteen year old girls, Madoka and her friend Sayaka, encounter a cute cat-like creature who says he can give them any single wish if they become magical girls and fight witches, horrible deformities of people's souls who encourage others to commit suicide and feed off this type of death.

On paper, while the suicide aspect is dark, immediately brings to mind merely a slightly more adult and serious version of Sailor Moon, at least what people think Sailor Moon is, alongside the promotional art very deceiving to me of what I was ultimately going to get. Alongside Madoka and Sayaka are Mami, a slightly older girl who takes them under her wing before they even consider becoming magical girls, Homura, an unnervingly quiet transfer student who warms Madoka continually not to become a magical girl, and Kyōko, a misanthrophic magical girl who comes later into the show who only cares for the prizes slain witches leave rather than saving lives, the only thing she cares for being the vast quantities of food she is continually munching on. I liked the first two episodes, which have a lightness to them despite the dark subject material, from the humour of Madoka's classroom teacher to scenes of her family life, her mother a huge emotional crux she continually goes to for advice throughout the series. From episode three however, when a significant tragedy happens, what I jokingly viewed as one of the most depressing anime I've seen in a while builds from this shocking and unexpected death into a drama taken to the level of cosmic implications, taking the blatant metaphor in the story of a magical girl being a teenage girl becoming an adult and, letting the complications of emotional growth and awareness that all teenagers go through, be filtered through this dark fantasy from the perspective of Madoka. As she keeps hesitating in becoming a magical girl, she bears witness to the psychological trauma that takes place for everyone else, the magical girls and the witches not what they appear as the cute cat-mascot, Kyubey, turns out to be an alien with no concept of emotions whose purpose being the magical girls is literally described by him as cattle during an ethical argument with her. The series' message is very obvious and seen many times before, sacrifice and perseverance, but why the series does succeed is that, alongside its memorable visual style, is that it completely subverts the magical girl sub-genre and also allows unsettling implications to be written into the drama, where even the act of hope for one character can literally poison their soul and eventually turn them into a monster.

From http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sweet-dreams_3701.jpg

Magica is, openly from me, an incredibly powerful and beautiful made series, some of plotting abrupt but the bar is significantly high in terms of scope, gut impact and what quality is there. Here in particular the importance of a great voice performance really stood out. Even if I have to rely on English subtitles, unable to speak Japanese, every central performance (all done by actresses) stands out, making sure that it doesn't just become a misery fest of crying sequences and death but with sympathetic characters you care for. Even if the show sells itself on its lush character designs, bold and colour coded character designs by Ume Aoki which are memorable, a central figure like Madoka isn't just a cute pink haired teenager put in existential hell, but through the script and performances is utterly sympathetic even if the character is one in a long line of female characters who want to help everyone and will do everything to help others, a character type that could go badly wrong and become trite if it wasn't for the quality shows like this has. The visuals are also a huge factor to the show, sumptuous but helping subvert the tropes of the magical girl. Realistic city environments are contrasted by an inspired idea of the witches, far from monsters with a conventional aesthetic, being based on innocent symbolism. Their worlds within the main characters' world, called labyrinths, can be orchestral halls or full of food, whilst the witches can be drawn with crayon or cartoonish, big eyed creatures. From a circus theme to even the bottom half a giant schoolgirl who fires panties at people, they are whimsical and potentially silly monster designs from more light hearted shows given a severity when you witness the shock in the early episodes and what they represent, innocent symbols turned into the worst of humanity, made more unsettling when the cause of how the witches are created is revealed. The show uses a lot of digital layering and experiments with various animated styles, both making something as innocuous as a cotton ball with a moustache creepy but also helping with the fantastical nature of the show. While it cannot match the symbolic and surreal qualities of another show also from this year, Kunihiko Ikuhara's Mawaru Penguindrum, they both show that, whilst I miss the style hand drawn animation gave anime, that when it's at its best computer assisted animation after the 2000s, especially now, is capable of a new fantastical quality especially when the aesthetic is as bold as both of them. Like Penguindrum, Madoka shows the best quality of this new aesthetic style in that, alongside the voice acting, it allows a good script to be fleshed out with visual stimulus adding emotional importance. I could still joke about it being the meanest anime I've seen in a while, but it's not pointlessly cruel killing off characters for the sake of it, nor absurd to the point of being stupid, instead every plight felt to be poignant as much because of the production quality.

[Spoiler Warning: Skip ahead to after the next bracket if you don't want the series spoilt]

The style of the series, especially when it commits to its cosmic interpretation of its message, is ultimately rewarding after all the agony you suffer as a viewer if you can emotionally connect to it. Strangely the series ends the same way Serial Experiments Lain (1998) in some form, Madoka when all her friends baring Homura becoming witches or dead deciding to become an omniscient deity reverse this pain and save everyone else. The willingness to take risks, like killing off a central character you immediately love in episode three or the show's ending, which still is bleak as monsters still exist but means Madoka protects all magical girls from the fates they could suffer originally, is the sort of thing I love the most in anime. Its heightened and utterly melodramatic, a style close to the ridiculous that few western animated works is willing to attempt, something which appeals to me more than being safe and grounded emotionally without the fear of a beloved character dying or becoming a monster themselves.

[Spoiler Warning Ended. Read after this bracket to avoid spoiling the story]

From https://avvesione.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/
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In a lot of ways the series isn't really a magical girl show thought. There are action scenes, and they are of importance, but most of the story over twelve episodes is concentrated on the drama itself, most of the characters soon into the show immediately dealing with the implications of being a magical girl than stumbling upon it to their horror after time fighting witches for a few episodes. It suggests a speculative "what-if", the show perfect as it is, from someone like me as an anime fan who does like a good twenty four episode show. The series is brisk in its plotting, causing me to wonder what it would've been like to have a monster-of-the week episode or two, some more comedy or more time to spread a story that takes a month chronologically into a slower pace. Episodes for Evangelion which could've been seen as filler early on proved to add important characterisation to its cast, making what happened later on more meaningful, and while Madoka works perfectly as it is, double the episode length if done well would've still worked, more time with Madoka, Mami, Homoru, Sayaka and Kyōko as the central cast would've had just as much power as the economic plotting in the series as it stand does. The only real issue with what has been done with the series for real is that, rather than additional episodes, there are now spin-offs that capitalised on its success. Like another popular franchise Full Metal Alchemist (2003), this is a potentially troublesome issue as the story for it and Madoka were final, meaning any continuation ultimately undoes the ending people liked originally. After two compilation films of the original series, this new story Rebellion (2013) was released in Japanese cinema, causing controversy for Western fans both for undoing the series' ending and a controversial plot twist using a beloved character. Rebellion looks visually fascinating in screenshots, but again the stuff that's upset peoples makes me hesitant to view, something I have to deal with when I eventually cover it on the blog. 

From https://avvesione.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/puella_magi_madoka_
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