| This week, I’m in the mood for some weird anime. Brace yourself folks, this is going to get pretty strange.
· Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi (2002) – Gee… it all starts out so innocent and normal. Arumi and Sasshi are lifelong friends – two 12-year-old kids who have grown up together in a tumbledown shopping district in Osaka, Japan. Sasshi has just reached the age where he’s started to notice pretty girls and Arumi has just reached the age where she’s started resenting Sasshi for noticing… well… girls who aren’t her. As the district’s various family businesses begin to desert the area, all moving to greener economic pastures, Arumi and Sasshi reluctantly face the possibility that they might not ever see each other again. They reminisce over past adventures, cringe over their embarrassing relatives and ponder their uncertain future. The entire first episode is quite realistic and bittersweet, akin to Anne of Green Gables, but with occasional rude jokes.
Then the tone changes so abruptly, you’ll get whiplash. The kids get magically transported to an alternate dimension full of bizarre creatures, people and challenges. First, it’s a strange Dungeons & Dragons-style shopping arcade. Then a science fiction shopping arcade, filled with lasers and giant robots. Each episode sees the kids flung into a new variation on their Osakan home, each with its own genre and rules, based on movie, anime and video game clichés. The realistic, leisurely-paced style goes out the window, and everything becomes as hyper as a 12-year-old after eight bowls of Frankenberry.
Supporting characters such as demons, space pirates and kung fu monks appear, most of them "played" by the duo’s friends and family members. A buxom redhead named Mune-mune (literally "Booby-booby") shows up to repeatedly (and obliviously) bury young Sasshi’s face in her ample cleavage, to his delight and Arumi’s ire. Each episode ends, Quantum Leap-style, with the youngsters appearing in a new world, which never quite manages to be the home they’re trying to locate. All 13 episodes are available on DVD.
· Speed Grapher (2005) – The title is completely meaningless, which is kind of a necessity for a show as indescribable as this. Seriously, it’s no worse a title than "Rotisserie Pillow" or "Accordion Swampland" or any other random two-word phrase you could come up with. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to describe a show that combines a stretchy-limbed ballet dancer/serial killer, a decadent secret society that sacrifices its own members in a black magic rite, a neglected heiress unaware of her alternate personality as a wish-bestowing "goddess," and a disturbed photojournalist who suddenly gains the ability to annihilate whatever he photographs?
There’s a lot going on here, and many viewers are going to be turned off by Speed Grapher’s disjointed structure, taboo subject matter and reluctance to answer questions about what the hell is happening. I, on the other hand, was mesmerized and can’t wait for more instalments. Volume 1 is currently available on DVD, with Volume 2 set for an August 22 release. (Six volumes are planned, completing the series.) By the way, it’s definitely not for kids.
· Hare and Guu (2001) – The full Japanese title, "Jangaru wa itsumo hare nochi Guu" roughly translates as "The Jungle was fine… then along came Guu." This lovably off-kilter comedy is about Hare, a young boy living in the jungle, who acquires a new step-sister when his ditzy alcoholic mother adopts Guu, a seemingly normal girl Hare’s age.
At first, Hare is delighted with his new sis, who has a sparkling personality and a thoughtful nature. Once the papers have been signed, however, Guu drops all pretenses of normality, and shuffles around staring at everybody with the cold, dead eyes of a shark. She knows nothing about human customs or manners and Hare must constantly correct Guu’s bizarre actions in order to keep the small jungle community from descending into total chaos. Worse, Hare seems to be the only one who notices that Guu is an amorphous alien creature capable of swallowing entire cities, and storing them in the vast alternate dimension inside her stomach. Poor little guy’s probably going to have a nervous breakdown before his voice changes.
Four volumes of this wigged-out series are currently available on DVD, with a fifth coming in September. Once you hear the opening theme song, you’ll never get it out of your head. |
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