Anime Week: You can't spell SLAUGHTER without LAUGHTER.

Instead of covering a movie, today, we're going to talk about an anime series and, for serious, this is probably the creepiest anime series in existence besides Bobobo Bo Bobobo.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (literal translation: When the Cicadas Cry.  Known in America as "When They Cry".) is a murder mystery/dating sim adaptation/horror series set in a small town in rural Japan.  Over the course of 26 episodes, it follows Keiichi when he moves to Hinamizawa and makes friends with Rena, Mion, Rika and Satoko. 

They LOOK normal, right?

So, yeah, anyway, they all have an afterschool club where they play games and the loser gets a punishment.  Because kids do that, right?  During the annual Watanagashi Festival, though (and what did I tell you about festivals?) things go tits up.  Every year for the past four years, someone goes missing and another is murdered during this festival.

So concerned...

During each story arc, someone gets paranoid and antsy and commits a crime, usually among the friends.

YEAH, BABY!!

Now, during the course of the series, there are four different mysteries, four different crimes, four different examinations of the festival and its goings on and four different dead girls.  It's kind of ballsy how they did that, really.  The series gives up some COMPLETELY creepy shit, too.  Like the one situation wherein a character is kidnapped and held prisoner and, rather than suffer whatever punishment at the hands of her attacker, takes a knife, holds it handle first against the wall and headbutts herself to death on it.

Wait what?

Stabby.

This series is a slow burn and SERIOUSLY fucked up but I say sit through it and give it a chance to sink in.  I guarantee you you'll not want to sleep for at least a week and you'll avoid your local craft fair like the plague.

Anime Week: POOF! I'm a Ninja!

One of the most critically acclaimed Anime of all time, Ninja Scroll is, frankly, both completely badass and creepy as fuck.

And for a movie that's about 20 years old, it holds up really well.

Taking place in feudal Japan, Ninja Scroll follows Jubei, a wandering warrior who said "Fuck this" to his membership in a team of highly skilled ninjas who were retained to protect a gold mine and bugs out.  The movie (which is billed as an action/thriller) lets us know that Jubei actually killed the leader of his team, Gemma.

Gemma, on the other hand, apparently disagreed with having his fucking head removed and decided to resurrect himself and gets together with a new team called the Devils of Kimon who, in turn, are led by Tokugawa shogunate and they kind of just hate everybody.  They're made up of some truly freaky folks.

Quasimodo, here, has a fuckin' beehive in his back.

During his bout of, seriously, just trying to mind his own fuckin' business, he manages to get poisoned by this chick:

Wanna guess how?

Her tattoos do this:

And they take her nipples and vagoo with them.

The antidote involves sleeping with this person:

The girl... and he gets sloppy seconds, I guess.

Plus there's this chick:

I was never quite sure how she was involved.

Anyway, I'm not telling you any more.  This is one of those movies you have to see.  I love it, though.  It's spooky and action-packed and it's just fuckin' beautiful.  Plus, it brings us straight into Japanese mythology.  It's just an all around gorgeous example of storytelling.

Seek this one out.  It continues as a series.

Anime Week: What a Dick! (NSFW)

Today, we go from mild to wild.  If you're at all offended by sex, leave now, because this is the granddaddy of all Hentai.

Hentai, by the way, is Japanese tentacle porn.  I'll explain in a bit.

So, yeah.  We're gonna bring out the big guns (HA!  Guns.)  today and talk about Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.

The story (if you can call it that) goes like this:

There are three worlds, the normal world (人間界 Ningenkai), the demon world (魔界 Makai) and the beast world (獣人界 Jūjinkai).  Every 3000 years they decide to get up and party like it's 1999 and all kinds of shit goes down.  Most importantly, the appearance of the Overfiend, whose job it is to completely fuck up the planet and erase all life so the whole fuckin' thing can start over.  Which is fuckin' weird because Japanese culture has been around for about 17000 years.

Yeah, she's as confused as I am.  The hula hoop does not help.

Anyway, basically there are 5 movies and 3 OVAs (Original Video Animation) that tell a huge, convoluted story about how a Man-Beast named Jyaku is trying to find the true Overfiend and ensure the safety of all three worlds.  In the meantime, there's this kid named Tetsuo that's destined to be the host body for the Overfiend, the tart pictured above, Akemi, who is portrayed much more innocently in the film than the manga, Yuichi, a nerd who replaces his dick with a demon's and gets into all kinds of trouble with THAT and a whole bunch of other characters that just confuse the fuck out of me.

That's it, nerd.  Hide from the girls.

Now, this is obviously supernatural horror because we're dealing with demons and people cutting off body parts and replacing them with demon wangs and teachers that are part lizard demon and people dying all willy-nilly and shit.

Willy AND Nilly...

On the other side of the coin, we most definitely have eroticism because the Japanese most certainly like their schoolgirls all tied up and stuffed full of stuff in the tender places.

See, here's the deal with Hentai.  Japanese laws on erotica are SERIOUSLY strict.  They are not allowed to show penetration (in live action), pubic hair or, really, genitalia.  They get around this with black bars, cartoons and, since they can't show penises, tentacles.  This also goes hand in hand with their religion and their post-atomic fascination with Kaiju.  In this case we wound up with Godzilla all hepped up on the viagra.

That big blue thing?  Dick.

In any case, I recommend this film to those of us that are truly twisted.  It's been a while since I've seen it but, as confusing as it is, I kind of enjoy it.  If you want to show someone Hentai, show them this.  You can probably skip the 4 sequels but if you want to watch them, go right ahead.  I'm not stopping you.  I WILL say that I'm not fond of the obvious sexism but it makes a fascinating case study in Japanese media.

Manga Man Says: NOT FOR KIDS!

Today, kids, we're going to step away from standard horror for a moment and look at, as mentioned previously, the horror adjacent. 

For today, and, seriously, all this week, we're looking at Anime and it's expressions of horror, from the relatively tame and often hilarious Soul Eater to the completely balls-out fuck-nutty Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni.  The Asian people have a totally different and utterly beautiful way of expressing their societal fears and people may scoff at Anime but some of the most twisted and nightmare-inducing shit has come my way via Funimation.

Today?  Soul Eater.

 I started watching this on Toonami a few months ago and it became a favorite REAL fast. 

The premise goes like this.  Soul Eater follows a group of students at the DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy).  The students are split into teams, a "weapon" and a "meister".  Weapons are people that have the ability to actually turn into physical weapos and they maintain a psychic link with their meister.  The weapons' collective goal is to become a "Death Scythe" or a weapon specifically used by Death himself.  The meisters' job is to defeat evil people so that the weapons can eat the evil souls (and the soul of one witch) in order to complete this task.

Awww.  So forlorn and pensive.

So, yeah.  The primary team we're following is Maka and Soul.  He's a scythe and she's pretty much Hermione Granger.  Like Hermione, she will WHUP your FUCKIN' ASS if you cross her.  She looks meek and mild but she's got power and she's not afraid to use it.  On the outside, we've got Black*Star and Tsubaki (he's a smug fucking jerk-face and she's even meeker than Maka but has the ability to change into multiple weapon types) and Death the Kid, Liz and Patty (He's Lord Death's son and the girls can change into a pair of pistols (or larger, more dangerous weapons if the situation calls for it and he's got enough "soul resonance" to do it).

Anyway, at the academy, they are learning how to be the best teams they can be and what they're actually fighting against.  Their instructors include a zombie, Maka's deadbeat dad and Dr. Franken Stein.  Yes.  That actually happened.

Stein's the one adjusting the bolt in his brain.

It seems that the witches are the major source of antagonism and one of them has a plot to resurrect what's called a Kishin, an extra-naughty person with horrible mind-bending powers.

And that's all I'm telling you.  Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, this series kicks and everyone should be watching it.  I'm counting this one as horror-adjacent because it contains horror elements like interpretations of some of the classic movie monsters.  Even though it is not true horror, I think that horror fans would enjoy the bits used for flavoring.  Don't get me wrong, there are some horrifying elements to it (children are NOT safe) but for the most part it's action with a hint of comedy.

All four seasons are on Netflix streaming and it's kind of an awesome way to spend the weekend if you don't feel like getting off the couch.

What are you waiting for?  Go.  Watch.