Weird Anime is an on-going pet project created to provide readers with a consistent and concise guide to the more obscure depths anime has to offer. Weird is obviously an ambiguous and subjective term, but ultimately the point here is to selectively catalog anime that is either visually unconventional and / or narratively subversive.

Updates will be made as time permits.

• 22nd January 2010: Petshop of Horrors
• 21st January 2010: Kaiji
• 11th January 2010: Kino’s Journey
• 7th January 2010: Shigurui
• 6th January 2010: Infinite Ryvius

Infinite Ryvius, 1999, 26 episodes

People often describe Infinite Ryvius as “Lord of the Flies… in Space!” It begins with what at first appears to be a cliche cast of moody anime teenagers, but then cuts them adrift in space. Lost, without any means of rescue and free of adult supervision, the teenagers (all 500+ of them) are forced to take responsibility and find ways to survive, resulting in a fascinating, ever changing sociological study of government and human nature. Between the spells of democracy and dictatorships, the morality of the children, many in shallow but potentially vicious cliques, is tested to breaking point.

Kaiji, 2007, 26 episodes

People die in this series. They get electrocuted, fall from the tops of sky-scrapers and are sent away as slave laborers. All that and for what? Money! Kaiji is about gambling. Society’s lesser lights are dredged up from Japan’s murkiest alleys and handed the opportunity to earn a lot of money real fast. The games are simple; ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ is the first. It’s just a child’s game, right? Yet the weight that each carries is of Earth-shattering importance. What our eyes behold is the death and rebirth of a man’s dignity.

Kino’s Journey, 2003, 13 episodes

Kino and her talking motorcycle, Hermes, slowly travel from country to country, quietly observing the foreign cultures and societies they visit. We view the world through Kino’s cold, objective eyes. Unflinchingly honest, sometimes pretty, others shocking, Kino’s Journey is allegorical, not deterred by depicting darker shades of human nature and absolutely refuses to indulge in heavy moral grandstanding, preferring instead to leave us to emotionally interpret what we have seen for ourselves. It is animated with a beautiful simplicity and coloured faintly, conjuring the aesthetic and feeling of a surreal dream or children’s book.

Petshop of Horrors, 1999, 4 episodes

Petshop of Horrors comprises a quartet of episodic tales, each bringing with it a doomed new customer for the enigmatic petshop to delight in tormenting. The creatures inside are dangerous, yet hold an allure for their future owners. Lost to love or depressed by the inevitability of time, their damaged souls are bewitched by what they discover in the shop’s darkness; seeing fantasies in the animals; dreams lost previously to reality. The creepiness of the series is affecting; very moody and ambiguous, it places as much emphasis on the customers’ intoxicating circumstances as the twisted tragedy that follows.

Shigurui, 2007, 12 episodes

Shigurui is about as violent as anime gets. Set in 17th century Japan, it provides an all too grim observation of the morality and subsequent deeds of its country’s famous samurai culture. Fetishistic to the core and obsessed with the human body, it revels in the exact moment of damage, determined to focus on every torn muscle and shattered bone, elevating itself to a work of grotesque beauty. Just as disturbing is the darkness of the samurai, not so much the heroes of lore as erotically charged, psychotic mass-murders with a license to inflict cruelty at a whim.

Trapeze a.k.a. Kuchu Buranko, 2009, 11 episodes

One could be forgiven for assuming Trapeze is a touch superficial. It has an intentionally surreal presentation that belies its parade of modern psychological disorders (e.g. an obsessive compulsive disorder involving mobile phones.) Yet this is a very visual series, a fantastically realized splicing of vibrant colours, 2-dimensional anime tropes and hilariously contorted live-action actors, to say nothing of Denki Groove’s smile-inducing opening and ending themes. Each episode brings with it a new patient for the bizarre psychologist Doctor Irabu to help, some more interesting than others, but always fun to watch.

Please feel free to chime in with your own suggestions for Weird Anime using the comment form below.