Weird Anime

Weird Anime is an on-going 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 catalogue anime that, as vague as this sounds, is either visually unconventional and / or narratively subversive.

Updates will be made as time permits.

• 29th August 2010: Time of Eve
• 30th July 2010: Haibane Renmei
• 3rd June 2010: Oh! Edo Rocket
• 3rd June 2010: Area 88
• 2nd June 2010: Texhnolyze

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Area 88, 1985, 3 episodes

Area 88 has a familiar set-up. Japanese pilot Shin Kazama is tricked by a so-called friend into being conscripted into a mercenary air-force that’s constantly at war in foreign lands. To regain freedom, Shin must accrue $1.5 million dollars, hence, he takes to the skies, each kill earning more valuable money. The set-up here is one of an action series and, indeed, it has its fair share of exciting aerial ’bouts, but the attention paid to the tortured psychology of its characters is what ultimately stands out; the finale, especially, is a tragic affair.

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Haibane Renmei, 2002, 13 episodes

Haibane are born from cocoons as fully formed, adolescent girls with small wings.  They remember a life before they were born, but retain no memory from it.  They share their town with normal humans and neither humans nor haibane may pass the city walls.  At the beginning of Haibane Renmei a new haibane, Rakka, has been born.  She presses to discover why the wall exists, what lies beyond it and what the real purpose of a haibane’s new life is.

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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 dictatorship, the moralities of the children, many in shallow but potentially vicious cliques, are tested to breaking point.

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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 labourers; 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 hand carries is of Earth-shattering importance.

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Kino’s Journey, 2003, 13 episodes

Kino and her talking motorcycle, Hermes, travel slowly 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 and not deterred by depicting the darker shades of human nature. It absolutely refuses to indulge in moral grandstanding, preferring instead to leave us to interpret what we see for ourselves. Animated with a beautiful simplicity and coloured faintly, the series conjures the feeling of a surreal children’s book.

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Oh! Edo Rocket, 2007, 26 episodes

Oh! Edo Rocket is a testament to the fact that just because an anime is weird doesn’t mean it need be melancholy, dark, violent or stoic. Running gags, slapstick, toilet humor and a persistent carpe diem philosophy define the series. Oh! Edo Rocket has the blessing of finding its source material in a play: its scripting and pace bearing resemblance to Shakespeare at times. Supported by a 1930s-inspired sountrack and background art reminiscent of a sumi-e painting, the series suffers no production pitfalls. That said, its plot is simplistic: boy meets girl, girl wants to go to the moon in a rocket. A rocket made of fireworks, the firing of which are currently under prohibition by the Tokugawa Shogunate. As one might expect, madness ensues.

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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 transience of youth, their damaged souls are bewitched by what they discover in the shop’s darkness; seeing dreams in the animals; dreams lost to reality. Each story is creepy and affecting in its own way, placing as much emphasis on the customers’ intoxicating circumstances as the twisted tragedies that follow.

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Shigurui, 2007, 12 episodes

Shigurui is about as nasty 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. 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. Most disturbing is the violence of the samurai, not so much the heroes of lore as erotically charged, psychotic mass-murders with license to inflict cruelty on a whim.

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Spring and Chaos, 1996, 1 episode (movie)

Directed by Shoji Kawamori (yes, that Shoji Kawamori), Spring and Chaos is a biography. It follows the “spring” of author, teacher and poet Kenji Miyazawa’s life (yes – that Kenji Miyazawa!). From a field in rural 1920s Japan to the shores of the afterlife, Spring and Chaos is a swirl of images. It is disconnected, disjointed, beautiful, tragic, like a thought that never quite makes it into words. Did I mention the cast are depicted as fully-dressed, walking, talking cats?

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Texhnolyze, 2003, 22 episodes

Laying deep under the Earth’s surface is Lux, a city long since forgotten. Set in a near-future where humanity, having hit an evolutionary dead-end, turns to technology to force a change. It goes badly wrong when the citizens of Lux (criminals condemned to mine materials miles underground) are abandoned. We follow the main character Ichise as he literally navigates the end of the world; his city devoid of natural beauty, it’s a man-made, concrete jungle fallen into disrepair, but, even worse, is the loss of hope. This is a dark, melancholy series with moments of sublime, sad beauty.

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Time of Eve, 2008, 6 episodes

Time of Eve is less an anime than it is a question: what would the world be like with androids? It explores this question poetically, through the interactions between androids and humans in a café. The premise of this café is unique, however: here, androids are required to turn off the projected halos which identify them. Given the 15-minute length of the episodes, the subject is dealt with in a light, yet highly poignant manner. Paired with lovely animation and a well-done soundtrack, the only thing one could ask of the series is more of it.

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

One could be forgiven for assuming Trapeze is a tad 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.

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