I have reviewed the good and the bad, this week, I will cover the wierd in between that I can't even comprehend let alone decide whether it is good or bad. Since these are such short series I will combine them into one review.
First up is FLCL(pronounced "Fooly Cooly") which was recommended to me by a friend who swore it was the best anime he ever saw. He also admitted to me on another occasion that he baked a batch of magic brownies so strong he spent the weekend on his back staring at the molecules of air in front of his face. After watching FLCL I feel I missed something by being stone cold sober. It's the story of a boy named Naota who gets run over by a girl on a vespa. That girl, Haruko, moves in with his family under the auspices of being a housekeeper so she can keep an eye on Naota because things start coming out of his head, starting with a robot named Kanti that also lives with them. All of this happens within the first episode, the subsequent five episodes each featuring something else coming out of Naota's head and none of it makes any sense. After much research and consulting with my friend the scholar of FLCL, I have determined that what happens is that Haruko is interested in a space pirate named Atomsk and figured out a way to trasport him to her by opening a portal between the left and right hemispheres of Naota's brain. Kanti is actually part of Atomsk, but the rest of him is stuck in Naota and Haruko can't close the portal until she can get the rest of Atomsk out. The result is that the two have to sort of fuse into one so that they can fight the other robots that come out of Naota's head which are apparently pursuing Atomsk. This dynamic isn't even explained until the final episode, the rest of the time FLCL just seems to be a story about how puberty can be worse than just a pimple on your forehead, you could have an entire war coming out of there.
Next up is Paranoia Agent, a show which I actually enjoyed, and it scares me to think what that says about me. There is simply no way to understand this except to go through the plot, and it is one seriously screwed up story. BTW, make sure you watch the opening right above this paragraph, it doesn't make any sense, and yet gives the perfect WTF setup for this series. The first six episodes tell a linear story before going off the rails completely, but you're already roped in by then so enjoy the crazy denouement. The story begins with Tsukiko Sagi, an animator who made it big by creating a puppy character named Maromi who is basically Hello Kitty. Her company wants her to make another character but she's a one-hit wonder and with her deadline tommorrow she is overcome with the pressure of trying to invent a new character when she gets assaulted by a boy on rollerblades who hits her with a baseball bat in the parking lot outside her office. The story turns to the investigation of the mystery assailant known only as "Lil' Slugger". The second episode focuses on the first suspect, Ichi, a young boy who fits the profile physically, he's a young boy who enjoys rollerblading and baseball and owns the signature equipment of Lil' Slugger. However he is a model youth whose life was absolutely perfect until he's accused of assault. The one person who comes to his defense is Shogo, the new kid who embodies everything Ichi hates including being blissfully unaware of how much Ichi hates him. Of course, Lil' Slugger attacks Shogo while he is walking home from school with Ichi and there are no witnesses to prove it wasn't Ichi. Ichi begins to buckle under the pressure, giving up his rollerblades and bat and baseball itself to try to escape suspicion, and then he gets attacked by Lil' Slugger himself. The third episode shifts to Ichi's tutor, Harumi, who has a split personality, the other being a prostitute who thoroughly enjoys having sex with strangers and revels in how it could destroy her alternate personality's life if she ever gets caught. Through the episode the two personalities struggle for dominance until one night when Harumi's face is half-covered in her alter ego's make-up reaches her breaking point, stumbling through the street unsure who she is and she gets hit by Lil' Slugger. The fourth episode focuses on a police officer named Masami Hirukawa who is a regular customer of Maria, the prostitute alter ego of Harumi from the previous episode. It should be noted that he insists his prostitutes always call him "daddy".Masami has been stealing money and services from a prostitution ring in exchange for not reporting them as he should. But then a higher up in the crime organization tells him he needs to pay back the money with interest and forces him to become a burglar to steal the money from other people to get the money to pay back the yakuza. Of course, this pressure leads to his mental breakdown and Lil' Slugger comes for him too. The difference is, this time the police officer gets up and goes after Lil' Slugger and arrests him and is celebrated as a hero for finally bringing Lil' Slugger to justice. The fifth episode is the interrogation of Lil' Slugger who has a bizarre confession regarding a video game he was playing and describing the attacks in terms of events in the video game, claiming he was a holy hero defeating monsters. After a thorough investigation, they realize this kid is actually only responsible for Shogo and the police officer, the other attacks have nothing to do with him. The sixth episode tells us about Masami Hirukawa's daughter Taeko who loved her father until she found that his computer had a secret file of pictures of her undressing. Now we know why he keeps asking the prostitutes to call him daddy. She runs away and their house is destroyed by a storm, a metaphor for how their home was destroyed by her father's betrayal. Of course, this pressure leads to yet another Lil' Slugger attack. In the seventh episode things go crazy when Lil' Slugger is killed by Lil' Slugger-yes you read that right, no he did not kill himself, another Lil' Slugger appears and kills the suspect in custody. The remaining episodes veer off from the main original story, but still, every episode features the theme of growing pressure until Lil Slugger shows up. Finally the last two episodes bring it home by finally revealing the truth, Tsukiko actually had a pet dog named Maromi when she was a kid and based her cartoon character on him as a tribute. The real Maromi was killed when young Tsukiko absent mindedly let him wander into traffic. She was so ashamed she shifted blame onto a fictional assailant, Lil' Slugger. As it turns out, the true Lil' Slugger is actually a product of her imagination that took on a life of his own, feeding on people's stress. Ultimately Lil' Slugger is defeated when she accepts responsibility and apologizes to Maromi. Maromi the cartoon character is also interesting because it turns out Maromi is the opposite of Lil' Slugger, while people try to escape responsibility and stress by giving their worst to Lil'Slugger, Maromi represents the paragon of innocence to which they cling and aspire to, ultimately their souls torn between the two.
Finally, I bring you the most screwed up piece of animation ever, Deadman Wonderland. Seriously, if there is something worse than this, I don't want to know about it. And when I say worse, I don't mean it's a bad show, I mean it makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with people who can even imagine stuff like this. I watched it because it was part of Toonami's reboot a couple years ago, and while they have been pretty solid since this one got replaced, I so wished they had come out of the gate with something better than this. The opening you see above is hands down the best part of the show, it goes downhill very fast. Deadman Wonderland refers to a prison that is also an amusement park. Right there, any sane person is saying WTF and walking away, but somebody ran with this to come up with a story that destroys your faith in humanity. The first episode opens with a class of elementary school students discussing their field trip to Deadman Wonderland, when suddenly a stranger appears and brutally murders all of them except a boy named Ganta who is then accused of the crime and railroaded at trial and sentenced to Deadman Wonderland as a deathrow inmate. I can not understate the horror of this opening, Ganta awakens to a scene of black and red and his classmates dismembered bodies scattered across the room, and then his trauma is raised by being sent to a prison with actual criminals, some of whom actually killed people and have no problem Killing Ganta. He soon befriends Shiro, an albino girl of the same age who stands out by being the only inmate who doesn't wear the prison uniform, and also nobody is quite sure what she's in for in the first place. The second episode takes it to a new level by showing what life as a Deadman Wonderland inmate is like, you can buy anything, including, hypothetically, your freedom, provided you can earn the money, but the catch is that you earn the money by entertaining the guests in the most horrible ways. As an example, Shiro drags Ganta into a race through an obstacle course with deadly obstacles such as razor sharp axes, arrows, electric fences and toxic gas and when the last three surviving participants make it to the end, they are forced to fight to the last in a game of catch over a pit of spikes, all for a bean curd bun. On top of this, Ganta is also subject to the death sentence, his tracking collar streams poison into his body which will kill him abruptly unless he takes an antidote once every 72 hours, and he has to purchase that antidote with his earnings as well. The series is only 12 episodes and the remaining ten focus on the Deadmen, the true reason behind Deadman Wonderland, individuals who have developed special blood powers and the prison is meant to contain and research them, as well as have them fight for the entertainment of investors who gamble on the duels. Ganta turns out to be one of them as a result of the attack on his class and many other Deadmen were similarly framed and railroaded just to be put into the prison.
Well, those are the wierdest I have come across, I challenge you to watch any of them and hold on to your sanity.
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