Murphix talked this up so much, I really had to check it out
for myself - - pulling a two-fer on the
first couple episodes - - and holy shit, did it not disappoint. The show
evokes the body horrors of David Cronenberg, Clive Barker and John Carpenter in
equal measure, throwing us right into a kind of fractured superhero origin that
can be terrifying, hilarious and outright surreal depending on which point you
check in.
As was the case with JOJO’s, you can really see the virtue
in an animation studio waiting a couple decades to adapt a manga. For one, the
pacing is tight, because the writing staff is working with a story that’s
already complete (instead of assembling
it piecemeal every week). Maybe more importantly, the ‘temporal displacement’
make the whole concept feel that much fresher. This is very much from the era
of the video nasty, with the bodysnatcher invasion storyline and assorted
bio-transformations being the same kind of phantasmagoria you’d find in THE
THING, VIDEODROME and THEY LIVE, et al. What may have had a quality of sameness
in the late 80’s now feels like a pointed antidote when programmed next to today’s anime trends.
I even weirdly feel a sense of nostalgia in how
extravagantly bad for you this is. It
makes me think of a time when the 15+ sticker on an anime VHS tape carried a
sense of exotic taboo; making good on the promise of “These aren’t your daddy’s cartoons!” without insulting your
intelligence. Indeed, the show can get away with the invaders’ ultraviolence
precisely because it’s just as interested in the comedy of our titular parasite (particularly in him being utterly flummoxed by the basic qualities of human arousal).
With this and PSYCHO PASS 2, the Fall anime season is already
looking way better than the Summer. Show
me more -- now!
Watch "Demon in the Flesh" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode. (And much thanks to Takashichea for the screengrab above).
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