This Week in Anime

Anime That Feels Like a Bad Trip

Coop
Everybody is getting sick out here, Lucas! Unfortunately for us, "everybody" included me last week. I re-learned that watching anything while on NyQuil is an EXPERIENCE. However, sometimes you watch things that make you feel like you've just chugged the whole bottle.

Or watching Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. Let's talk about a handful of series that make viewers feel like they've just dropped a little something. Not just titles that nauseate, but ones that feature a combination of vivid imagery and unconformable truths. As we started with Momentary Lily... I've never seen a more bafflingly constructed series before. This might be a good time to point out that this is my first time WATCHING anything by GoHands, and boy, do they live up to their reputation.

As an enjoyer of bad cinema, there's this sort of "Breenian" quality to Momentary Lily. I see it, especially in how the characters try to exist in a world of stock photos that are not properly scaled to them. This creates such an uncanny and stilted picture that naturally led me to look for the seams in every frame. That's not how perspective works.

And that's one of the better images from Cade: The Tortured Crossing, too.

Hellshake... It speaks to Pop Team Epic's staying power that I can instantly recall a handful of its bits. Especially the little phrases that might sound normal to most anime fans, but would get me a sharp head tilt and strange looks from anyone else.

That reminds me of when a handful of friends led me into an Otakon screening room. Everyone started howling when what appeared to be live-action footage turned into this...

Oh yes, your eyes do not deceive you, Lucas. While it may look a little wild now, that's nothing compared to the rest of Cleopatra. The second film in Osamu Tezuka and Mushi Production's Animerama Trilogy, Cleo is a psychedelic, horny, and occasionally offensive trip! Every moment on-screen either had me screaming or tugging my collar—it's that balls to the wall! If you were interested in reading a little more about its history, I'd highly recommend checking out this deep dive on the film by Renaissance Josei.

Yes, Cleopatra IS holding a pistol in that photo.

This movie is filled with nothing but weird, horny, and occasionally "I don't know about that" sorts of questions. The best way to see it is a Blu-ray released by Discotek in 2020—a good while before my involvement with the company. It was also up on RetroCrush, but it doesn't appear to be at this very moment. I've never heard a crowd scream at an anime film like that before! Or since even.

What a dub...

All that green surrounding Dandy reminds me so much of the NyQuil sitting by my bed last week... and the atmosphere of the show I was watching. Revolutionary Girl Utena's Black Rose Saga takes the series' already dreamlike setting and turns up the David Lynch dial to 11.

Especially when Nemuro Hall and the Black Rose Duelists appear. There's a liminal space quality to the hall itself that fills viewers with a sense of nightmarish dread. Like if I was at a low point, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near here at all.

The bold lighting and staging choices displayed throughout this saga's run only intensify that liminal darkness. These elements have been present from the start of Utena, but it has been allowed to fully sprawl out in all its unsettling beauty. It's a mind-spinning stunner even when you're not dealing with a bad cold. Not to mention that's filled with some challenging material as well.

Oh boy, that's one hell of a way to start a life in a new city. I feel you; those feelings are natural, and I can only imagine how supercharged they were. I felt the same when I moved to Phoenix.

I've yet to see it myself. That does sound like a good way to spend the night with friends! Way better than whatever Galerians: Rion is trying to do. But who knows? Maybe everyone's in the mood for a flick made up of remade cutscenes from a PS1 game set to the hottest MTV2 tracks of 2002.

I dig the vibes of these backgrounds, though. They sure hit those classic survival horror notes to a tee.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this was about edgy psychic kids using questionable substances to fight other edgy psychic kids.

I'd go with the first one because these films are often a little dry more than anything. However, they do give you the occasional good face to laugh at.

Only the Galerians know...