For a more visual review; check out this DTube video:
Status: Finished
Ito Junji Collection - You know, of ALL the production team in ALL animated studios in ALL the world, and you just HAD to choose Studio Deen!
I know people, which include even me, like to joke about how Toei animation isn’t that top notch when it comes to producing animated shows. But unlike Toei that could create quality content every once in awhile, Studio Deen seems to have a problem on creating an adaptation that is on par nowadays. For those who wants to defend Studio Deen, this anime is not the hill you want to die on.
Ito Junji Collection is a collection of Ito Junjis work that works as an anthology series. This means that we will see a collection of separate horror stories. Now as this anime might seem to have no problem regarding having continuous story with just show different scenarios. Yet! They find a way to even mess those things up. I’ll explain that one in just a moment.
As you might know, sometimes some scenes or some moments needs to be compromised. The artwork of the creators can be very unique when someone going to copy it, especially when you are going to animate it. But when you do compromised things, you need to remember that it should still show the quality in of the artwork in another ways. With that said and done, do you think they did a good job? Because I don't think they did a good job.
You have choppy character movements, goofy execution, gray visuals instead of good contrasts, scenes that has less impactful cinematography one chopped still image. They even photoshopped an image of a spider in one scene. I’m not even joking, the spider looks so fake that I noticed the second it appeared on screen.
They even compromise still shots! Wow! This isn’t something that moves that much or in the background, it’s in the center of the screen and it’s a still shot! You couldn't even bother giving this horrendous women some time.
And that's what the anime fails to do, to make the character look intentional horrendous. The details and the contrast from the Black and white from manga are gone. The charm of the surreal illustrations are tooned down and how they are delivered in the story is watered down. This is a shame for any horror story, especially for this anime.
But Taff, you have just talked about the animation and how it reflects the story elements. You haven’t actually talked about the story ITSELF.
Well here is the thing, despite Ito junji being a good artist, he isn’t always a good story teller. He usually make stories where people does illogical choices regarding how they feel and know about the situation. Some are excusable, others are not.
With that I mean that character does some stupid shit that makes you think if they just wanted to die. Now now, I do understand when something that motivates them to do something else with affection or with the information they have at hand, this can easily be understanded in stories like Tomie and Lovesick Dead. When someone is madly in love or distracted, they do stuff they would normally wouldn’t do.
What I’m saying is that not all stories does focus on these topics. It’s the mentality of the characters. How should I put? If a character saw a train coming towards them and they yell that they needed to move away, they would still be in the rails and not even attempt to move from their position.
Sometimes we have stories like the circus where we are to believe that none of the audience objected when each and everyone of the performer suddenly died infront of them. I mean, characters are yelling that the circus is cursed and then get murdered in front of the audience. Is really nobody in this massive audience going to do anything? In fact, when the host speaks to the audience that he needs their help to recruit replacement for the now dead performer, they all seemed to be willing to join in because of the girl. Wha-what!? This would make sense of the audience was cheering for these murders, but they aren't doing that. They show a clear disgust of what has happened. See this is why episode 8 is the worst episode.
And sadly, this anime has more of his lesser work than his best work. And the team didn’t even looked over these things. Hell, you could argue that they even made some stories worse.
Isn’t the productions team job to evaluate someone's story to another medium and sloppy copying pasting it?
For those who wonders, yes there are good parts in this anime. Like I said, the collection does include good stories. In Fact most of them are in the Opening.
For example: it has the Slug Girl, Long Dream, Tomie, Lovesick Dead, My Dear Ancestors, hell they even have stories of our favorite pathetic and pale boi! Yes Souichi is finally in animation!
However, if you expect these character to appear frequently, then you are not in luck. Yeah, Lovesick Dead that supposedly have a continuing story spanning 5 chapters, only has one. This is coming from me who liked that story allot.
Even best pale and pathetic boi doesn't get that many episode where he is featured. If this series was just about him, then this anime might have been much higher on this list.
Can we also talk about the OP? I get an impression that they fought that getting into the mood for scary imagery was by having a rock music and present their monsters like they are a crime fighting team. In other words, I think it doesn’t fit the show. Now the ED, is more fitting.
I mean this anime is just a waste of time.
If you want to read Ito Junji collection, that is fine, you got many chapters which will are a feast to the eye. But this anime, ohohoho, you can just skip this one.