anime: Speed Grapher eps 1-12

[meganbmoore]

In the near future, Tatsumi Saiga is a war photographer who found pleasure in death. Now back in Japan, he’s a photojournalist uncovering corruption. While investigating an illegal nightclub that caters to the most depraved sensibilities of Japan’s upper class, he discovers a ceremony where a young girl called the Goddess kisses men, awakening in them the ability to make their true desires reality. When Saiga is discovered, she kisses him and asks him to save her. Saiga’s desire is to truly kill with his camera, and now anything he takes a picture of explodes. (Best shounen power ever?)

The Goddess is Kagura, a physically and emotionally mistreated girl who thinks the nightclub is a horrible dream. Perhaps the only redeeming quality her mother has is that she doesn’t know her lover, Suitengu, takes Kagura to the nightclub and lets the men there do “horrible things” (according to Kagura) there, and is mad enough when she thinks Kagura only snuck out and learned the club even existed.

After the initial arc of Saiga rescuing Kagura, the series devolved for a bit into random Euphorics who Kagura had given abilities to trying to capture them, but seems to have returned to the main plot with the last few episodes. I both disliked and was bored by the first episode, which featured Saiga’s background and search for the club, but was more interested when we got to the second episode and Kagura’s background. The series literally makes me physically uncomfortable, and the opening credits alone exceed my squick and fanservice levels. It’s ridiculously fanservice-y at times 9and then not at all at others), and parts of it are an endless barrage of bondage, molestation, and “kinks.” Despite this, Kagura and Saiga are engaging leads, and the core plot underneath all the fetishism is interesting, with genetic engineering and secret parents and girls who can awaken secret abilities.

Even more than the molestation of fetishism overkill, though, what bugs me is how, so far, virtually every female character but Kagura is an evil psycho. The only exception so far is the woman who ran a bathhouse they stayed at while they were on the run. The one that seriously burns, though, even more than “mother who abuses her child and is obsessively jealous and paranoid of her,” though, is Ginza, the badass cop who’s in love with Saiga. I can’t help but think that, is Ginza were a man, her unrequited love would still be unhealthy, but the character would be tragic and sympathetic, which fits with the show’s general portrayal of men so far, the creepier Euphorics aside. Instead, Ginza is psychotic, obsessive, pathetic ,and eventually a betrayer and rapist. Which fits the show’s portrayal of women.

Episode12 also has what may be one of the more creepifying plot twists I’ve encountered in anime. [spoilers] As near as I can tell, Suitengu is Kagura’s father, or at least a new being in the body of what used to be Kagura’s father, which was operated on after his death to somehow represent everyone who died in battle. After Kagura’s mother orders Kagura and Suitengu killed for betraying her (Suitengu did, Kagura didn’t) Suitengu kills her, and declares that he can still take over the Tennozu group by marrying 15-year-old Kagura, who is the heir. I pray that I misunderstood the explanation of his origins. And even if I did misunderstand, I pray that there is no marriage, and definitely no wedding night. Saiga can just wake up and break out of wherever Ginza stashed him after raping him while he was unconscious and go blow up walls in the mansion until he finds her.

No spoilers for past episode 12 in comments, please.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Unlike, say, Melody of Oblivion which started good and then devolved into sheer "WTF DID YOU REALLY DO THAT?" and I couldn't look away, this (A) is actually maintaining the interesting plot and characters and (B) does not endorse the creepifying stuff in any way (and manages to be less skeevy about it "we know it's wrong so it's less bad that we have it" than Dollhouse's human trafficking and rapists of the week)but yes WEIRDEST AND CREEPIEST ANIME I HAVE SEEN!

I got all the DVDs for a few bucks each a while back, having been told that it was weird and creepy but also that it was good.

And since I'm about to go work on tidying up my post about the shoujo manga about alien mermaids who use Earth as a mating ground and the mermaid whose mind is that of a 10-year-old even when she's a beautiful woman must mate with the other mermaid to save the planet, I think we can agree that I should go read and watch light, fluffy things for a bit...

ETA: Also, I MAY BE TOTALLY MISUNDERSTANDING THE SPOILER CODED STUFF!!!