Requiem from the Darkness
(MVM Region 2 PAL DVD)
(2005)
review by Blackgloves

The dark folkloric origins of the Japanese Kaidan genre are explored in this essential new horror-based anthology anime series from the director of "Hellsing". And with scriptwriters onboard who have become famous recently for their high-profile flirtation with this popular brand of supernatural thriller ("Ring" series writer Hiroshi Takahashi, "Tomie" series writer Yoshinaga Fujioka and Sadayuki Murai, writer of "Perfect Blue" and "Millennium Actress"), the series easily captures the disturbed, disjointed feel of the genre's best-loved examples, while (so far) steering clear of the predictable "pale, long-haired ghost" imagery that has bogged down the many copycat films that have emerged since the Japanese horror film's resurgence during the early Nineties. The series, which has been adapted from novelist Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Japanese best-seller, follows the travels and adventures of the young son of a wealthy merchant in Japan's Edo Period at the end of the 19th century. After rejecting the lifestyle of his parents, Momosuke Yamaoka is employed as a researcher and sets out on a trek across the Country, ostensibly to collect and write up examples of traditional children's riddles; but secretly, Momsuke harbours dreams of becoming an author in his own right, and is also collecting gruesome historical ghost stories for inclusion in his own mooted work, Hyakumonogatari - "The One Hundred Stories".

 

The wide-eyed youth soon crosses paths with a mysterious trio called the Ongyo, who seem to appear only where weird happenings have been said to have occurred or strange tales have been noted. The leader of the group is an odd, diminutive monk called Mataichi who seems to be a kind of itinerant karmic enforcer, dishing out cosmic justice where-ever the harmony between this world and the next has been fractured by the dark doings of twisted human psyches. His comrades are master of disguise, Nagamimi — a hulking monster of a fellow in his normal guise, who also has mystical powers — and the beautiful, dark-eyed woman, Ogin. Momosuke first encounters these three at a dilapidated inn where a terrible act has come back to haunt one of the other occupants. Momosuke soon realises the sinister and occult powers of this dangerous triumvirate, but from here-on-in he seems to encounter them where-ever he goes, always sure that yet another tale of horror and intrigue can be counted on to rear its ugly head before too long.

 

This framing story device enables a new tale to be told each week (in true anthology style) -- usually in the fractured, complicated narrative form that fans of Japanese horror will recognise immediately. The series is quite uncompromising in its subject matter and the way these often disturbing tales unfold; the four episodes here deal with incest, infanticide and rape as well as gender confusion! It's notable that, although on the surface these are traditional ghost stories, it usually transpires that human psychosis turns out to provide the key to most of them -- a theme that provides a "twist in the tale" structure to a great deal of the episodes. Perhaps the most notable thing about the series is its distinctive animation style: Art director Takashi Miyano and Cgi director Shingo Shimoyama have created a stylish and distinctive look between them; a look that de-emphasises the Cgi techniques that predominate in most modern anime series in favour of an illustrative style that recalls traditional Japanese ink drawings — with a muted, sometimes almost bleached out colour palette adding to the murky atmosphere of macabre; because of this, the Cgi is all the more effective when it is used. Character designs range wildly between the fairly standard and the utterly bizarre: the countryside which forms the backdrop to Momosuke's travels seems to be populated with a range of ragged, troll-like figures with wizened features and leathery skin; imaginatively grotesque imagery and strange character designs is a constant throughout the episodes, and the warped, fantastical landscape in which everything takes place is very vividly realised.