I haven’t broken out the category generator for Inuyashiki yet, but that’s not a reflection of the quality of the first two episodes, as they’ve been pretty riveting. Honestly I don’t want to jinx it, because as good as these first two episodes have been, I can’t help but feel there’s a decent chance that this could go south real fast – that Inuyashiki might turn out to be nothing more than well-executed guro. I hope that’s not the case and I don’t think it will be, but this ep pushed things right up to the limits of unsettling without crossing over into abjectly horrible.
I don’t know mangaka Oku Hiroya’s other series Gantz (which received an extended if somewhat self-deprecating plug this week) too well, so I can’t draw any conclusions about Inuyashiki’s future based on that. But it was hard no to be reminded of Kiseijuu in watching this episode, partly due to the art style being vintage Madhouse in MAPPA guise. You’ve also got human characters undergoing some grotesque transformations and a whole lot of violence and death. Most importantly, it seems Inuyashiki will, at least in part, muse on the nature of humanity just as Kiseijuu did.
Somewhat unexpectedly, the focus of the narrative totally shifts away from Inuyashiki-san this week, turning to the young man he saw next to him when that bright light hit – Shishigami Hiro (Murakami Nijirou). As with lead Kohinata Fumiyo MAPPA have chosen to go with a non-seiyuu for this role (20 year-old Murakami – who sounds a bit like Miyano Mamoru – seems to be debuting here), and I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear the same sort of complaints (“flat”, “stiff”, etc.) levied against Murakami’s performance. I like the idea of using voices we’re not to used to hearing in anime for a series like this, and to me it seems as if the anime fandom is so used to the same small cadre of voices repeating over and over that many fans confuse “different” with “bad”. I like what I’m hearing from these two.
Hiro is, to say the least, a very different sort of person than Inuyashiki. He’s a high schooler for starters, and we first meet him at school asking after his childhood friend Andou Naoyuki (Hongo Kanata), who’s stopped coming to school after being beaten up. Hiro goes to his house to talk him into coming to school, and during the course of their conversation (Andou’s room is wall-to-wall Gantz posters) about One Piece and such, he casually reveals that like Inuyashiki-san, he’s become something non-human. Andou-kun is naturally skeptical at first – wanting to believe it’s some sort of trick – but the evidence soon mounts to the point where there can be no doubt about the truth.
Even in their initial conversations, something seems off about Hiro – detached, alien. But just how “off” this boy is only comes through in stages – first a senseless crowicide, than an orchestral traffic pileup. Andou-kun is naturally terrified, unable to reconcile this behavior with the boy he’s known since childhood. But then he remembers something Hiro said when they were in elementary school – how he wouldn’t care if something happened to someone he didn’t know. That in itself doesn’t sound so odd for a young boy to say (even older humans have all harbored such thoughts, and just won’t admit it) but given what we’ve just watched played out, it’s unsettling to say the least.
I think the burning question here is this: was the beast that randomly chooses a house and brutally murders an entire family (the father and son in the bathtub were especially horrifying) always inside Hiro, waiting to come out when the aliens remade his broken body – or is he simply no longer human, a different and psychopathic being as a direct result of what’s happened? It’s the sort of question Iwaaki Hitoshi might ask – I have no idea if Oku-sensei would (maybe I’m giving Inuyashiki too much credit), but it seems to me central to what’s happening here.
The reason why that idea is so important is because the question can just as easily be asked about Inuyashiki-san as Shishigami-kun – is this suddenly bold man with heroic inclinations the same being who meekly shuffled through a life of disrespect and humiliation? Did the aliens unleash his true self, or create someone entirely new? Whatever the answer – and indeed, whether or not Inuyashiki will even pursue it – it’s still fascinating to see two men in similar circumstances respond in such diametrically opposed ways. I’m not at all sure what to make of this series yet, but I’m pretty much fascinated by it.
AtavisticDevice
October 19, 2017 at 7:58 pm“…this ep pushed things right up to the limits of unsettling without crossing over into abjectly horrible.”
I’m afraid it crossed that line for me. My hope is that this extended sequence of torture and emotional violence is a one-off, intended to establish Shishigami Hiro’s character (or lack thereof) and we won’t need to revisit his predilections with quite so much detail in the future.
I’ll give it another ep, but if grotesquerie and torture porn turn out to be this series’ raison d’être, I have a million other ways I’d rather spend my time.
Ragefat
October 19, 2017 at 10:18 pmI really don’t understand the term “torture porn” being thrown left and right when people see (in fictional media) violent scenes they don’t “agree” with. As far as I know, “porn” is something made to make you feel good, to be pleasurable; I’m speaking for myself here, but these kind of scenes do not make me feel good, they are a tortuous scenes and I view/feel then as such.
Next thing I know people will be calling Kiseijuu torture porn… they already do, don’t they? *sigh*
AtavisticDevice
October 19, 2017 at 10:41 pmIt isn’t simply that I “don’t ‘agree'” with violent scenes, it is the sense I got that we were lingering on such scenes in this ep….luxuriating in them. Perhaps I am wrong and it just *seemed* like they were horrifically drawn out, but — to me — it felt…excessive.
I’ll retract “torture porn.” It may or may not end up applying to the series (and I hope not) but, like I said, if that’s where this is going, it’s not for me.
Guardian Enzo
October 19, 2017 at 10:44 pmI can see both sides of this debate. Right now I’m in wait and see mode.
Ragefat
October 20, 2017 at 2:46 pmYes I agree that violence os more often than not used purely for the shock value, but there are also instances that it’s used effectively do serve the plot, I believe in this case it’s use as the latter even if it did linger a bit too much. I guess that’s what happens when the focus of the episode is a psychopath.
Ragefat
October 20, 2017 at 2:47 pmThe reply was meant for AtavisticDevice… sorry.
Simone
October 19, 2017 at 11:44 pmI think while there really can’t be a perfect answer to your question about identity – it’s the old teleporter paradox, if you were decomposed and then recomposed at another location, would it still be you or would you have died and reborn? – it’s exactly the drive to answer that question that pushes Inuyashiki to be a hero and Shishigami to kill. Last episode, Inuyashiki felt finally human again only when he managed tears of joy for saving that homeless man and being thanked. This episode, Shishigami felt “a little alive” through the violent schadenfreude of having people dying brutally in front of him. In both cases, these were people with dulled emotions – for different reasons – who somehow trudged along without questioning that status of things. The transformation didn’t just trigger them, it motivated them into seeking stronger, human emotions to confirm themselves that they are NOT just soulless automata. In a way it’s a story about alienation. What shook them up from it was simply seeing a physical manifestation of that alienation – and while the answer one of the two found to shake themselves out of it is beautiful, the other’s truly horrifying.
Earthlingzing
October 20, 2017 at 4:37 amI like the parallels between our two main characters, but after Gantz I’m skeptical that Oku can write anything decent. Torture porn wouldn’t have been a bad phrase to describe that series…
nanashi6
October 22, 2017 at 1:23 amI don’t understand what offended you so you don’t show my comment? I will say again the same thing. Sorry man but I can’t agree with your snide remarks about how anime fans treat new voice actors. Most people don’t have a problem with new voices, actually its weird to always hear the same voices in every anime even if the actors are good. Its not a big deal if someone new isn’t as polished as a veteran but it becomes a problem when they are cast so that their voice doesn’t fit the character. then they can get a lot of criticism, like that girl in the quizz show anime. This guy here is a good fit so why should there be a bad reaction to him.
Vier
October 22, 2017 at 8:50 amAt first I thought that Hiro’s VC was Mamo, but when I searched on google it said that Jun Murakami. He’s good for a newbie.