Wasurenagumo

A friend of mine here on MAL asked me to review a series of 1 episode anime shorts that were entered in a 2011 contest to find talented, budding anime directors. The first of these "one shots" I will be reviewing is Wasurenagumo, which roughly translates to Little Spider Girl.

Before I review the anime, I feel it is necessary to give a tiny bit of background info. In traditional Japanese folklore, there is a creature called the Jurogumo which has the body of a spider and the torso of a beautiful woman. The Jurogumo will attract men looking for love, only to quickly devour them ... after mating just like a real spider. This animal bottom/woman top that lures men to their doom is very similar to the Siren from Greek mythology. It is interesting that people in 2 cultures completely isolated across the world both thought this was a cool concept and independently created their own versions of basically the same creature.

WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

The anime begins with a narrator telling what is supposed to be an old Japanese folk tale. A giant spider demon attacks a village only to be badly wounded and chased off by a powerful samurai. While fleeing, the spider dropped some of its hatchlings and the samurai discovers a baby spider demon with the torso of a little girl. It is simply too cute for the samurai to kill, so he takes it home and raises her. He is later horrified to discover the spider girl has been eating people behind his back, so he seals her away. In the present day, a bimbo highschool girl is working at her grandfather's used book store and decides to open a book that clearly states it has a demon sealed inside it. Seems like a good idea to me! The demon is released and it is of course the spider demon with the torso of an adorable little girl. The assistant shop keeper instantly falls under her spell because I guess he likes lolis. Eventually the bimbo and minimum wage cashier Humbert Humbert decide to take the little spider girl back to the temple depicted in the story. Inside the temple, the giant mother spider from the story attacks them and sends the shopkeeper and bimbo flying off a cliff. The little spider girl saves them by catching them with her web...only to pull a Goldeneye and let the bimbo drop towards a grisly death. The shopkeeper doesn't mind this though, and takes the spider girl home where she will inevitably devour him soon. The End.

The art and animation was pretty decent considering this was made with an extremely low budget. This anime didn't win the 2011 contest, but I don't think that was due to poor animation.

The only question I had after watching this was, "What the hell was the point?" It didn't really work as a comedy. It didn't work as a horror story. It didn't have engaging characters. I guess the director just thought it would be amusing to inject modern Japanese pop culture like "moe art" and "lolis" into a modern variant of a traditional Japanese folktale. The concept of injecting modern pop culture gags into traditional fairy tales CAN work if done right. After all, Shrek is one of the most beloved heroes of the internet! Although 99.9% of that is due to 4chan rather than a genuine admiration for the quality of the Shrek Franchise.

Li'l Spider-Girl, the story about a shopkeeper, Suzuri of Kokumondou who sell historic books and Mizuki, granddaughter of said land. Both investigate a sealed book that released a young spider demon.

The story itself has potential because of the simple set up but sticks to the basic plot of the said demon and its interaction with our characters. A good bit of humor with a bright and expressive character that does this short favor but as a whole, doesn't deviate much.

The animation was quality in a lot of respects in terms of fluidity and style. The animation is fluid with the theme and fits ... the said tone, especially the turns, and surprising twist. The story was consistent until the latter half in which point, is still decent, but takes a turn because it had to (Simply because they only had about 24 minutes). Is it a good or a bad twist? Well, that's up for your discretion. As a whole, entertaining and neat to watch, but the latter half takes turns. Still a marvel in the animation side and entertaining as a whole.