X Densha de Ikou

Toru is the put upon lackey of an add company and learns about a particular train. He thinks nothing of it, but little does he know that he is more closely connected to this train than he realizes...

Pros: The best part of this ova is the artwork. It has a very classic 80's style that is smoothly animated. It has some good gross/spooky imagery that fit the horror theme. It also does a quirky, comic book style word balloons to represent actions at some points, like the sounds of a fight. I had never seen it used like this in anime before and thought it ... was interesting. The atmosphere of the horror film was good. I especially liked the pacing and that it had nice long establishing shots to build tension and it tries to have a good pay off in the end. The sound is solid, especially the creepy sound of the train.

Cons: even the art has flaws: all the characters are stylized to the point of being ugly. While the plot is adequate, it takes odd turns and seemed overall lackluster. It has some very silly points that can detract from the overall horror story. The main character is flat, with no real defining features other than being involved with the plot.

Conclusion: this is a popcorn flick to watch once, appreciate for it's quirkiness, and then quickly forget.

This is a really, really weird one. After completing it, I was just left thinking, "What the hell did I just watch?"

Let's start out with what sticks out the most: The character designs. Definitely not your standard, stereotypical 'anime' style, but rather a strange type of realism only stretched out a bit verging on the grotesque. Reminds me a bit of Don Bluth characters. And the designs are so...distinctive...you can't get past them in this one-shot story. You're noticing how strange the people look from beginning to end.

But beyond that, the ... rest of the artwork (including the backgrounds) are wonderful. And the animation quality is top-notch. Among the very best I've seen for the entire decade's worth of work.

The storytelling style is also a little outside the norm, which is par for the course when you are dealing with the eccentric director Rintaro. Which is fine by me, it seems to work well in this case.

But as for the story itself...well, that's where this really falls down the most. There's some sort of psychic connection between Taro the Loser Boy, and a mysterious ghost train that is 'terrorizing' the railways. Not sure why, and not sure what it really has to do with anything. It just ends up being a hapless, simpering guy who is the sole person who can seem to stop this phantom train, as he runs around getting nosebleeds (from his 'psychic' events) all the time.

And I do mean All. The. Time. That's the other thing (besides the character designs) that I noticed that really stood out a lot. Loser Boy kept getting very visible, active and volumnous nosebleeds over and over and over and over again. It was very off-putting. Ugh.

In the end, I was just left wondering what really happened, and what was the whole point of it all. A visually interesting adventure (minus the quarts of blood dripping from the nostrils, ugh), but all sound and fury signifying nothing.