C Danchi

For an anime that's essentially the length of a movie, and is a rarity being that it's horror, definitely give it a watch if you're interested. It won't change your life, but it's absolutely a fun way to spend 2 hours.

As a whole, the show was okay. The animation was consistent, pretty, and each character would pass the silhouette test as long as the roster was just this show's characters. The voicework (I watched the dub) was quite good, particularly in the later episodes. The music was solid, subtle, but not very memorable. Also, the story was genuinely interesting despite feeling cliche for a lot ... of it and requiring an hour's worth of expository dialogue to explain it all by the end (It'd be awesome to get a 12-24 episode version of this with some changes so the viewer could piece together more of what's going on by themselves if they paid attention but just not be able to confirm it until it's officially revealed).

The first episode was definitely the weakest one. It starts off interesting, there's a really great flashback to the past, but the scares wind up feeling more humorous than actually scary, and some dialogue feels off.

The second episode is where things start to feel more serious, but also a bit cliché. Despite the clichés though, it remains interesting and doesn't feel nearly as "off" as the first episode did with its scares and dialogue.

The third episode was worrisome at first, it had me concerned that it all was gonna wind up being a big bundle of clichés by the end. But stick around because by the end I was thoroughly invested in what was going down.

The final episode, despite having loads of dialogue to explain...things...was loads of fun and the voice acting was truly wonderful. The buildup from the prior episodes may not have been there, but even without that I felt satisfied with the way things ended and greatly enjoyed the ride.

Altogether, it's not great. Not even "good" really. But it's fun, and it made me want more.

I'm fairly generous towards Adult Swim originals. I'm a long time fan of the block and I want to see them succeed in these final years of cable. Overall, I love FLCL Progressive even though no one else does, FLCL Alternative was alright, Fena: Pirate Princess started off strong but didn't go anywhere, and I watched one episode of Blade Runner: Black Lotus before deciding "yeah I'm not interested in this one". Finally there's Shenmue, which as someone who's never played the games, I really enjoyed. And now we have Housing Complex C, which can only be described as Adult Swim's plan B if Uzumaki ... wasn't ready in time. I applaud that we got a new horror anime but this was way too short.

God, what was the plot? A bunch of middle easterners move into a seaside housing complex, the old Japanese residents are racist, there's a mystery going on underneath the housing complex, and also one of the residents is really into the Cthulhu mythos. This is 4 episodes long and that is all I could remember about the plot. This is written by amphibian, a visual novel writer, and you can REALLY tell. Most of the dialogue is expository, which for a visual novel that goes on for several hours is fine to have. But for a 4 episode anime, essentially a 90 minute movie? Yeah it comes off more as wasted time. 80-85% of this show is exposition, let that sink in.

The first thing I noticed when watching the credits is that the character designs are by the great Yoshitoshi ABe. His designs are far closer to that of RErideD (a hilariously bad sci-fi romp that goes on for far too long) than any of his late 90s/early 2000s works, but his presence is a welcome surprise and one that I think would have generated more interest in the series had it, or for that matter any of the Japanese crew besides the director/writer/producer/studio, been revealed prior to episode 1's drop. Honestly while we're on that subject, it IS kind of weird that they bothered to reveal the director and studio since both are pretty unknown. The director is a complete mystery, so much so that it could be a psuedonym, and the studio is mostly known for in-between animation. I don't mind them being unknowns, I appreciate new faces, though the direction is pretty meh. The use of negative space was probably to build suspense but it comes off as really lame shot composition. Can't say I cared for any of the storyboarding, but the animation itself is fine.

In the sound department, I have nothing to say about the music because there is nothing noteworthy or memorable about the music. That's perfectly fine, not all scores need to be bombastic and catchy. In the case of Housing Complex C, being atmospheric and lowkey is fine. To address the elephant in the room, the series is currently only available in the English dub. It releases on HBO Max three hours after broadcast but the HBO Max version only includes the English dub, which is strange but not surprising. Part of the reason Adult Swim partnered with Crunchyroll for their last three shows was because Adult Swim is incompetent with providing the Japanese sub. Nevertheless, the dub is good and is only going to piss off the die-hard sub elitists who would probably never give this show the time of day.

A lot of my criticisms with Housing Complex C are negated by how short it is. If this were 12 episodes long and none of the problems fixed itself this would be an easy 5/10. But it's 4 episodes! I have to give this anime props for not wasting my time. There's no sunk cost to be had, it's the length of a movie. That being said, if this were a movie it wouldn't be that good of a movie. It's over an hour of exposition followed by a really anticlimactic (but fun) last 15 minutes. Do I recommend it? Well, it's 4 episodes long, you likely decided if you were going to watch it before you read this review. It's alright, there's significantly worse horror anime out there. One thing I will give Housing Complex C is that it didn't anger me, it did not make me despise the choices that are made. This is not a bad anime, it just also does not have anything exemplary either. The last episode is neat but didn't build up to it very well. I would love to see these guys make another Adult Swim anime. Just one that's either longer or makes better use of the 4 episodes.

C Danchi is a stinky stew of Lovecraftian horror, on the nose social commentary, and CGDCT/SoL stylings, all of which combine to produce a whole lot of cringe-comedy, in both intentional and unintentional fashion. The main focus was obviously meant to be the Lovecraftian horror, but all of these other elements subtract from building tension and atmosphere, so the horror has no chance of being anything more than "so bad it's good" b-movie horror—but there's a thin line between that and "so bad it's bad."

When it comes to attempts at evoking Lovecraft in visual mediums, there's usually the slow-burn horror intent on building atmosphere; ... there's also the more recent "inversion and social commentary" variety of Lovecraft-inspired/adapted works. C Danchi is a hybrid of the two styles. To make matters worse, C Danchi is not simply taking the basic concepts and ideas from Lovecraft or subsequent cosmic horror authors and expanding on them in new ways. The series is making direct references to Cthulhu by name, randomly showing a stereotypical Lovecraftian critter in the first few minutes, and depicting numerous drawings obviously inspired by Lovecraft's stories. Many authors continued to expand upon Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos after his death, and this kind of referential tendency has become commonplace in modern horror. If horror is about the unknown, then pop culture references should be abandoned as cheap b-movie crap. Nods and winks to the audience about "Cthulhu" is simply diminishing the horror and rendering this series as even more inauthentic. The cheap digital blood splatter in the opening, walking cliche's such as the all-knowing NEET drawing the alleged monsters like a tortured artist, and the senseless and badly placed cold opening, as well as many, many other elements, are also to the series' detriment.

As for the social commentary and the inversion of Lovecraft, it's a fact that horror's roots stem from xenophobia—most of the main villains of horror stories are either monsters, aliens, ghosts, some kind of aberration, or outsiders. The clear intent with C Danchi was to show friction between the Japanese and the "fishing interns," the latter being migrant workers from the Middle East, and then relate these same tensions to past events, and, finally, presenting the question of whether we will "come full circle" with disastrous consequences or if we can, to quote the great philosopher John Lennon, "COME TOGETHER." If you're at all familiar with Lovecraft's works, you'll know about the xenophobic themes of many of his stories: true to the form of horror, the outsiders harbor dark gods, and they are to be repelled. The inversion of C Danchi instead hopes to bring together entirely unrelated cultures and reconcile their differences.

It is possible to invert this trope effectively, but the writer does not have the skill to do so, or would prefer to make overcooked political propaganda rather than anything entertaining, artistic, or good. C Danchi takes the xenophobia theme and then turns it into a joke and milks it for humor in the dumbest of ways, and it's equally ham-fisted when they try to use it for serious, dramatic purposes. The writing, especially with the derpy Kimi tagging along, feels like Barney the Dinosaur: "I love you, you love me." Just add a bit of conflict. You can tell that this was meant for a Western audience or had Western influence without knowing it's airing on Toonami or was produced by Adult Swim.

For most of the series, flat characters are guided along through a predictable and familiar culture clash plot. The social commentary first arises when a man introduces a dozen or so fishery interns to an elderly Japanese lady who is the landlord. The interns are presented as the sweetest little angels, while the old lady is rude and rebuffs them because they are foreigners, and this kind of conflict between natives and foreigners will persist throughout the series, usually resulting in kumbaya song and dance sessions. First of all, I was laughing the whole time because of the numerous awkward pans over the interns and the other characters, how painfully forced it was, and the comical music; I half expected a Brazzers logo to appear and confirm this was just a prank. I didn't even know the interns were supposed to be foreigners until they started speaking broken English, which was made even funnier by the awful English dub, and all of this adds to the sudden hilarity and weirdness of the scene. By this point, it's pretty clear this series has absolutely failed as horror.

There are some interesting elements to the mystery and lore, but almost all of these threads are closed in a very fast infodumpy final episode, filled with plot holes, plot contrivances, and silliness that leaves me asking "Are you serious?" It's definitely telling that this was written by a VN author, and one who is concerned with spectacle and overly dramatic reveals above anything else, which is heightened by the blandness of the earlier episodes. The foreshadowing is poor for many of the reveals at the very end.

Finally, there's the CGDCT/SoL stylings: this contrasting cute with horror thing from Japan needs to stop. Honestly, does Japan have to include children in everything? You're lucky to ever get a protagonist older than 18, but who wants to watch 9-year-old and 10-year-old girls, one of them sporting childish cat clothing—complete with a freaking cat tail—unearth spooky Lovecraftian monsters? Does this invoke fear, build the atmosphere, or contribute anything worthwhile to the story? Sure, it's good to contrast the horror with something a bit lighter or more ordinary, but this is too much!

This is without doubt the "Hey, kid, shut up!" anime of the year. As much as I (learned to) like Higurashi, I think it's probably the no. 1 series that set horror anime up to fail. It combined ultra-contrasty CGDCT/SoL and a syrupy moe aesthetic with intensely paranoid mystery/thriller/horror writing. It's a combination that should have never worked, but they pulled it off because the scripting, the directing, and the non-linear story they had to tell was actually good. What also helped with Higurashi is that while it would cut to some very young kids once in a while, and they would baby talk and say stuff like "NIPAH MI NANODESU" or whatever nonsense, and everyone would nod and pretend to listen and say, "Aw! How cute," then we'd cut back to the older kids, and they would be like "So, anyway..." and they'd actually talk about important stuff. The problem is that our main counter-balance to the little tykes in C Danchi are like 70+, probably senile, and struggling to keep their dentures in while their mouths flap open to talk, and that also sums up everything I have to say about the animation, which is barely there—this is slideshow content.

The humorous and light-hearted songs are simply awful. The music, even during the normal parts, should buildup to or in some way complement the horrific parts. it doesn't matter how spooky it might get later, as I'll always remember the clown show music that preceded it, and the constant tonal whiplash destroys immersion. You're better off having at least somber music or more scene-fitting tracks that aren't too silly. It's like the composer only had the most childish Halloween Music for Kindergarteners compilation to choose songs from. In many ways, music and sound design are the most important elements of horror, and this is another area where C Danchi is deficient.

Essentially, we're left with a low-budget and clumsy story of culture clash meets Lovecraft in a cutesy cat costume for Halloween. There are too many mismatched and conflicting elements for this to be anything other than horrible. It's ironic that a story about an attempt to reconcile the differences between two distinct cultures is such an unappetizing mess of clashing ideas.