The story, which succeeded in supplying me with the disturbing, terrifying, and intriguing horror I was looking for most likely fell short to many viewers because it requires thought and piecing together a puzzle. The episodes seemed jumbled and out of order in many places, which to me added a little more to the psychological aspect. The beginning few episodes went with the kind of jump scare horror reaction at the end with something bloody happening, the middle a disturbing look at the life of these siblings living with the Pupa virus, and the end the ambiguous conclusion followed by an odd final episode apparently showing an event from the childhood of Utsutsu and Yume. YES, the story was hard to follow at times, but I also felt it supplied what I was looking for from the genre. (5/10)
The art was fine, and nothing special. More expressive and abstract at times, sometimes the characters looked weird. I felt it worked with the psychological aspect with the show. I enjoyed the creative use of teddy bears in place of characters in certain scenes. In terms of the gore, it was up to par and sufficiently disturbed me. (3/10)
The voice acting seemed forced and oddly clashing at the beginning. However, over the course of the show I either got used to it or it improved. The background music is hardly worth mentioning, although I enjoyed the OP. Some of the sound effects, although not excellent really came through at delivering a disturbing atmosphere, especially when Yume feeds. The sexual atmosphere created this way was amazingly creepy and disturbing especially with the incest undertones. (4/10)
The characters were lacking somewhat; if you could piece things together you get the sibling's past, but at times you wondered why a character was even in this anime, as they seemed to have no connection to the storyline. I don't know. If I re-watch it someday, I might catch on more. In terms of the romance some people describe, I did feel emotions between the siblings; the characters weren't flat 2-D cutouts. (4/10)
Overall, considering my enjoyment of this anime, I give it a 4 out of 10. If you enjoy any type of psychological horror like H.P. Lovecraft or just slasher and gore and don't mind a little cannibalism/incest, look past its obvious flaws and give Pupa a try. I felt this anime met its goals of leaving me with a feeling that would be expected from watching any psychological horror genre. If you get too in depth, it is very creepy, if you take it on the surface, it is still weird and chilling. One thing I recommended is watching this over the course of a day or two, don't drag it out as you lose enough between some episodes and will get lost more easily. There is something that can be taken from this show if you are willing to go out there and get it.
