Will start with the technical aspects because good Lord, those sure are spectacular. I am writing about a work mostly done by a single guy, that took 4 long years to be finished. Yes a single guy, the genius Harada Hiroshi, animated the whole thing, frame by frame while also directing the work and writing the script. The movie is the result of 4 long years of hard arduous work by this guy, pouring his heart and soul into the script and every frame he was drawing. Honestly it just singlehandedly redefined my own definition of an auteur work and of a passion project. It just oozes the dedication, effort and passion that went into every line, moment, onto every scene. Really the aesthetic it reaches for is something completely different than anything me(or you reader)has ever seen before. The complete lack of movement, the static main frames with barely any in-betweens, the really lazy transitions all of which people complained as cost saving techniques also add a lot to the look and feel of the work. You can just simply be shown any moment in the movie, and you will immediately get something truly wrong is happening(yes it is that remarkable), that of course adds a lot to the disturbing nature the craft is trying to subtly show. Same can be said about the drab muted color design, bad composition, lazy usage of angles. Many detractors still find reasons to complain about this artistic unique style of aesthetics and directing with the really retarded logic of comparing it with other works, most notably Hoshi no Koe, another one man project made by the legend, Makoto Shinkai himself. What those idiots apparently can not figure out is how the gigantic difference, the 10 year gap between both works can create in the animation craft. Shinkai when working in Hoshi no Koe had it his disposal the most recent computer animation techniques, which was in fact a technique with little usable skills at the time only being used to fix a little the artwork and actually made the production project slower. Never forgetting how it is that movie experimentation with newer technologies that made for its worst visual aspects, like it's awful usage of depth of field, the weird lightening that randomly turned characters into ghosts. So yeah really unfair and totally off the mark comparison. This method just in general loses completely the idea of how this work of fiction should be appreciated and judged. We cannot compare the quality of this movie production by seeing its nonexistent qualities in comparison with literally anything you ever watched. No, no, no, you need to look at the effort, the dedication shown by spending years and lots of money just to make this project. It is in recognizing that for someone in this conditions he achieved a really impressive result(even when that is not the case). Is this concept of just forgetting anything about the quality of the work at hand and just focusing on the artist, his experience, what crazy lengths he must have gone to manage something of this magnitude truly that hard to grasp. Even when limited the animation is used to really great affect here, it just gets how to pass tension and terror so well. It understands how what is shown is never what is really terrifying, a person with a knife trying to kill us, sure, that can be a little scary. But a creature you cannot see, something you cannot understand, an unknown and highly dangerous threat you cannot understand or define, this is way more disturbing. It gets how not showing can be the most effective tool, by always showing everything, the schlocky gory scenes with its weird animation style, in all its glory, hilariously full of itself.
But since the production cannot amount to much else than pretty colors, I will talk about the concepts, the several thematic threads found in the movie. Out of the bat I have to say this work has a fascinating style of thematic exploration. People who cannot believe how short term duration fiction can represent broad interesting topics in a though provoking manner, should definitely watch Shoujo Tsubaki. It is the exception that proves said though as flawed. An analogy with the way ideas are debated in general, the dialectic can help to explain the brilliance found in here. The movie's thesis is really simple, it represents a truly pessimistic view on world and society. Suffering, moral degradation and nihilism are the core of this world, having hope on happiness, or in the possibility of a better life, can only leave you to dreadful disappointments. The movie presents a fully formed worldview, one that resonates with universal feelings in the hearts of many, the fear the malice, the distrust, everyone has at least one moment in their life's when they think of the world as an awful place. But of course nothing in a debate is simply self provable, its veracity and worth only given by how it interacts and disproves other ideas. Here comes the movie counter thesis, that finds its representation in the mentality of the protagonist, her naivety, her hopeful dreams and love and happiness, the belief of those feelings as an important part of life, and that her situation will improve in the future. The film goes for a really fascinating method to argue for its main thesis, instead of having much of any arguments for the counter thesis, showing its positive aspects, how Midori's view of the world may make sense under a certain perspective, the film goes for nothing of that. It does not want to make you belief in the thesis, by making it ultimately defeat, prove as flawed a strong and well constructed opposing argument, ultimately making you even unwilling come to an understand or even an agreement, with an idea the viewer could otherwise despise. No, the dialectic process at work here is really different, it is one that involves proving your thesis, by having most of your world, characters and events, as just more evidence of what you are trying to say. Having the character sadism and cruelty becoming more and more extreme, happening frequently in most scenes, their acts yelling in every way possible of the unfairness of this world, the more extreme the act the better, as evidences for your thesis. There is no need for a strong contrast, like showing in detail the calm everyday life that serves as base for Midori's way of thinking and actions, which would make both the counter thesis better supported, and the horrible things happen to her more shocking(yeah I know it would probably not work doing this either)by contrast. But just start with rats eating a certain someone and that is all we need to see. Really having something really good happening, allowing for different changes in value betweens scenes other than from bad to awful, would do a lot to improve this work. So if we extend the comparison with debates just a little further, let's make a though experiment, to imagine a certain debate where Shoujo Tsubaki would be one of the guys discussing. The person Shoujo Tsubaki, will act in this debate by barely acknowledging any of the people arguing with him, instead opting to yell what he means all the time, and showing with truly great conviction, the truth of what he is saying, even when he has basically no evidence or reasoning for it. Can you believe someone will end up disagreeing with this guy? It surely was not the case with me.
This is the part where I have to admit, Shoujo Tsubaki does not contain the best cast of characters in the world(it is high up there though). But this far from a problem is also one of the work`s greatest qualities. Because really the objective quality behind these characters really do not matter. Their function in the history is not to have depth, likeable traits, motivations or backgrounds, but to represent perfectly the ero guro genre stereotypes. Following rules and genre clichés do not represent shortcuts, when the author shows the laziness of writing unique personal developments for his history. These constructions and clichés are in fact the end all of fiction, the author should be looking and trying to replicate exactly those. Between developing characters, situations and themes which would propel his craft, the piece of fiction he is trying to make, or trying to simply follow genre rules and expectations, it is pretty obvious what should be the creator priority. So complaining about the lack of character depth makes completely no sense already, but let's look a little deeper into the characters. With the exception of the protagonist they are group of completely deranged malicious people, most them shows signs of cruelty, sadism, greed, mistrust, luxury, lack of empathy, they also usually lie a lot, really they make for a fine representation of the ugly aspects of mankind this movie is attempting to portray. There is another argument for the lacking personality in most characters consisting of a flaw, which is that the focus in showing the unpleasant side of humanity, with no insight or introspection to the people making those acts can only amount to that feeling, unpleasantness. It can never be shocking(people saying the violence in here is for shock factor are idiots, there is no way to be shocked with what is being presented), sad, disgusting, terrifying. They do not emerge here because the characters have no personality to react to the cruelty, we cannot see aspects of our personality in them, which would makes us at least feel empathy for the people suffering and making others suffer, see aspects of our ourselves and our life's, identifying them as human beings kind of not so different from us. This would really make us care in a lot of ways for the fucked up shit they do. It is not this is some really difficult stuff to pull out, just give the characters unique perspective and worldview, a personality that can react in a unique way or think differently about the violence. As it is in the best of cases you get a slight feeling of distaste for the events at play, or at the worst you can laugh maniacally at all the ultra gory scenes. I truly applaud those that managed the latter.
When you are dealing with this level of artistry in the making of a show, you can expect it be noticeable in all of its aspects. Of course the world building is no exception, instead of going for lazy exposition and adding countless of useless details to a setting, that would otherwise not affect characters plots or themes, shoujo Tsubaki goes for a more minimalistic route. Sure we may not know much about this world and city at the end of the day, but every bit and ounce of information adds something in a symbolical or character level, making for really effective storytelling. The whole thing manages to portray the state of Japan after world war 2 way better than overrated classics like Godzilla, Akira, or others critically beloved but otherwise garbage titles like Billy Bat. Really if you are looking for a complete understanding of this period, the complicated sociopolitical situation, the harsh living conditions of the population, this, right here, is the work you should be looking for. Just the way they tie the analogy of western domination and the affects of the bomb with my favorite character, Wonder Masamitsu(mito), is superbly done. His ability, an incredible magic from the west is obviously a reference to the atomic bomb, the complete dominance it establishes over other characters also showing the state of Japan at the period. In one of the show more fantastic surreal sequences, it even plays imaginary pretty similar to people being burned to death, an iconic image of effects of the atomic bomb. This kind of symbolical representation can be seen in several aspects of the setting, where the simply generic representation of hellish places, filled with poverty, crime and really hard to live by, is not a lazy generic portrayal of any place having a disaster, or just difficult social times. No, it actually has lot of symbolical value, which of course I know of, but will not say here, for simplicity sake.
Let's get a bit controversial here and talk about specific scene. Also really important spoiler warning, if you do not want to be spoiled just jump to the next paragraph. The infamous rape scene between Tokkuriji Muchisute(you will be missed) and Midori will be my topic. A lot of people question the necessity of its inclusion since it does nothing to progress plot(having Midori suffer even more horrible things adds what exactly?), character(having this character do even more awful things to Midori adds what exactly?), it gives no further context or new view on their relationship, has overall no greater structure or thematic effect, just one nonsensical reason after another. But there is an important question to make, why was this scene necessary, why was this disturbing really sensitive topic chosen to be displayed here. In regards to choosing topic of grand social significance, specially controversial ones, there needs to be a care in the what and how you are portraying said aspects. Sure there is a gigantic difference between portrayal and endorsement, showing a rape scene does not equate in any shape or form to any sort of argument or defense of this practice(it is usually the other way around). In fact as a general stance I am all in favor of free speech, put all the things and topics you want in your work of fiction, but the question of why is important. Why does your story needs sexual abuse, the most tired and cliché imaginable way to establishing characters as likeable/unlikeable(Sugou sends his hello), good/bad, why does it need to have this act which constantly shows and spreads toxic gender roles, that is mostly used as a cheap shortcut to create sympathy for characters. What kind of purpose or vision do you have for putting any of it in your story, especially when it deals with topics really sensitive for millions of people everywhere(there is even a term rape culture going around goddawmnit) being really uncomfortable for a lot of people out there. There is no way to just simply see the scenes totally disconnected from the act`s social significance in society, so maybe for the author as a member of society to pay a little attention to that, and put some fucking though in what he is putting in his story would be not so much to ask. And as a matter of response to this criticism, I do have a general stance of not even bothering with social justice faggotry, and I sure will follow it here.
So concluding if you were looking for an awfully looking movie, with terrible characters, dialogue, theming, plot, directing, than please look somewhere else. On this review I simply cleared some surface elements, just skin deep details that represent a tiny fraction of what this movies has to offer. There are so many great details I can write about in length here, like the way the effective usage of the soundtrack, like playing a melancholic love music during sexual abuse, the occurrence in several instances of symbolism connected to xintoism based religions, which of course adds another entire layer to the whole movie. The style of narrative that utilizes techniques of Japanese traditional storytelling to achieve new heights by using really interesting, creative ways to tell this narrative. So would I recommend this? Yes, yes, yes, just do yourself a favor and spend your next hour checking this masterpiece out, I guarantee it will not be like anything you have seen before.
Score: Wanting to die/10
