My quest to watch the obscure and the weird continues with Psycho Diver! This 45 minute, standalone OVA is one of the most skull fucking insane anime I've ever witnessed. It has some really good ideas that were pretty damn creative for the time, but the execution is all over the place.
Background history:
This wasn't based on a manga. It wasn't based on a light novel, video game, or anything else. Anime industry veteran Mamoru Kanbe just went to Studio Madhouse with a script and pitched this as a 45 minute OVA. Madhouse accepted and we got this blessing of insanity. In America, it was licensed by Urban Vision, who saw themselves as the "mature" dub studio. Urban liked to exclusively license the darkest, grittiest anime they could get their hands on. Psycho Diver is a psychological horror that certainly fits in the Urban Vision catalog.
Plot:
A tough, film noir detective named Busujima uses a device to dive into his clients' subconscious and solve their psychological issues. This came out a full 10 years before Paprika and almost 15 years before Inception! A young singer named Yuki has lost her ability to perform after joining a shady cult. Her talent agency hires a psycho diver to solve her issues, but it turns out the cult has given Yuki dark powers. The psycho diver's head explodes and the agency realizes they need the best psycho diver in the business, Busujima! At first he refuses, but the talent agency kill his dog in a scene reminiscent of the horse head scene from the Godfather. Busujima gets the message and agrees if they pay handsomely.
Busujima dives in, but nearly gets himself killed after witnessing some End of Evangelion nightmare imagery. He announces he will need better equipment and says he will try again in a few days. It turns out the cult isn't happy about the talent agents hiring Busujima and send some assassins to kill him. Busujima escapes and hooks up with a lady talent agent. It turns out she was against the whole dog thing and sincerely just wants to help Yuki, whom she considers a dear friend. Some cult assassins manage to brutally murder Busujima's new lady friend and he decides its time to go deal with the cult. On the way, he runs into the asshole talent agent who is insinuated to have been the dog killer. This sunglasses wearing asshole is actually an agent of the Japanese intelligence bureau and was working as a triple agent to infiltrate both the cult and talent agency! Sunglasses drops some narrative exposition that the cult leader is actually Yuki's mother and wishes to transfer her psychokinetic powers so Yuki can be the next cult leader. Yuki's stage manager is her father, who has decided to betray his wife and gain Yuki's power for himself.
Now it's time for the final act and things get weird! Busujima and Sunglasses arrive at the cult building and engage in an all out brawl with the cult members, including some minion with a retractable shoe knife. Yuki's father arrives and murders her mother with a surprise gun shot. Daddy explains that he only hired the psycho diver as a distraction to confuse the cult leader mom and distract from his true intentions. Yuki unleashes her full power and kills her evil father along with totally destroying the cult building. The only survivors are Yuki, Busujima, and Sunglasses. Busujima now decides that Yuki is losing control of her powers and he needs to fix her with a psycho dive. Her first layer of subconscious is the guilt she feels for still loving her mother despite knowing the cult is evil. Our hero dives 1 layer deeper and discovers that Yuki killed a childhood friend with her powers because she was upset after losing a board game. Seriously! All of Yuki's inner evil manifests itself into a dark Yuki and attacks Busujima. He loses a lot of blood, but finishes Dark Yuki off by pummeling her with a chair until she explodes into sand! The anime flat out turns into Professional Wrestling to deliver one of the greatest WTF moments I've seen in anime. You would think that's the end, but NOPE! The Shoe Knife minion is still alive and kills some lab techs with ninja needle projectiles. Sunglasses shoots the minion right before he can kill Busujima and FINALLY we reach the end. Yuki is now cured from her inner darkness and can sing again. She dedicates her next album to Busujima and his fallen lady friend, along with wishing him to find happiness.
Art:
Studio Madhouse rightfully deserves its glowing reputation, but 90s Madhouse was a bit more hit and miss. This anime looks a little rough at times, but is ok overall. This clearly wasn't a big project and was probably made because somebody lost a bet or owed Mamoru Kanbe a favor.
Sound:
I highly recommend the hilarious Urban Vision dub. They want to make it like a hard boiled detective movie from the 1940s and it's glorious! These guys were like America's version of Manga UK.
Overall:
God bless Mamoru Kanbe. He may not hit a home run every time, but he directed my favorite anime and he NEVER makes something boring. I'll once again say that this had potential and a number of great ideas, but was clearly condensed and under a strained budget. It's a very flawed work, but a deeply enjoyable piece of WTF vintage old anime!
