The Skull Man

Nothing hits the spot like a solid mystery, a gripping horror story, or an action-packed descent into darkness. The Skull Man sets the bar for modern gothic suspense without relying on the convoluted, philosophical and psychological dribble barrage of such series as Boogiepop Phantom and Serial Experiments Lain. While both great series in their place, Skull Man combines a killer storyline with solid action and gripping, linear human pathos.

Our plot is as follows: Ootomo City has more skeletons in its closet than the house in Spielberg’s Poltergeist; one of those skeletons is ready to slaughter your ass.

The main story is told through the eyes of Hayato Mikogami, an ambitious, young and fearless newspaper reporter from Tokyo. He comes to Ootomo to investigate the serial murders of a mysterious “skeleton costumed” man who only appears after midnight. Once he arrives, his bad luck accidentally partners him up with Kiriko Mamiya, a teenaged photographer with tomboyish charm to spare. Together, they uncover the links between the Skull Man, pharmaceutical companies, the resident cult, and the murderous mutants that prowl the streets during the night.

Sounds like a lot to handle for a thirteen-episode series? It is. But only by keeping the mystery and the intrigue alive does The Skull Man handle itself so skillfully. As any well laid-out mystery goes, every scene, every moment, and every murder only opens the door to the next clue. When Ootomo City approaches midnight, citizens are locked in their houses and police cars patrol the streets, turning the city into a prison. For all its details, Skull Man never loses the central mystery: the skull man’s true identity, and the reasons he terrorizes the city.

By episode two, Hayato meets Detective Shinjou, who tails him endlessly, convinced that Hayato is connected personally to the mysterious murders. Without his adopted uncle, a high-level bureaucrat watching his back, Hayato would be behind bars most of the series. With each new character they encounter, Hayato and Kiriko discover that the number of people they can trust is dwindling. Even at the halfway mark, when Kiriko’s true mission (not to mention martial arts skills) is revealed during a battle with her brother, is it clear that our characters are desperately over their heads.

Hayato has a small network of people he continuously pumps for leads (though unsuccessfully). One lead is an old childhood friend who became the town priest, who guides Hayato in his quest to seek the higher power and truth behind the Skull Man. Another is an older P.I, whose wisdom and nearly Goku-level of perfect timing seems to have stepped from the pages of noire pulp comics.

Some of the lighter moments, especially those between Kiriko and Hayato (who share great moments in their struggle for dominance in their partnership) soften the mood just before the next murder or devilish plot twist occurs. Hayato’s constant confrontations with the Skull Man drive him to obsession to discover the face beneath the mask, even facing the dangerous specter down at gunpoint. By the halfway mark, it is clear that The Skull Man frames Hayato’s embrace of his inner darkness to battle the greater darkness of Ootomo City’s hubris and political corruption.

Sounds pretty epic, don’t you think? Just imagine all that and some werewolves and a small battalion of mechanized maniacal army clowns with flame-throwers and rocket-launchers. Now we talking badass.

Religious imagery, especially those dealing with light, darkness and resurrection, recur faithfully in Skull Man. For example, the secretive Byakureikai cult (literally meaning white bell association) is grooming a key character to be their new Eve in the world they aim to create. While Ootomo City prides itself in its ever-present military-police force, the city does hold a striking Babylon parallel complete with tower. In the end, the Skull Man’s true purpose is to keep the executives of the pharmaceutical company’s power in check and dish out divine punishment to keep the citizens grounded. The Skull Man himself quotes Nietsche and MacBeth just to add to his creepy persona. Forget Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon, or Buffy: the Vampire Slayer’s Angel, the title character of this anime is relentless, haunting, and holds more “badass” in his belt buckle than Blood +’s Haji has in his whole cello case. The black leather, spring-loaded sais, German Luger and glowing red eyes are enough to haunt even the most desensitized viewer’s dreams.

Besides being a mystery, The Skull Man is also easily categorized as super-natural with elements of horror. Studio BONES (who put out Fullmetal Alchemist and Darker Than Black and, by extension, have a direct link to my heart and wallet) assembled a patchwork team of directors and writers to compose this piece. With a lot of violence and intense moments, this series would find difficulty in a younger fan base. Its maturity and complexity limit its target audience and, thus, its interest from American dubbing companies.

While The Skull Man’s pacing mirrors the DaVinci Code and results in that stereo-typical all-flash-and-zero-explanation ending that is inconclusive at best, it is still a very good mystery. Even the way its scenes are shot reveal something essential: characters over the phone, characters emerging from behind slightly ajar doors: Ootomo City can make any viewer feel like they are trapped in The Matrix. But I do offer fair warning that this is not a series with conclusive results, in fact, just stay true to the show’s tragic nature, it ends on a darkly lit here-we-go-again tone that shadows an even greater evil will soon come to pass.

For all its red herrings, dead ends and McGuffins, The Skull Man still cranks out a great story with more layers than an onion and a great balance of horror, tragic desire and hair-raising action. How it handled itself so well is the real mystery.

Paradise Kiss

Disclaimer: this is a shojo. There are no ninjas or explosions; there is only fashion. E! did not get me interested in fashion: Paradise Kiss did.

Yukari Hayasaka is a bit of a stuck-up senior high school student: she studies hard to earn her B-average and is already bored with life. This comes to a crashing halt when she discovers a team of fashion school students who take her to their underground “workshop.” Suddenly Alice has been tripped into a Wonderland of lace, butterflies, polyester, silk, clovers, and the bisexuals who design and wear them.

Paradise Kiss feels like an indy project of underground art school drop-outs. It can be described as a slice-of-life, coming-of-age story with a surplus of style a forte of fashion. Its opening and closing themes, Lonely in Gorgeous and Do You Want To respectively, carry the show’s youthful and vibrant energy, blasting you with colors, caricatures and craft. Many scenes morph between super-deformed and real characters in the same shots, giving great flexibility in the series’ tone. The series also developed its own screen-wipe transitions of spinning flowers and mutated stuffed animals, which only adds to the pleasant aesthetic.

The characters are just as unique as their clothing habits. There’s Isabella, the quiet idealist who dresses like the countess from a lost romance novel. Heart-stiched-on-her-sleeve Miwako, who is basically a walking piece of cotton (and eye) candy. Arashi, the grumpy punk rocker, whose safety pin piercings are enough to make the cast of Hellraiser flinch. And finally there is George, the suave Prince Charming who leads his team the way Griffith led the Hawks from Berserk. The four form Paradise Kiss, their own line of clothing. The best clincher? George wants Yukari to model their final project.

Though reluctant at first, Yukari decides to test the waters of the world of fashion. Being given a new nickname of Caroline (or Carrie) by Miwako, she is reborn and redressed into a world she originally dismissed. In no time flat, she falls for the enigmatic playboy, George, and her dedication to the group’s project becomes inescapably personal. In an attempt to abandon the mediocrity of her life at home and school, she moves into Arashi’s apartment and seeks work as a fashion model. Through her new friends’ stretch at nepotism, Yukari’s good luck lands her at a modeling agency. But just before things get too out of hand, she moves in with George, and the two lovers become inseparable.

(This is the part where you all say “yikes!”)

The most engaging aspect of Paradise Kiss is Yukari’s challenging and complicated relationship with George, whose feelings are harder to interpret than the plot of Serial Experiments Lain. Does he really care about her decision to abandon her life for his ambitions? How will he use her after the project is done? Despite his debonair standoffishness and unreadable expressions, George holds himself with the impeccable charm and the faultless poise of James Bond and Calvin Klein combined. He’s so dangerous, you almost have to fall in love with him and hate yourself for it. Nevertheless, it is a story about young love, which is always passionate and fiery at first, but is quick to consume itself and become ash.

While the show concerns itself with fashion shoots, modeling agencies, and hair dressing, it never overwhelms Yukari’s voice and perspective of this new and flamboyant world. Her narrative voice is self-conscious and borderline arrogant: in other words, the perfect high school senior. It is easy to see people dislike Yukari for her stubbornness and naivety, but her blossoming passion for love and George redeems her. Paradise Kiss’ treatment of sex, virginity and sexual identification plays a major role in its story-telling. It rebels and boils with rampant sexuality, though more subtly rather than crudely (think Romeo and Juliet rather than Colorful.) Many of the love-making scenes are treated with the classic Japanese fashion of showing objects in the room rather than actual nudity; this technique doubles the emotional weight of each scene.

While the dialog can fall into many of the pitfalls of directly-translated manga-into-anime, but the visual experience of Paradise Kiss is crisp and deep, each shot as carefully sculpted as an assignment on Project Runway. In the end, the conflict of romanticism and love vs. real world values leans with total bias toward the romantics and idealists (this is a shojo after all.) Though its commercial success in the states makes the final chapters hard to find, even on Ebay, it is a very pleasant show. Girls, as well as boys who, like Isabella, think they’re girls, will enjoy the romantic treatment of first love.

Kurenai

Shinkurou Kurenai is a high school student whose afterschool job is “conflict negotiator.” But unlike Robert Smith of Big-O, rather than summon a giant robot, Shinkurou negotiates with his badass martial arts skills. And he has just received the most awkward mission of his life. Enter Murasaki Kuhouin, the spoiled, six-year-old daughter of Japan’s most secret elite family. Shinkurou’s job: protect Murasaki at all costs.

So begins our light comedic drama of opposites: the kidnapped princess and the timid, hidden beast. Shinkurou’s only choice is to keep Murasaki safe and hidden in his apartment, which is quite the culture shock for Murasaki, who grew up in the xenophobic and traditional Japanese family. With each episode, Murasaki learns the basics of regular society, friendship and freedom.

I will say that Murasaki is a loud-spoken individual and way too wise and compromising to be a realistic girl, let alone a six-year-old. She is fierce and judgmental, but holds enough childlike innocence to grow on you like a little sister.

Shinkurou may appear flat at first, but he develops wonderfully, showing his strengths as weaknesses and vice versa. He is victim to his own naivety and post-adolescence claim to invincibility. His is a story of learning to “stand on [his] own power,” to be strong without help from others. In the end, Kurenai doesn’t define strength and freedom as the inability to lose, but by the wisdom and experience to compromise.

The supporting cast is groundbreaking. Shinkurou’s boss, the stylish femme fatale Benika, will smash her car through a Japanese temple so a six-year-old stranger won’t live without freedom. Shinkurou’s broke and opinionated roommates are great, from Yamie (the black-humored and clothed cynic) to Tamaki (the carefree community college slacker.) Even the ass-kicking near-ninja Yayoi is a closet karaoke star.

What proves Kurenai’s maturity is its courage to challenge its own message, bitch-slap it, and yank it off its high horse. The world from which Murasaki is liberated is a paradox of morality and tradition. The Kuhouins are a powerful hierarchy of authentic, blue-blooded isolationists, the kind that use women as domesticated wombs. Yet with Murasaki’s kidnapping in the first episode, the very real and complicated moral system of Kurenai begins to take shape. Responsibility (both for oneself and others), freedom, and love are juggled very skillfully to create a grey world. Even the time-tested moral of “freedom is good, confinement is evil” is questioned and severely criticized in this show.

I have never seen a show like this. Although I can see it having a hard time being accepted by younger audiences and action fanatics, it possesses real depth, weakness, love and humanity. Intense martial arts combined with the dry, nothingness humor of Seinfeld. The art is beautiful and the dialog is quirky, original, and full of surprising humanity. To put a concrete genre on Kurenai would seem like a constrictive yoke. “Slice-of-life” wouldn’t work because Shinkurou beats up the yakuza. “Harem” would fit because Shinkurou is surrounded by women…except they abuse him terribly…especially Murasaki. “Realism” doesn’t even work because of that bone/horn thing in Shinkurou’s right elbow, Kurenai’s equivalent to the standard, ultimate hidden technique.

I’d like to quote Murasaki’s concluding monologue as proof of Kurenai’s poignancy:

“A cramped room, a smelly futon, noisy and strange people, a small sky in a crowded city…I got scolded for doing things I thought were natural…but I laughed a lot.”

Is true strength running away and finding yourself, or facing the adversities of home in the hopes of changing them for the better? Whether it’s the cynical humor, the occasional badass fights, or the hope for a second musical episode, Kurenai is a cut unlike any else.