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A while back I stumbled across a well-put-together thread on /x/ about weird/spooky anime. The OP of that thread created these beautiful collages for each one and really piqued my interest in checking them out. I finally got around to watching some of them and decided to finally make use of my page here to talk about them as I go through them. My main motivation for this right now is to have a personal record of these shows and movies that I can look back on. But I also hope that I can spread some enjoyment to others out there should any of these interest you :D
This is a bit of an experiment for me. What I want to talk about in each of these posts and how I structure them may change. Some posts (like this one) may include more detailed descriptions of plot details while others may leave more out if I think they're worth watching on your own without knowing everything beforehand. Thankfully, most of the entries are short OVAs or movies. So I should be able summarize my thoughts on them pretty succinctly in single posts.
The first entry on the list is.....
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The Curse of Kazuo Umezu opens with a wonderful scene. This Edward Scissorhands-looking guy sits down and addresses the viewer directly, warning them of the dangers of the paranormal. This guy is a very minor part of the show, but his appearances at the beginning and end really stuck with me for reasons I'll get into later. I'll say now that this dude and his little speech sets up the overall tone so well. I love him.
The first story follows Masami and the new student in her class Rima. Once Rima shows up, Masami starts having these crazy nightmares and an unexplainable scar shows up on her neck. Masami decides that Rima is the cause of her problems and asks her friend to help her solve this mystery. He sets up a camera in Masami's room to record her sleeping and get to the bottom of this. As we see shortly after, the footage shows a mouth opening up from the scar on Masami's neck. Rather than tell Masami right then or really do anything at all to address this, he just up and leaves.
It's at this point that events gets jumbled and I'm not really quite sure in which order everything happens. Masami herself watches the recording and witnesses her transformation. We then see the beastly Masami crashing into Rima's bedroom and Masami's friend who set up the video camera is strangely there too. There's also another man in the room who understandably wants to shoot Masami as soon as he sees her. Masami's friend instead convinces him not to and chucks a salt shaker(?) full of spiders at Masami. This causes the monster to start freaking out, but it still ends up pouncing on Rima and doing some nasty things to her. The final scene shows Masami confronting her friend. He jumps out of the window and his camera is left smashed on the ground.
Overall, this part was not entirely coherent to me. But it was spooky enough, if a little silly.
With a title like that, you can already tell that great things are going to happen here. This part opens up with this wonderfully comfy scene of two girls, Nanako and Miko, marathoning horror movies in their living room. Nanako wants to go explore an old mansion across town while Miko is a huge scaredy-cat and wants nothing to do with it. Along with being a huge wuss, Miko also seems a bit dim-witted. She continuously refuses to visit the mansion with Nanako but gets roped along so easily to go to it anyways. After joining up with some other girls, the group heads inside.
This mansion has got everything. Black cat in the front yard, broken windows, a scary painting, even a convenient oil lamp to light the girls' way. They make their way through the house and upon seeing some kind of phantom or specter lurking in the corner, Nanako's first instinct is to throw a children's toy at it. Shockingly, this angers the ghost lady who turns around and makes short work of these trespassing teenagers.
Miko then wakes up seemingly unharmed. But questions remain: Did they actually visit the mansion last night? Did Miko and all of her friends actually get killed by the ghost? The group sets off again the next night to return to the mansion and see just what's going on. But of course, they were actually dead the whole time. Edward Scissorhands returns, this time relieved of his body. He gives us another brilliant performance and leaves us questioning just what happened to those poor girls.
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In all, The Curse of Kazuo Umezu isn't anything terribly special. But it's enjoyable for other reasons. The spooky bits are well done and just plain fun. There's also a lot of moments that are so silly. On my first watch and while skipping through it to write this post I laughed quite a few times at so many little parts. The biggest strength of it is that it embraces this, intentionally or otherwise. I mentioned earlier that I love the guy who shows up at the beginning and end of the show. He totally exemplifies how cozy this show is. It feels like something I'd watch catch on TV as a kid that'd spook me and keep me up worrying about ghosts and ghouls coming to get me. Between all of this, you have a short little show that isn't super compelling but will give you a good time.
That's all I have to say about The Curse of Kazuo Umezu! Next time I'm planning on talking about one I watched that was less spooky, more surreal. See you then!
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My email address: down.yonder00@gmail.com