Studio: Studio Deen
Genre(s): Fantasy, Horror, Shounen, Psychological
OP: "pupa" by Ibuki Kido & Erii Yamazaki
ED: "Dare yori Suki na no ni (誰より好きなのに)" by Kusuma San Shimai (Yurika Kurosawa, Minato Wakasa, Haruna Usui)
Summary: The "life-and-death sibling" story follows Utsutsu and Yume Hasegawa, a boy and his little sister who find themselves all alone. One day, Yume sees a mysterious red butterfly and her body undergoes a strange metamorphosis—into a creature that eats humans. Utsutsu struggles to find a way to restore his sister. (Source: ANN)
Pupa was one of the anime last season I was going to do first impressions on, but it ended up falling through because it didn't air. For those that don't know why this anime got delayed, it was because the studio didn't want it to air censored, so it was pushed back all the way to winter and now here it is. Unfortunately for me, I watched the censored version and I'm not sure if there will be an AT-X version where it is uncensored, but it seems like a bit of a lost effort to fight so hard and still get itself censored.
So the biggest surprise about Pupa is the fact that it is only four minutes long. The fact that it was a horror with cannibalistic elements is what drew me in in the first place. However, with the episodes being so short, I don't think it has enough time to develop an atmosphere to make any kind of horror happen, and that is a pretty big part of anything that is psychological horror -- or just horror in general. With this four minute introduction, all we really got establish was the two main characters: the rather disheveled older brother Utsutsu and his younger, now turned monster, sister Yume.
I'm not quite sure why so many people have such a negative response to the shorter formed anime, but Pupa is a decent show right now, and quick watch to top. I might need to bulk watch a handful of episodes to actually feel some type of horror, but right now I'm not really that spooked or even care for the siblings. Really it is the flaw for such short episodes, but sometimes experimenting with shorter styled anime is probably the only way to get any progress coming from the industry. Which reminds me, I wrote a longer defense of the "web series" anime on my blog a while back; check it out if you feel so inclined.
Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: No Archive Found