A lot has been said about how weak the current anime season is. To this I say "shut up, I'm watching Sunred." It's hard not to see a wall of shitty late-night porn game adaptations and moe exploitation and lose all hope for the medium, of course, but don't all of us right-thinking people just skip that stuff anyway? Let's talk about a good cartoon.
I was interested in Trapeze from the moment I saw the trailer, in large part due to Denki Groove's involvement with the music. If Denki Groove is down for something, it's probably a safe bet, I figure. As you can see here, it's a heavily stylized live-action/animation hybrid. This is not exactly a Roger Rabbit situation: rather, in one shot we see an actor, in another we see a cartoon, and in others, the same person is a little bit an actor and a little bit a cartoon. It also happens to be about a psychiatrist in a bear (?) costume who gets off on injections.
In this first episode, Ichiro Irabu's patient, a trapeze artist, has a pretty mundane problem with a mundane solution. You're probably not going to notice, though, because the way the story is told is so strange. It isn't hard to follow, mind you, just strange. As I mentioned before, everything is constantly changing: the doctor him/herself takes three forms and seems to be voiced by three different people. The show's running theme appears to be multiple personalities and the way people subconsciously become different selves, but it remains to be seen where that goes. Until then, I recommend you kick back and enjoy the music.
I would also feel like I was cheating my audience if I didn't mention the hot nurse. Damn.
I was wondering when I'd read about something that's quirky and unusual so cheers for the recommendation. I survived about half an episode of Kampfer - man, that isn't my thing at all, to put it mildly. I'll be watching the second season of Darker than Black at some stage, but I need to finish rewatching the first one.
The visual style and music of Trapeze certainly intrigue me - the mixture of live-action and animation you mention sounds a bit like Mind Game actially. If all else fails, I loved Denki Groove's contribution to Eureka Seven so I'm guessing this will be in the same vein...the hot nurse hasn't swayed my opinion at all, obviously. ¬_¬
Posted by: Martin | October 20, 2009 at 01:36 PM