I’m a big Junji Ito fan, but I haven’t really found any good anime that come close to matching the creepiness of his manga stories, including that one Junji Ito anime series that’s out there. I think the closest I’ve seen is Mononoke, though honestly I haven’t seen a ton of anime, so maybe I’m missing something. I thought I’d ask to see what you all might suggest in terms of genuinely creepy/unsettling/dark anime movies or series, either similar to Ito’s stuff or whatever else you think is good.
Any suggestions?
I’ve only seen one anime and it was in the 70’s and it was horror, well horror for kids I think. It was broadcast on my local public TV station one sunday afternoon.
Really had an impact as Japanese media was non-existent at the time so it was shocking to my sensibilities on so many levels. Don’t know if it holds up anymore, but at the time it was pretty scary. That and I was like 12 or so.
Wow, found it on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg276CLBjjE
This doesn’t look super scary, but definitely looks interesting. I’ll have to check this one out.
This was made in 1967 and I think it is a window into early anime.
Look at the Disney-esque character designs and the parallax cel reveal scene revealing the castle.
There’s Tom & Jerry / Warner bros. influence all over as well.
I imagine Japan as an occupied country after WW2 was a new market for US capitalists and this film is full of the contemporary US market exploitation creating new cultural standards. Meanwhile the artists and writers desperately stamp Japanese myth and literary style and meaning into a US dominated art form trying to reclaim something of a cultural identity from capitalist occupation.
Really gives a visceral insight into the historical evolution of anime and post WW2 Japanese culture.
Shinsekai yori / From the New World
These kids live in a peaceful pastoral town where everyone has psychic powers. Something is very off about the world they live in, and you slowly learn more about how off it is and how it got that way.
It’s kind of hard to give a non-spoiler summary of it, because the status quo gets completely destroyed roughly every four episodes.
Made in Abyss. It has some of the same problems as Eldin Lied so whatch for that.l. Unlike elfiin lied though it isn’t trash that we remember fondly.
The Vampire Hunder D movies might be close enough to scratch the itches as well
Requiem for the Darkness was pretty good on the episodic stories though I didn’t really like how it shifted into a “grand supernatural conspiracy” in the later half of the series.
Someone else mentioned Perfect Blue and that looks like something I’d like. I’ll definitely look into the other recommendations as well.
