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Hello Loggers*, I hope you all had a great Halloween! We are entering the festive months of the year but Samhain will always be in my heart. If you're wondering what's keeping me busy lately, check out my Fall Manga Guide, Fall Light Novel Guide, K-Comics Guide, and be sure to check out the upcoming Otaku Holiday Gift Guide, upcoming sequel. The Best/Worst/Most Anticipated Seasons, Best Movies of 2024, Winter Trailer Watch Party, and Winter 2025 Anime Preview Guide.
That's my life from now until mid-January, but honestly I really enjoy producing this column. It gives me a unique dopamine feeling of “getting things done” (you know, like when you finish one of those family projects on your to-do list that you've been putting off for a while). three months but only takes about 20 minutes once you finally do it) and it gives me the opportunity to write when the main function of my job is to manage and enable 20+ other people to be able to write .
*(Does this work? Can we make money? ?)
Note: This column will frequently include spoilers. Readers should exercise caution.
©1999 MATSURI AKINO/UNIVERSAL MUSIC LLC, TBS, MADHOUSE
Why is this important?
I found myself with a surprising amount of Madhouse anime in my backlog. I bought the Sentai Filmworks Pet Shop of Horrors SD Blu-ray about a year ago and last month seemed like the perfect time to get it on. The four-episode series has somewhat unique origins; it is not an OAV. Instead, Madhouse produced an adaptation of Matsuri Akino's manga exclusively for TBS Wonderful! programming block in 1999. The episodes are loosely connected by setting but are otherwise independent: an individual enters Count D's pet store located in Los Angeles's Chinatown and purchases a Humanoid pets. They vowed not to show it to anyone and to follow the instructions set by D. Surely, they will not keep their promise and will most likely meet a terrible end.
Pet Shop of Horror's staying power in North American fandom is curious; it may be a case of being in the right place at the right time. One-off short home video releases have been popular in the market for a long time (remember Debutante Detective Corps and Elf Princess Rane?), and Pet Shop of Horrors easily sits alongside the movies. dark, adult series visually similar to Darkside Blues and Vampire Princess Miyu. Its manga counterpart is part of Tokyopop's original catalog, supported by Akino's stunning artwork.
Before Sentai Filmworks' release, the Pet Shop of Horrors anime series was part of the now-defunct Urban Vision's catalog. Currently, the company can be considered a “boutique” licensor as much of its inventory is centered around founder Mataichiro Yamamoto's relationship with Madhouse. Before the shutdown, Urban Vision's releases included Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Goku: Midnight Eye, Wicked City and other similar films. Pet Shop of Horrors is very suitable. Its setting is also suitable for those who are watching American animation for the first time; Like Gunsmith Cats and other OAVs of its time, Pet Shop of Horrors takes place outside of Japan (in this case, Los Angeles!), so it offers all the anime aesthetic with little of the literary learning curve. more modernized for viewers in the late 90s.
Pet Shop of Horrors director Toshio Hirata may not be well known to fans in the West, but he is very beloved in the industry. Affectionately known as “Pon-san”, he is friends with industry veterans Gisaburō Sugii (Touch, Lupine III: The Secret of Twilight Gemini), Masao Maruyama (founder of Madhouse and MAPPA) , and Rintarō (Space Pirate Captain Harlock, X , Capital). Hirata's work spans many genres but tends toward realistic drama and reflections on war, from Barefoot Gen to Rail of the Star-A True Story of Children and War among his films for all his ages.
Hirata utilized his professional connections for this project, casting Rintarō as the lead in the opening sequence, Hisashi Abe (Chobits, Gunslinger Girl) designing the characters, and Giant Robo director Yasuhiro Imagawa writing the script. an episode about the bunny killer. However, outside of YouTube uploads, you won't see Pet Shop of Horror opening on the official release. It uses a lot of live-action footage of the LEGOLGEL opening theme band, which I suspect created a more complicated licensing situation.
Does it deserve its reputation?
Pet Shop of Horrors is an anime that I could have easily become obsessed with if it were longer and I had watched it in its heyday. It operates in a similar space to Hell Girl and Vampire Princess Miyu, two other series I've seen (and re-watched). The film has a very tight cast: Count D (who actually served before it became culturally cool), brash police officer Leon Orcot, and a few appearances by Jill, a fellow police officer. Each episode revolves around different pet store customers who are willing to buy a potentially dangerous animal as long as it fills a current void in their lives.
Pet Shop of Horrors is not terrible in the classic sense. It has a well-developed sense of tragedy and strangeness. The episodes are also morality tales, giving them a Grimm's fairy tale quality. Volume one is easily the weakest, with a harsh warning to parents who indulge their children and a dystopian view of drug addiction. (I also couldn't find any information supporting the idea that kittens eat meat once out of the womb). The middle two, however, are great on a scary level, about a revengeful bride and a lizard woman who bonds with her master, an actress struggling to find work. The final episode is the most interesting (an achievement in a series that includes a girl who is actually a bunch of bunnies) as we meet a unicorn who facilitated both Hitler and Truman's rise to power and a plot to swap bodies. Episode four was a delight, begging for one more episode to wrap up. In that sense, the anime is annoying, but that just says I want more of it.
Sentai Filmworks' Blu-ray release comes in standard definition and display. There is currently no high-definition transfer on the Japanese market, and I can't speak to the likelihood of Pet Shop of Horrors receiving one or whether its source material will be usable for a deluxe release. no, but it needs it. The anime's visuals are beautiful but cannot be fully appreciated here, as it often looks muddy instead of moody. The voice acting is also inconsistent in the Japanese version, with the lip smacking sounding more like a suggestion than actually fitting the performance.
Pet Shop of Horrors scratched a very special itch for me, even if it didn't feel “complete” at all. Luckily, we are getting a new manga release from Seven Seas Entertainment soon and this has done a great job of motivating me to learn more.
View or delete it?
View it or delete it?
See if all the other anime I've named in this column are your favorites, then join me in wishing for a clearer transfer and pre-order the manga volumes.
Final verdict: Yes.
