Psycho Diver: Mashou Bosatsu

Psycho Diver is an anime original 1997 Madhouse OVA that runs only about 50 minutes long, and I feel kind of bad giving this such a low rating, but it really is the sloppy rush-job you'd expect from a short OVA without any source material. It's styled like an old-fashioned noir: a somewhat ugly main character who looks like Golgo 13, the phoned-in "love interest," deep shadows and grimy imagery, a bunch of tough guys and assassins; and a crime plot involving two intertwined subplots that probably would have been better served as separate scripts with such a short running time. We have a weirdpsychic cult that remains pretty ambiguous, as well as another subplot involving a pop star who is experiencing "psychic disturbances." You could probably liken it to Exorcist with the possession scenes, but it's not as colorful. There's a massive amount of plot cramming, but it never culminates into anything rewarding or worthwhile. The really interesting aspect of this OVA is why I think almost everyone is drawn to it, which is hinted at in the name: Psycho Diver. The dark gritty noir stylings merge well with the mild psychological horror elements embedded into the script. Characters can dive into the psyche to correct psychological distress or other disturbances. We don't have a baseline example of how this works—we only have Yuki Kano, who is such a unique case that the previous Psycho Diver was actually KILLED by diving inside of her mind. He basically exploded because of the amount of trauma his nervous system experienced from the event XD. Any decent production would give you an example of a more normative case to actually understand the process. What we're given looks like a random nightmare. Filled with stabbings, imagery as you can see on the cover, dim interior shots, and Hans Bellmer-esque ball-jointed dolls. The main only even psycho dives twice in the short running length—the rest is focused on gumshoeing and action sequences. Although his dream-self becomes a voodoo pincushion, the final psycho diving scene is anti-climatic and limp-wristed. Better would be if these diving incidents weren't so high octane, and they were more explorative and atmospheric. We're never even given any surprises, where the main character loses his sense of reality, as you'd expect with most good productions on this subject. I've always been intrigued by this sci-fi concept, but thus far, it hasn't been pulled off with great success, at least not in most instances I can recall for visual mediums. ID: Invaded does a decent job, despite its flaws. Paprika, is another adequate alternative, even if not one of Satoshi Kon's best. For films, The Cell and Inception both explore this subject matter; the former has interesting visuals as you might expect from Tarsem Singh, and the latter is overrated pap, though worth watching for the effects and the exploration of diving into the mind—it's just hollow as art. Frankly, I would say none of these listed are strongly above average, unfortunately. In terms of production values, this is okay, but this was obviously a small-time, low-budget project for Madhouse. Some of the noirish cinematography and lighting are pretty good, there is fairly creative direction, and a nice dark atmosphere. Animation is passable—fair at times, but never overwhelmingly good or anything you'd expect to see on a sakuga video. While the opening music video is a fair effort, the english dub is exceptionally cringe when it comes to the opening song. The dub is probably more fun overall, but I couldn't tolerate it just because of the song. In summary, Psycho Diver is a quirky combination of sci-fi/horror/noir with a cool concept, but it's just too rushed to be truly worthwhile.

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