Wasurenagumo

A friend of mine here on MAL asked me to review a series of 1 episode anime shorts that were entered in a 2011 contest to find talented, budding anime directors. The first of these "one shots" I will be reviewing is Wasurenagumo, which roughly translates to Little Spider Girl. Before I review the anime, I feel it is necessary to give a tiny bit of background info. In traditional Japanese folklore, there is a creature called the Jurogumo which has the body of a spider and the torso of a beautiful woman. The Jurogumo will attract men looking for love, only to quickly devour themafter mating just like a real spider. This animal bottom/woman top that lures men to their doom is very similar to the Siren from Greek mythology. It is interesting that people in 2 cultures completely isolated across the world both thought this was a cool concept and independently created their own versions of basically the same creature. WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! The anime begins with a narrator telling what is supposed to be an old Japanese folk tale. A giant spider demon attacks a village only to be badly wounded and chased off by a powerful samurai. While fleeing, the spider dropped some of its hatchlings and the samurai discovers a baby spider demon with the torso of a little girl. It is simply too cute for the samurai to kill, so he takes it home and raises her. He is later horrified to discover the spider girl has been eating people behind his back, so he seals her away. In the present day, a bimbo highschool girl is working at her grandfather's used book store and decides to open a book that clearly states it has a demon sealed inside it. Seems like a good idea to me! The demon is released and it is of course the spider demon with the torso of an adorable little girl. The assistant shop keeper instantly falls under her spell because I guess he likes lolis. Eventually the bimbo and minimum wage cashier Humbert Humbert decide to take the little spider girl back to the temple depicted in the story. Inside the temple, the giant mother spider from the story attacks them and sends the shopkeeper and bimbo flying off a cliff. The little spider girl saves them by catching them with her web...only to pull a Goldeneye and let the bimbo drop towards a grisly death. The shopkeeper doesn't mind this though, and takes the spider girl home where she will inevitably devour him soon. The End. The art and animation was pretty decent considering this was made with an extremely low budget. This anime didn't win the 2011 contest, but I don't think that was due to poor animation. The only question I had after watching this was, "What the hell was the point?" It didn't really work as a comedy. It didn't work as a horror story. It didn't have engaging characters. I guess the director just thought it would be amusing to inject modern Japanese pop culture like "moe art" and "lolis" into a modern variant of a traditional Japanese folktale. The concept of injecting modern pop culture gags into traditional fairy tales CAN work if done right. After all, Shrek is one of the most beloved heroes of the internet! Although 99.9% of that is due to 4chan rather than a genuine admiration for the quality of the Shrek Franchise.

Young Animator Training Project/Anime Mirai short reviews: Part 6/12 Wasurenagumo tells the story of some nerdy researcher dude and a schoolgirl who has a crush on him, or is possibly his brother? I forget which, and since it’s Japan, they’re practically the same thing anyway. They discover a cutesy little monstrosity that is half adowabubble little girl and half giant spider, which treads this perfect line between the ka/owaii oh man see what I did there I’m so weeaboo it hurts. In my humble opinion, Wasurenagumo is the standout of all the young animator training projects so far. The two lead characters have actual personality andtheir relationship is pretty well realised, with an awful lot not being said but implied through their actions. The slapstick with the spider girl is genuinely funny, and that line they tread with her creepiness is so perfect it’s eerie. And then there’s the ending, which I won’t spoil, but it completely blindsided me and left me feeling dazed and confused for the rest of the day. Verdict: Watch

MAL's Information lists this one-shot episode as Comedy, but it's actually a very understated horror short, and it is amazing. The plot is well paced, and the characters are both likeable and well-developed despite the short time that is allotted to character development in a single 25 minute episode. There aren't many shows that fit into the same genre as this short, but the closest that I can think of in terms of atmosphere and style is Steins; Gate. which shares many of the same understated elements and atmosphere. Fantastic episode left me wanting more because it was so perfect, but I'm glad it was exactly thelength that it was because it was perfectly made to fit into the single episode.

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