Random Ramblings LXIV

IN WHICH I RAMBLE ABOUT HORROR
I'm on the fence about horror as a genre – I hate jumpscares, be they in live-action or video games. But I find myself being pulled in, sometimes against my will. Follow me, if you dare.

Last week, I went with my girlfriend to see The Conjuring 2. Although I enjoyed the movie on the whole, I could have done without the jumpscares, even though I knew most of them were coming. Compare that to Crimson Peak: Del Toro tends to consider jumpscares kind of a cop-out, so there really aren't many if any. It's not my favourite film of his (that'd be either Pan's Labyrinth or Devil's Backbone), but I found it much more satisfying than other horror films. I also tend to prefer horror movies that parody the genre, like Army Of Darkness and Cabin in the Woods.

And yet… I love horror comics, especially Japanese ones (though I won't turn down EC's Golden-Age output). One of my favourite manga creators is Naoki Urusawa, who I became aware of through Monster – though both it and 20th Century Boys probably count more as psychological thrillers. Regardless… both series are chock full of fucked up shit and I love them.

I own several hundred individual volumes of manga (I've been collecting for well over a decade at this point), and horror is represented in my collection. I regrettably don't own any of The Drifting Classroom (I'm a completionist and it was way too hard to track down individual books), but I do own Uzumaki and, more germaine to this post, the entirety of the comic adaptation of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, a.k.a. When They Cry (based on the visual novel of the same name).

Back in 2008-ish, as anime distributor Geneon USA shut down, the site I use to get my Jappo-toon fix had a fire-sale of their Geneon catalogue, just to get unreturnable product out of their warehouse. Among the many things I bought (I had a lot more money in those days, so I had no qualms about dropping $200+ for this sale, though I still passed on several things which I regret) was the anime version of Higurashi. Fast forward seven years, and I've bought and (mostly) read all of the Higurashi manga, but not watched a single episode of the anime. I decided to rectify this yesterday. I watched the first arc, "Abducted By Demons", which encompasses the first four episodes. It's not bad, but the manga is significantly better. I think it's partly the art style – the anime uses an unusually cutesy style lacking in detail (even the original VN isn't that 'kawaii-desu') and the animation is pretty cheap even for anime – compare to the often very dynamic art for that arc in the manga.

As I'm watching the anime for the first time, years after buying it and dumping it in the backlog, I'm rereading the manga. It's neat to see where the two differ in their telling of the same story. Also the manga has a couple of arcs unique to it (that aren't even in the original game).

Finally, have you ever seen a YouTube video called "Casey And Friends"? If not, I highly encourage you to watch it. It was made back in ~2006, and is in a very literal sense "Higurashi Meets 4Kids". I first saw it not long after it was posted, and I still return to it once a year or so because it is the glorious pinnacle of Stylistic Suck. When I watched Episode 4 of the real Higurashi anime, I couldn't help shouting lines from "Casey" at the screen during (in-)appropriate moments. This is why I usually watch stuff alone.

For what it's worth, my GF did the same thing when she saw Ep.4 for the first time.

Yay for piñatas!