The Curse of Kazuo Umezu (1990)

 

Director: Naoko Omi

Screenplay: Shiira Shimazaki

Based on the manga by Kazuo Umezu

(Voice) Cast: Ai Orikasa as Nanako; Naoko Watanabe as Masami; Rei Sakuma as Miko; Shinobu Adachi as Rima; Ikuya Sawaki as the Narrator

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #232

 

Anime horror is not as common as you would expect, least before the 2000s. Even with the golden era of straight-to-video "OVA" (original video) anime in the eighties and nineties this was surprisingly not common, despite the fact that alongside the likelihood of a higher production quality than TV series, you could get away with content that is more adult. Hentai can get aware with more even in mind to certain Japanese laws, but that is its own territory. In the modern day, TV series have increased on the subject. You have to work around television restrictions unless you intend to release it cut and have the uncensored version for sale, but this genre has grown over the decades nonetheless.

Manga is on the other hand a place where horror thrived, and as the cult of Junji Ito grew in the West into the late 2010s, as Viz Media started publishing his work again in hardback releases, these titles and authors in the field can sell. One figure that we only tentatively know of in the West, but has had work adapted in live action in his homeland, is Kazuo Umezu.  Umezu also knows how to sell himself - he looks like the Japanese cousin of the titular character of Where's Wally?, with his red and white striped clothes, and even had his house painted in this trademark colour. Umezu has worked in other genres, but horror has made him a veteran, one whose work in animation is rare. One exception is a rare title, The Curse of Kazuo Umezu, one which was so rare it is the kind of title, if not for fan preservation, that would be obscure to almost everyone. How you come to acquire the license, considering how many straight-to-video "OVAs" were made in the eighties, let alone preserve a title like this is going to make this frankly difficult to access beyond that fan access. It is a shame as, for a tiny little fragment, it is nonetheless fascinating even as merely a rip taken from a Japanese VHS by a Western otaku.

At over forty five minutes, the anime is two short stories.  The first, a schoolgirl suspects that the new transfer student is a female vampire, but thanks to videotape, the truth is more horrifying. The second is of a group of schoolgirls going into a haunted house to their peril. The most distinct aspect of the anime, bookended by a mysterious thin narrator/crypt keeper who entices us with morality tales, is the visual look of the anime. Clearly, there was an attempt to replicate the style of Umezu's manga, black lines heavily used and very grotesque imagery. It shows in the female characters, if just their eye lashes and eyes, who dominate the entire anime. It looks good in terms of design, and the format allows for nastier material. The first story brings in a freakish level of body horror that the cutesy break between two stories cannot make into a complete joke - think of very, very big teeth. The second story, lots of raspberry jam smeared everywhere, made even more disarming by the character designs and that this has a murky atmosphere as an anime altogether, an aspect found in OVAs especially when not viewed in high definition.

In terms of quality in other areas, the slightness does leave it merely a couple tales, not dissimilar to if you have a tiny little comic book of these narratives. It is distinct, even in mind to the actual animation not being innovative. In terms of entertainment, this is definitely a case of the presentation of what is on screen, where interestingly the stories do occupy themselves with the ideas of seeing something only to live to regret it, curiosity literally killing the cat. The second, cut into by the narrator, becomes purposely abstract, reality cut to pieces by going to the wrong place. It even gets dreamlike and also reflective of itself, the main two characters watching horror movies, including one called "the Curse of Kazuo Umezu", before they end up investigating the haunted house.

It is a minor work, due to its length, in horror anime, but it is still fascinating. It cannot help but evoke Junji Ito, both because Umezu is an influence on his but that, whilst adapting his work to animation has been difficult, Junji Ito's work and his growing fame in the West has taken place at a time when anime horror is more frequent, causing one to reflect on what would happen to an influence like Umezu if he got as much anime adapted from his work. In live action, a lot has been done with his manga, Nobuhiko Obayashi of note adapting The Drifting Classroom (1972-4) into a 1987 film.  Whilst a production like the Junji Ito Collection (2018) is a very divisive anthology series for television, mostly because of trying to adapt his art style, and that people were not expecting his more comedic creations not seen in the West at the time take focus, if offered a fascinating snapshot, and anime based on titles like those in The Curse of Kazuo Umezu would be enticing too to witness. Until then, this with its own layer of eeriness, emphasised by the likelihood the version I saw a preserved Japanese VHS version, presents a rewarding curiosity in itself.