Kuuchuu Buranko is a weird show. It’s like watching House on crack, meth and a ton of alcohol. It’s also the most unique thing I’ve seen during my few years of common history with Japanese animation. Based on a novel by Okuda Hideo, the show follows the antics of an extremely eccentric psychiatrist Irabu Ichirou and his various patients.
Kuuchuu Buranko, also known as Trapeze, is probably the most absurd thing ever to be classified as anime, utilizing both animation and live-action occasionally layered onto each other. Almost every scene features screaming colors, extreme saturation and contrast, abstract and surrealistic backgrounds, and just simply weird things like portraying random people on the street as walking pieces of cardboard. It also makes great use of electronica background music and the OP song – Upside Down by Denki Groove – is frighteningly catchy.
I’m sure most people will find Kuuchuu Buranko a horrible experience, mainly due to its extremely unconventional visual execution that makes even trippiest SHAFT shows look like Disney cartoons. However aside from the visuals it’s surprisingly straightforward and does not feature a ton of symbolism or in-jokes, so it is rather easy to keep up with as soon as one gets over the odd visuals and heavy cutting of scenes. Instead it’s just extremely random and does not only concentrate on Ichirou’s patients but suddenly jumps the focus onto a random side character’s mental condition for a minute, only to completely toss this aside and return to the main story like nothing happened. The show also features occasional interventions by Fukuicchi, who gives helpful explanations on psychiatric methods and terminology during the show.
Some say Kuuchuu Buranko is being bizarre just for the sake of being bizarre. That may be entirely true, but so what? For myself, this is its charm point that sets it aside from the rest. Sure we could have a story about a psychiatrist solving a trapeze-artist’s case of insomnia and anxiousness but why do that when we can have a batshit insane doctor with a vaccination fetish mindfucking a poor crazy bastard for all he’s worth. Kuuchuu Buranko embraces the absurdity and does its best to put the viewer in the shoes and mindset of the patient instead of giving us a yawn-inducing lecture about how mental illnesses are serious business and how they are cured by stoic and endlessly understanding professional psychiatrists.
TL;DR: Best show of the season, hands down, but I doubt hardly anyone will agree with me on this.
Poor bastard -.-
Have you seen Mononoke? It’s made by same people who’s doing Trapeze, but you left it unmentioned. It’s almost as absurd, but graphics are more old-like.
[Nova] Nope, it aired back when I was still too fresh to anime to follow the seasons. Guess I’ll check it out some time.
actually i agree with you, i think it’s one of the best psychological anime i’ve ever seen and i really like those random things happening like Irabu Ichirou randomly change form from kid-middle aged man (i think)- rabbit, and when his patient in ep1 changing head from normal to a fucked up bird . . . . .
i really like the psychological feel that the anime offers
but i bet most people wont like it
It’s quite the animation, like one of those hard to find mash ups of several different styles of art and making it move to act out a story. But honestly, I think that Kuuchuu Buranko is a nice change of traditions, even though it is technically bringing some of the old back to the present day world of entertainment.Plus, it’s comical, and yet somewhat….educational (Doctor Fukuicchi’s side “notes” in random places).
Pingback: Kuuchuu Buranko Isn’t Quite What I Expected, And That Is A Good Thing. « Fuzakenna!
Pingback: lonelygirl_animelover's Blog