All tagged anime
Talentless Nana is a horror anime about a group of children tasked with developing their newfound superpowers to defeat the Enemies of Humanity and save the world. Then the series changes entirely after the first 20 minutes of the first episode to something far more disturbing.
“Kakurenbo (Hide & Seek)” is an animated short horror film from Japan. It is 30 minutes of a game of hide and seek with deadly consequences. Once seven children follow the clues in old street signs (O-to-ko-yo), they wind up at the gates of the city of the dead. They must wear fox masks to conceal their identities. Only then can they enter and compete against demons in a brutal game with no real winner.
Death Note is one of the most iconic anime of all time. It is based on a manga series from writer/illustrator Tsugumi Ohba that is just the perfect storm of high-concept horror storytelling. Light, a high school student preparing for college, discovers a mysterious notebook, labeled “Death Note,” that claims the owner can kill anyone in six minutes 40 seconds (or 6.66 seconds…) by writing down their full name while thinking of their face. Light decides to become Kira (meant to sound like “killer”), a force of justice who will create a utopia by killing all the criminals in the world.
I warned you to stay tuned for this during the Kakegurui anime review last week.
The success of the Kakegurui manga and anime in 2017 led to the production of a 10-episode live action adaptation released in 2018. It's the same story, only told with real life actors and a whole lot less of the disturbing sexualization of teenagers from the cartoon.
Kakegurui is about an elite school ruled by gambling. The student government ranks students based on earnings and donations to the school, and only the best gamblers can keep themselves at the top. The bottom 100 students are treated as house pets, students who must do anything asked of them until they can pay their way out of debt through gambling. A new student, Yumeko, enters the school excited to play any and every game she can with ridiculous stakes. She drags new house pet Ryōta along as her tour guide, forcing him to witness some of the most absurd and depraved gambling you've ever imagined.
Kakegurui is a manga turned anime (turned live action series--stay tuned) about an elite school in Japan with an unusual set of rules. Your status is determined by your gambling abilities. The student council ranks students based on their winnings and donations to the school. Win your student-created casino games and you stay at the top of the class; lose, and you wind up as a house pet to the rest of the student body. House pets have to do whatever anyone else commands and can only free themselves by gambling their way out of debt.
Yumeko Jabami is a new transfer student to the school and she is eager to participate. She is partnered up with a new house pet, Ryōta Suzui, for a tour of the school that quickly turns into some of the highest stakes games in the history of the school. Yumeko is driven by the thrill of the game, not winning or losing, and always finds ways of pushing her opponents to bet more than they have on single rounds of increasingly convoluted games.
