Inuyashiki – Early Thoughts

This season I’ve decided to do a little bit of what I used to and talk about a few shows on their own instead of just lumped in with the general “Early Thoughts” post for the season which I may or may not make because I feel terrible because of what my chiropractor thinks is sciatica putting me in just massive amounts of pain nonstop. Well, I probably will write something up but probably be a bit shorter than usual. However, this and at least one other I wanted to give their own posts.

Inuyashiki is by the same guy who created Gantz – which is super apparent the moment you see any character because the guy literally just copy pasted his character designs when writing Inuyashiki because he’s a lazy no-talent in every possible way. That sort of spoils what I’m going to get to. Anyway, the first episode this I started off with bad vibes from the incredibly pretentious OP and the mass amounts of CG…but then the show started getting going a bit more, the CG mattered less, and that pretentious feeling went away and was replaced with an intriguing sense of something new, unusual, and actually pretty promising.

The main character is surprisingly an old Japanese guy, I don’t mean “old” either the dude is fucking old. He’s also dying of cancer before Blick Winkel and his friend show up, mutilate the old dude by mistake, then throw him back together with what they had laying around which happens to be a combat android frame and gear they hide under his otherwise normal looking outer body. It’s stupid, but it’s not a bad stupid, it’s a dumb-fun type of stupid to set up a situation where this old guy can go from completely ignored by his family and society both of which couldn’t give a shit less about him (aside the dog who is probably the most well trained stray in history) to finding a reason to live again, in his case that’s to save lives which he learns by saving a bum being targeted by hobo hunters.

Now, there are a lot of faults throughout the entire episode – especially how ham handed it is about shoving “SOCIETY IS SHIT”, “WE TREAT OUR ELDERLY HORRIBLY, BE BETTER” and “YOUTH CULTURE IS DESTROYING THE WORLD” in your face nonstop because the author is a fucking baby boomer piece of shit who can’t accept nobody likes him and that he – just like the American boomers – destroyed his nation’s entire future but absolutely cannot accept that fact and blame anything but themselves for how things are now. However – no matter how much whiny shit it has, no matter how much shitty CG it has, no matter how much dumb stuff that fills most of it…it was still REALLY intriguing and made you absolutely want to keep watching more of it. It was a surprisingly good first episode. Fun moments, silly moments, very serious moments, over the top moments, all handled pretty well.

Then episode 2 aired.

It was just torture/murder porn. A complete lack of anything subtle, anything meaningful, anything with any thought put into it. Just the world’s edgiest teen going around killing people for fun while abusing the oldest and most fucking retarded line possible that every shit “DEEP KILLER HE’S NOT JUST EDGY ;)” type has used forever – whenever he kills…get this…he feels………………ALIVE!

Context: he just killed a woman and shot her body a bunch of times then killed her husband and child who were bathing by torturing the dad and making his body smother the child in the water.

YES ONLY MURDER, ONLY SLOWLY KILLING (yes this specifically is stated, he doesn’t feel alive when he JUST kills people, it HAS to be torturous and slow this is ACTUALLY CANON that is how fucking edgy this garbage is) PEOPLE ESPECIALLY LITTLE 3 YEAR OLD CHILDREN IN THE ARMS OF THEIR FATHER MAKES HIM FEEL ALIVE. I KILLED THE MOM TOO FAST BETTER JUST KEEP SHOOTING HER BODY BECAUSE I’M FUCKING EDGY.

WHAT A COMPELLING AND GRIPPING VILLAIN. SO ORIGINAL, SO UNIQUE, SO MATURE, SO DEEP, SO INSIGHTFUL! IT IS TRULY A FEAT THAT SUCH A CHARACTER COULD BE CONCEIVED BY ONE LONE CREATOR FOR THE INGENUITY REQUIRED IS NEAR ENDLESS. But see – we have him talk to this girl before he murders her about MANGA and make him act all excited to discuss it SEE WE MADE AN AMAZING JUST UNBELIEVABLY HIGH QUALITY SOCIOPATH SERIAL KILLER JUST LIKE AMERICAN PSYCHO SEE?

SEE WE’RE JUST LIKE THAT! SEE IT’S YOU JUST DON’T GET IT. HE IS TALKING TO A GIRL WHO HE JUST BRAGGED TO THAT HE MURDERED HER ENTIRE FAMILY THEN TALKING ABOUT A MANGA WHILE SHE’S HORRIFIED. SEE YOU JUST. YOU JUST DON’T GET THE SUBTLE INSANITY GOING ON HERE AND GET THIS THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN ACTUALLY KILLS HER TOO! HOLY SHIT MAN EVEN BERSERK DOESN’T HOLD A CANDLE TO THIS LEVEL OF WRITING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I’VE SEEN JESUS HIMSELF AND HIS NAME IS WHATEVER THE NAME OF THE CREATOR OF GANTZ’S NAME ISAND THIS IS SOME JAPPO NAME SURELY I DON’T KNOW IT BUT HE’S KNOWN AS JESUS NOW THANK YOU GOD FOR BIRTHING THIS MASTER-CRAFTSMAN. I CAN’T WAIT FOR HIM TO START TELLING THE OLD GUY “WE AREN’T SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I” BEFORE SLOWLY SLAUGHTERING HIS FAMILY IN FRONT OF HIS EYES BECAUSE THAT’S THE KIND OF AMAZING FORWARD THINKING ORIGINALITY AND DEPTH I’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM THIS GENUINE PIECE OF ART. AND JUST LOOK. LOOK AT THE DICHOTOMY OF HOW HE FEELS ALIVE WHEN KILLING AND THE OLD GUY FEELS WHEN SAVING LIVES. ISNT IT AMAZING ISN’T IT INCREDIBLE? DOESN’T IT REALLY MAKE YOU THINK?

Was that subtle enough to get my point across?

Don’t worry, the creator didn’t forget about the Gantz haters either – there’s an entire dialogue laid out in episode 2 between Mr. Edge and his friend about “FUCK INTERNET HATERS ON AMAZON AND 2CHAN, GANTZ WAS A FUCKING MASTERWORK”. No, really, it happens.