There is a lot of good anime this year - and not all of it from Japan. We have Pacific Rim: The Black and Dragon Prince 4 is headed our way.
But when it comes to traditional anime one that has snared my attention is Otherside Picnic.
Name sound familiar? It made me do a doubletake. Several times, in a couple of other threads, I've mentioned the Strugatsky Brother's novelette, Roadside Picnic.. And yes, Roadside Picnic has been the source for a very Andrei Tarkovsky film, a very well-known game series, but every time someone tries to do it as a mini-series or a television series it goes straight into Development Hell and then fades away.
Otherside Picnic is not Roadside Picnic. That said, it could very well be the spiritual successor of the Strugatsky story. Both deal with exploring an other-worldly place that has a tenuous connection with the real world, a place that can have strange effects on the people there, that is dangerous in very disturbing ways and the focus of the story is on those who venture into this not-quite-right-place ...
It is most definitely a homage; there are shout-outs taken straight from Roadside Picnic and one of the ways to enter the Otherside is through a deranged elevator - which would be right at home in the Research Institute for Magic and Wizardry of the Academy of Sciences, which is the springboard for Tale of the Troika, another Strugastky Brothers novelette often found anthologized with Roadside Picnic.
The two lead characters are fun - and the most interesting thing is their slowly developing relationship. It is wonderfully awkward, hesitant, and because it isn't perfect or seen the same between the two, it feels very very real.
But where Otherside Picnic succeeds?
In the not-real.
It captures the feel, the spirit, the other-worldly nature of the story better than the Tarkovsky film, better than a first-person shooter. It hits that nail on the head, which is both a good thing and an edge of your seat thing. It's creepy. It's disturbing. Its light opening song seems magical but doesn't quite match the reality of the Otherside. It's strange. While it uses urban legends instead of visitation to hang its tales on, it is still very alien, inscrutable, and just left-enough-from-center to raise hackles.
It can turn a cell phone call into nightmare fuel.
It can make a snap-cut to an empty railway station jarring and terrifying.
It's up to ten episodes and going strong and can be found on Funimation.
If you dare.
