Review: Pupa

Pupa is a strange series to watch and also a strange series to sum up. It's weird, it's grotesque in many ways, it's heart warming, it's also rather original and sure to satisfy gore loving fans. Well, for a bit anyway. One of pupa's many flaws is the reason for this, it's a hefty flaw as well.

The plot is fairly simple, an older brother and younger sister live together, they both suffered at the hands of their abusive father, the younger sister Yume is walking home from school one day and sees a red butterfly, events take a turn as this experience with this strange butterfly infects her with a virus that transforms her into a grotesque monster that devours all in her path. Her brother Utsutsu finds her in this state and also sees this red butterfly which infects him with a virus, one that allows him to regenerate. So follows the story of Utustus and Yume, a brother who let's his sister control her urges and not harm others by allowing her to feed off her.

Sounds interesting right? Yes it is and in the manga the story is a great read as you find out more about brother and sister, the bond they have and what they will do for each other. In the anime though it's a mish-mash of idea's and plot points that results in little other that shock value.

So I'll get the positives in first, it's a series that will gross you out. The parts where Yume is feeding of Utsutsu are particularly well done. It has all the looks you'd want, the flesh ripping out, the blood flowing. The soundtrack plays a good part here as well, the music is gloomy, the sounds of flesh being eating, you can hear the squelching. It all adds up to stomach churning experience. This goes down well for me, rarely do I get to see this in anime.

That really is all I can praise about this show, it grossed me out and I have a pretty good tolerance for this type of thing. So, let us move on to what I did not like.

The big issue here is the run time: 3 minutes an episode. Now I have no problem at all with short series, Strange+, Onee-chan ga kita and Teekyuu all use that short time frame to perfection, they were designed for short bursts of fun as their manga (being 4-koma) show. This is where Pupa falters. The manga chapters are not in this style, they were not designed for short burst, this series is in no way suited to this format.

The plot suffers badly because of this, events are cut out of the manga, plot lines seemingly started and forgotten about, likewise  with intriguing characters introduced with motive and secrets you want to know about but they appear so few times and each time in bizarre instances with developments and plot line clearly cut, it's poor on so many levels.

Events happen without reason, lack of development for characters is glaringly obvious and you can never really sink your teeth into what happens, you get no attachment for these characters, you may be shocked at some of the imagery but that is it.

I've mentioned most of the issues above, all tying into to that run time. Another would be the conclusion, it was indecisive, unsatisfying. A season 2 announcement would have made me forgive this but that is not gonna happen.

This series is pure and simply a disaster. It seems as if there was so little budget for this that they just went out of their way to shock and disturb you. That may have worked but the lack of anything else substantial is what causes this series to come crashing down. At around 40 minutes for the full series you could spend your time worst but I would not recommend this at all. A shame as the source material is a joy to read.

Studio: Studio Deen
Aired: Winter 2014
Episodes: 12
Available: Amazon, CD Japan

3/10