Woe be unto thee who passes further, for today we are talking about Episode 2 of Inuyashiki! A lot happened this week. New characters, dark twists and the start of what I can only imagine is the central conflict of the season. Lets jump in!
First and foremost, we need to talk about Hiro Shishigami. This was his episode, focusing almost entirely on him. Setting him up as the main antagonist for the rest of the season and quickly defining who he is. I have to say I was not prepared for him. It has been a long time since an anime has legitimately unsettled me, and Shishigami did just that. Initially, he put me off though. His tone and general voice felt fake, forced. All of his emotions felt like a front. As the episode went on however, it became clear that this was a deliberate choice. It outlined his lack of emotion with both words and actions.
We see throughout the episode a slow build up of his character. He starts a normal, if demure, high school kid. Visiting his friends and trying to get them back to school. Over the course of the day however, as the sun goes from high in the sky in settling into night, he gets more and more extreme. He starts with scaring birds, then killing them. Talking about suicide casually, jumping in front of trains. He moves to hacking TVs at the store and causing a small panic by the owners. Then he leaps into conducting a massive car wreck, injuring or killing dozens of people. All the while theres not even a smile on his face. He doesn’t care, this means nothing to him. He is a sociopath and his actions speak for themselves, getting more and more extreme as the day goes on.
Speaking of those extreme actions, we cant not talk about the family. After spending a day with his friend, showing off his powers and causing massive car wrecks, Shishigami heads home. However he makes a pit stop at a random house, chosen by spinning in a circle and pointing. Its playful, as if this is all a game to him. Yet what follows is one of the most brutal sequences I have seen in quite a while. He butchers the mother, tortures the father and eventually leaves the son to drown in a pool of blood. He interrogates their young daughter, talking like he would at school, asking about her favorite One Piece character. Only to off her like the rest. Why? My guess would be to feel human again.
You see, there is this interesting dichotomy between Inuyashiki and Shishigami you see. Both have had the same thing happen, both have lost their human bodies and seemingly their humanity. But they deal with it in very different ways. Inuyashiki, as we saw in episode 1, feels alive and emboldened by saving people. By using his powers and doing something more with his life. By contrast, Shishigami looks to be trying to stimulate his emotions with increasingly brutal acts. Things that horrify others, just for the smallest bit of emotion. Almost like experiencing them through other people. Shishigami seems to have become less human in this transformation while Inuyashiki more human.
Naturally this sets them on a collision course. With his new body and predilection for saving people, Inuyashiki has apparently made it a habit of listening for things to do upon getting home. Tonight, he hears the daughter from before begging for her life. He runs out the door and drives to her, hes going to save her! But he comes up short. The superhero trope of saving everyone is shut down, as Inuyashiki fails to get to her in time. His reaction inside the car, almost crying at his failure, head bowed into the steering wheel was touching. Perhaps I was still emotionally sensitive after the family scenes, but I felt Inuyashiki’s grief. Forging on, he finally arrives at the house, one so similar to his own.
Normally, this is where I would expect it to end. Our hero sees the carnage and vows to find the one responsible, creating a season long chase. However instead, he finds that Shishigami has yet to leave. In his post murder-high state, Shishigami has no time for games and pop, down goes our hero. He wanders out into the night, done for the day. But what do we see? Inuyashiki striding out of the house like the Terminator, music swelling. I loved this entire sequence, as it really sold that transformation of our hero to me. I thought he would have trouble fighting, with his meek personality. Yet now he looks like a father prepared to disciple an unruly child.
For me, this episode was a fantastic follow up to the first episode. It introduced the central conflict, clearly defined our villain and made him interesting, to me at least. It leaped headfirst into the Psychological Thriller tags it has and cemented the tone for the rest of the season. The CGI, outside of the mechanical parts, still has some issues however. The cars and certain shots with a 3D human for Shishigami looked out of place. Anytime the mechanical parts were on show though really stood out. As for music and sound, it worked. Our main characters voices are still off compared to everyone elses, but it makes them stand out. Makes them different from the rest and helps sell me on their lack of passion.
All in all, I cannot wait for next episode and inevitable battle between our two leads. See you next week for another episode of Inuyashiki!
I have a fairly high threshold for gore and such, but this episode made me deeply uncomfortable. Hiro saying, “I’m feeling it a little bit now,” in response to the father’s agony when he finds out his wife is dead actually gave me chills. During the sequence where Ojiisan is driving to the victims’ house I mirrored his frustration and anxiety. At times the CG is jarring, and the realistic faces coupled with the unusual voice acting produces some awkward reaction shots and dialogue, but my opinion of this show improved with this episode. In this case the show is conveying its tone so well that I actually feel ambivalent about watching next week.
OH agreed. What freaked me out was the child. I was shocked that not only did they kill the child, but we saw him die scratching at his fathers back, who fell on him. I honestly cannot remember another scene that bothered me as much as that, in any anime. They lingered on it.
I really felt like I was watching a sociopath, not just an anime.
Absolutely. Making that scene long was definitely the right call. Literally watching a child die. Plus I’ve been stuck under somebody while underwater before and it’s terrifying, so the frantic scratching and inability to react rationally (maneuver sideways) is pretty much how it went. I feel the behavior of all of the victims was pretty realistic. For that matter, the portrayal of the antagonist was quite good. Generally sociopaths are shown in media as loony, straitjacket-wearing fools when they actually tend to be very well-rounded, even excellent, socially. Ted Bundy was the scariest kind of crazy.
Agree about the victim’s reactions. And psychopaths are not necessarily asocial, so yeah. Fortunately, most of them are not walking android weapons conceived with alien technology either.
Its interesting because Shishigami doesnt seem to be asocial. He has friends, he visited one and tried to help him in his own messed up way. He wants to go fishing with his dad.
He just doesnt care about people who he doesnt know, and so uses them for gratification.
We can only speculate what he cares about, but if his behavior is of any indication, we should not make any assumptions about him caring about anything other than himself.
He probably wants to go fishing with dad only because he wants to experience things for thrill. He also probably does not care about people close to him, he is only afraid to lose the comfort they provide for free
My take on it anyway.
What interests me more (that pure speculation) is his comment about personalities. He found physical beauty less interesting. But I have a feeling he does not care either way. He was merely hinting that he sees through the pretty girl’s mask for what she is: shallow faker, just like him. Which may be him projecting his self-loathing onto her. It is a self-defense mechanism.
Incredibly brutal episode that gave me a mental whiplash. The talk about ‘internet being all that matters’ was interesting. The inhuman nature of the antagonist are done really well. And the ending truly made me feel uncomfortable. What is this, sheer terror? Something else?
The bath scene just happens in 3 minutes, huh? Felt like hours to me. Pretty good call to make it feel like forever.
And the only time Shishigami cries in this episode is when he was reading a chapter of Once Piece. Enough said.
The dudes obsession with One Piece and the jabs at Gantz, since this has the same author, were pretty funny to me really.
I do not know the author nor am I familiar with his works much, but wasn’t the ultimate point the author’s lament over how immature works manage to move people, who should try to see outside of their shell a bit more, rather than indulge in the shallowness the society provides them? The other guy called him empty (definitely hint at his lack of empathy) and he was crying over OP.
I never read OP, so I wouldn’t know, but I could easily imagine the author of Gantz to feel a little underappreciated.
I actually like One Piece as a whole, at least compared to most long-running shounens. It’s not groundbreaking in any way, but it does most things mostly right, so its popularity isn’t unjustified. That said, I can imagine the frustration of Oda being able to slide along for nearly two decades in such a cutthroat industry with a single franchise. I’ve neither seen nor read Gantz, but it’s sold as a particularly brutal/violent series, so it’s poignant that Hiro doesn’t like it while his more empathetic friend does. OP has virtually no death. Maybe commentary on the argument that violent media is appealing to violent people.
That said, it’s interesting that they refer to One Piece by its actual name. Seems like anime and manga are usually careful to avoid using brand names in parody for legal reason, the exception being cases like Gantz in this anime where the referenced work is IP of the author/studio/etc parodying it. Gintama even shied away from using “Gundam” even though it was produced by the same studio. I guess Japan inherited some of the west’s affinity for lawsuits.
My sentiments exactly.