Kuuchuu
Buranko
(Trapeze)
Number of episodes: 11
Production Studio: Toei Animation
Fansub Release Viewed: gg
Likelihood of US Release: Low
Irabu Ichiro is an eccentric psychologist who startles his patients with his weird behavior while getting to the bottom of their psychological issues.
Episode Summary
Yamashita is a performer in a local circus who literally can’t seem to connect with the other performers; the one who is supposed to catch him after his jump from the trapeze misses, and the man’s lack of Japanese skills put Yamashita over the edge. His manager notes that he hasn’t been sleeping well lately, and sends him to the hospital to speak with a psychiatrist. However, Yamashita has never encountered a doctor quite like Irabu Ichiro before, an eccentric man with a fetish for injections (he watches in ecstasy as Mayumi, his nurse, uses her physical charms to help pump Yamashita full of a vitamin shot from a comically-large syringe). The following days, Yamashita sleeps better and he and his manager go about the business of getting the show set up.
Continuing to fall, Yamashita is shown himself on video, and realizes that, rather than being purposely missed by the other performer, he himself has been backing away. He has a fear of strangers that stems from being a circus kid, traveling around and never being able to keep friends. He’s nervous around the other performer and has been subconsciously backing away. With a resolution to his situation, Yamashita still doesn’t know why a vitamin shot helped him to sleep.
Thoughts
I’m not going to lie, I’m a complete sucker for series that go out of their way to do something a little bit different. While I realize that not every series can try something completely original due to budgetary constraints and weaknesses of the source material, I definitely appreciate it when there’s a show that can tell a story in a different way, whether that be through presentation of the plot, interesting sound design, or inspired visual direction. Of course, pretty art or unique storytelling styles are nothing without some solid writing behind them, but I’m definitely more likely to stand up and take notice if there’s something unusual or different about a series.
Trapeze’s most obvious feature is its visual direction, which strikes a very odd and precarious balance between photographic realism and whimsical, colorful fancy. The main characters, by which I mean the patients both present and future, are designed after the look of the voice actors portraying them. In close-up shots, actual photographs of their faces appear to have been used. Doctor Irabu’s nurse, Mayumi, is portrayed by an actual visual idol, who uses her sexiness to distract the patients from the fact that they’e being injected with a needle that looks like it should be used on a horse. Many of the outdoor environments are given impossibly-colored facades, and the people on the street appear to be moving cardboard cut-outs. Whatever one’s feeling about the content, one can hardly argue against the fact that this series has a look all its own.
But what of the content? One complaint I hear pretty often in regards to series of this nature (and what I mean by that are series that one might accuse of being more artistic in intent and might not have an easily-identifiable or average narrative structure) is that they spend too much time on looking bizarre but that there’s not enough attention given to the story. I actually had a group of friends, and these were all pretty smart people so I’m not accusing any of them of ignorance in the least, give up watching the series Mononoke (a series which I consider one of the very best of the last ten years) less than halfway through because they “didn’t get it” (and those are their words, not mine), something which I’ve since interpreted as meaning that the characters and story were not easy to identify with, that the story structure, while taking place over small bite-sized arcs, was too far from the norm and that the specifics of the story were too rooted in Japanese folktale and traditional theater for many of them to connect with it. Appreciation of a show such as Mononoke relies a lot on identifying its themes and analyzing its content in various contexts, and therefore needs to be approached differently than when one views something like Toradora or Gurren Lagann.
But why bring up Mononoke? First I think that it serves as a good example of a series that is both artful and meaty; it isn’t simply a shallow, pretentious exercise in weirding-out its viewership since there’s really a lot there to think about if one is willing to take the time and look. Secondly, Trapeze shares a lot of its staff with Mononoke, and therefore in spite of how fair it may be, many people who loved Mononoke are bound to compare the two. I’m finding this approach to be variable in its success, because the tones of the two series are fundamentally different. While Mononoke has moments of humor, it is at its core more of a drama, and a very Japanese drama at that; much like Noh theater, the stories aren’t so much about themes of redemption, romance or “doing one’s best” as they are some sort of morality play. The characters have allowed things like destructive emotions, sins of the flesh and deceitful actions to overcome them, opening themselves up to demonic influences. Trapeze, though it is essentially about people with various mental disease and the effects these diseases have in their lives, is much more light-hearted and comedic in its approach to storytelling.
I think an easy mistake to make, and one that I nearly made myself, is to say that the tone indicates a lack of depth. The humorous aspects of the show run the gamut from visual gags, to the Doctor’s eccentricities, to offbeat character behavior, without straying too far into low-brow slapstick territory (something which is funny in its own right but which might not fit the mood here very well). Hidden within all the jokes are some interesting symbols that I actually only became more acutely aware of after re-watching the first episode and participating in some discussions online. One idea which I had about half-formed but that a forum poster online put into more concrete terms was the interpretation of Irabu Ichiro’s three forms, the Bear-faced creature (Id — focused on base desires and pleasure), the Child (Superego — Critical of the desires of the Id, organized) and the Young Man (Ego — balance between the two; reason and common-sense). Whether this is important, intentional or just window-dressing remains to be seen. Some of the symbolism is overtly sexual, most obviously the injection scene; the Doctor seems extremely aroused by the act, and Mayumi’s feigned sexual interest toward the patient (a tool of distraction, it turns out), comes across as a “deflowering” of sorts, highlighted by the dropping of the carnation blossom from it stem afterwards. The act is both shocking and, in its aftermath, pretty funny. When Yamashita acquires an animal head (that of a bird, though I can’t quite be sure what type of bird it is) it makes one wonder what meaning it could carry, if any, since animal symbolism is very common.
Aside from the rampant and sometimes bizarre symbolism and the humor, I feel like someone’s chance of being genuinely entertained by the show to the point of wanting to watch more is kind of a toss-up. I think that many people will not care to look too far beneath the surface, therefore much of their entertainment value will rely on how well they buy into the “weird” art style and presentation. So far I’ve seen reactions that range from people saying that they dig the wacky artwork, to criticisms that it’s nothing but pretty pictures that make no sense, to hopes that the show will have some over-arching storyline (my prediction: it won’t, and I find the common aversion to episodic or character-based entertainment irritating). I’ve even encountered the obnoxious complaint that shows like this don’t fall under the umbrella of “anime,” which I assume stems from the fact that they don’t contain character designs that could be considered moe, nor any of the common anime tropes and aspects such as a high school setting, giant robots, tsunderekko, over-the-top action, or nekomimi. I understand where many of these people are coming from, since I went through a period of assuming that anything I couldn’t instantly grasp was somehow pretentious with no value other than to stuck-up film nerds with no grasp of real entertainment. There’s no forcing these types of fans into understanding what’s going on in a show like this that’s so offbeat; their opinions will either evolve from viewing a wider-variety of material, or they’ll perpetually be stuck with a very narrow view on what can be entertaining to them.
As for me, the bottom line is that I enjoyed the first episode in spite of being distracted by the visuals. However, I’ve since seen the episode a couple more times, and one striking thing is that this show seems to hold up well to multiple viewings. Perhaps the only thing that really irritates me thus far are the frequent interjections by Fukuicchi, who pops in to provide disclaimers regarding the psychology and the diagnoses in the series. They tend to ruin the mood and I don’t think that they’re really necessary. One other thing of note is that, other than the obviously-rotoscoped scenes, the animation is sort of stilted. This is clearly not an action series, but a little bit more fluidity would have been nice to see.
This show is clearly a keeper as far as I’m concerned. While there are going to be many people who are put off by the non-traditional nature of the show, something for which they can hardly be blamed since these types of series are definitely an acquired taste, shows like this are what I find enthralling about the anime medium. They may only appear once or twice a year, but seeing the bursts of creativity these artistic creations bring to the table gives me faith that, in spite of financial troubles plaguing the industry, there are times when creativity will win out.
Pros
- Definitely the most visually creative show of the year
- Contains more depth than might initially be apparent
- Contains some genuine and unexpected moments of humor
Cons
- The audience for this is very limited, and many will mistake it as being pretentious
- Fukuicchi’s interjections become old very quickly
