World's Most Disturbing Anime: Shoujo Tsubaki

(WARNING: This post contains disturbing imagery)

Like most people of my generation, I've always been into things like anime and manga. Certainly not to a large degree but I've always enjoyed it. I also enjoy gruesome, cruel and gory side of fiction and Japanese media might as well be the best place to get it. Afterall, they had an entire art movement called EroGuro (Erotic Gore)

So of course. Last week I took it upon myself to watch what has been dubbed as the "most disturbing anime of all time". Shoujo Tsubaki by Hiroshi Harada, based on the visual novel of same name by Suehiro Maruo. 

The film contains a classic 90s artstyle, warm toned colour scheme and a visible lack of budget. The whole thing has been handrawn with over 5000 pages completely by Harada alone.

One thing I absolutely loved is the silent film styled cards that showed up on the screen to indicate chapters on the screen.

The film tells the story of a young, orphan girl, Midori joining a fairground circus and the horrific abuse, torture and humiliation that she suffers.

I will not be writing in detail about the full plot for it kills the fun for anyone who wishes to go and watch it themselves. So instead, have a brief summary of my favourite (and most disturbing!) Scenes 

A few days after joining the circus, we see Midori befriend a litter of small puppies and feeding them wherever left over she can gather. Only for it to be found out by another circus member, who kills the small animals by smashing them to their death and stepping on them. The Shock Value gets played from 100 to 1000 very quick with this. 

A new member of the troupe, who claims to know real forbidden magic gets upset at the circus audience and begins to turn them into grotesque abominations in ways that I cannot explain so here's images instead. The animation is immaculate on this scene, well done Harada. 

The story is almost symbolic of how reality crushes innocence and how the cruel hands of fate renders you completely helpless and you cannot do anything about it. It is made very clear when a character tells Midori “You’ll never know happiness as a human being" after raping her. It almost felt like a very twisted take on the tale of Cinderella. But overall, I can assure that I have seen more disturbing things before and this film is quite overhyped on the disturbing aspect.