English Dub Review: Junji Ito Collection “Honored Ancestors / The Circus Comes To Town”

Remember everything, forever.

Overview:

A young woman with amnesia gets anxiety upon visiting her fiancee’s house. Later, the circus comes to town.

Our Take:

Risa has lost her memories of a traumatic event and is completely filled with anxiety. It turns out that the source of this is what she saw in her fiancee’s house: his family. Shuuichi’s family wants to preserve their memories so they have formed a chain of the family’s scalps to keep their memories forever intact. This chain is so long that it resembles a centipede, and makes it impossible for the head of the household to leave. Such a sight caused Risa such fear that she lost her memory, and upon the second reveal, she slips into catatonia. The implications at the end, that Shuuichi’s family is going to urge him to force himself on Risa so that the family bloodline can continue… yikes.

The Circus episode has a potentially interesting premise but falls flat. It delves into an interesting area, where an inciting attraction brings people in, and then offers a beautiful woman as a prize. The performers are all amateurs, and their failure to deliver performance results in their death. Still knowing this, they keep trying, eager to win the beautiful girl. In the end, the ringmaster incites the entirely-male audience to come join the circus and be performers as well, for they too can have a shot at winning the woman’s hand. Not once is the girl’s backstory revealed? She is there to be a prize, and the thing is, it works. Men are willing to die for a chance to be her husband, and it’s implied that this cycle will continue forever.

Studio DEEN’s animation quality is generally not that great, but this time it’s particularly awful. Visibly awful, consistently, all the way through. The circus episode is particularly rife with still, shoddy animation, and it’s extremely off-putting. Very hard to be scared when all you can do is focus on how stiff and unnatural everyone is moving. Here’s hoping that they’re saving their budget for when Tomie appears because this quality is truly awful.