One late October Eve, I was making my way across town on foot. I was eager to retreat to the house I call home, armed with grocery bags of sake cans and chocolate-chip cookies to drown my sorrows and smother my worries. But found myself caught in a storm. And it wasn’t the type of storm that crescendos from a drizzle. No, this was the kind that appears in a flash; engulfing the evening light in inky darkness, shoving away the warmth to make way for chill. I felt the tears of frigid rain sink into the fabric of my clothing, weighing me down as I searched desperately for somewhere, anywhere that would shelter me until the tempest subsided. Through the thick rain, I saw a flickering light in the distance. It was the local Blockbuster. I should have turned around right then and there; the rain would have been better than facing what lurked inside. I knew it odd, as the Blockbuster had been shuttered for the better part of ten years, but the allure of comfort won out over common sense.
As I entered and wrung my shirt, I was greeted by the soft synths and bassline of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and I immediately felt at ease. After all, it’s scientifically proven that anyone who plays Tears for Fears is a great person who you should trust implicitly with your life. Though when I looked for the fine person with such good taste, I came up empty-handed. Near the cash register was only a handwritten sign that said “Take One Movie :)”
It didn’t have to tell me twice. Since I’m a ~~weeb~~ ~~otaku~~ person who enjoys anime, I made my way to the anime section. ‘twas the season for some spooks, so I thought it befitting to watch a scary movie. But what I ended up with was much more frightening. What I got was fit to make me shudder at the thought of closing my eyes ever again for fear of even the brief glimpse of the darkness that reminds me of the hellish DVD I so foolishly decided to bring into the sanctity of my home. What I watched put the thing I held dearest in this world in jeopardy: my mind, for in watching that accursed DVD, my sanity is now on the slow track of slippage. I may be fine now, fine enough to warn all who come after not to walk the same road, but I just know that one of these days, I’ll crack.
I watched a mediocre early 2000s OVA.
Like the Blockbuster, this was an anomaly, something that shouldn’t exist in this time period. We had survived the Golden Age of OVA, and managed to withstand the onslaught of both great and terrible Original Video Animations that terrorized the anime-watching population during 80s and 90s. The slaughter would have gone on forever if not for the valiant knight, Unchecked Capitalism, which slew the Japanese economy that so terrified Michael Crichton. Yet here stood Ghost Talker’s Daydream, eager for one last, bloody dance.
Ghost Talker’s Daydream follows Saiki Misaki, a woman with the uncanny ability to see ghosts. While she works as a dominatrix to make ends meet, during the day, she moonlights (er, daylights?) as a paranormal investigator. Working with the Livelihood Preservation agency, Misaki uses her power to send all manner of specters, both benevolent and malevolent, to the afterlife where they belong.
So, how do we begin this eerie tale, knowing that, as a four-episode OVA, time is of the essence and each minute must be perfectly crafted to nail the tone?
Well, while walking behind her trying to talk to her, Misaki’s professional contact, Souichiro, trips and accidentally pulls her clothes down, revealing her lingerie to a crowd of bystanders.
Alrighty then.
See, it’s one thing to use dumb cliches, it’s another thing entirely to be this aggressively stupid.
Earlier in the year, I criticized a show for feeling too “anime-y.” At first, I felt this was an unfair criticism of the medium I claimed to love. I feared it was proof that I “outgrew” anime. Thanks to the perspective that distance brings, I realized that was a BS, knee-jerk reaction that was more unfair to anime than the criticism. Anime is many, many things, but one thing that it isn’t is homogenous. Anime doesn’t have to be filled with tired tropes, but since a lot of the popular ones are, it's vital that you know where to look. Horror and more moody genres, due to their tones and demographics are generally refuges from said tropes. Though I’m being fair, I must admit I buried the lede a bit in implying I expected the show to just be a dour scarefest. Ghost Talker’s Daydream is listed as five genres on its Anilist page — comedy, ecchi, drama, horror, and supernatural. In having such an aggressively stupid intro, the anime firmly establishes that out of all its genres, it's most focused on “comedy” and ecchi. This would be a bit disappointing, but it wouldn’t be the fault of the anime if not for the fact that it genuinely does try to incorporate drama and horror. The ecchi and “comedy” kill the anime’s tone, making for a very contradictory watch wherein Ghost Talker’s Daydream doesn’t know what it wants to be.
When explaining their upcoming job, which should be tense due to the nature of the case, Souichiro makes stupid, flustered faces because Misaki is getting changed in the backseat and he nearly totals the car due to distraction. A neighbor of one of the victims explains that she committed suicide. He explains this by pantomiming hanging himself while making a goofy, exaggerated face. If I had to describe Ghost Talker’s Daydream in one word, it would be “obnoxious.”
The best part of Ghost Talker’s Daydream is when it steps back and tries to foster a more subdued atmosphere. The music is genuinely good and the ghosts we see in the show are some of the highlights. Another highlight is Misaki’s English VA, Megan Hollingshead. She gives a very down-to-Earth, almost tired performance. While some may find it boring, I feel it gives some relatability to Misaki and works in with the tone. A standout example of the strength of her voice acting work here is during the beginning of the second episode wherein we essentially see a day in the life and how weary Misaki is of her routine. This culminates in her missing her train due to her attire making her lose her footing on some stairs. Of course, the subduedness is deflated when we cut to a closeup of her yelling at the bus, feeling more like an anime character than an actual person. It’s one thing to see a character’s bitterness and anger due to missing their bus. It’s another to be told this through them going “BAKA DENSHA >:( >:( >:(“
I’m tempted to say that the show never takes itself seriously. Yet there clearly are moments when it does. It just bombards us with so much inorganic ecchi and “comedy” that we never can really take it seriously.
And I use scare quotes not (just) because it’s seasonal, but because the show isn’t funny. Instead of jokes, it features gags. Tired, ecchi gags that you’ve no doubt seen before. Wardrobe mishaps? Breast size angst? A horny idiot getting distracted and causing himself harm? The gang’s all here! Except it’s not, like, the gang of your pals. It’s more like the group of people you always give the slip by lying about prior engagements.
And I bet you’re salivating as you read, just itching to add this to your next “bad anime marathon.” Don’t. This isn’t an anime that’s so-bad-it’s-good. Trust me when I say that this is just mediocre. Impressively mediocre given how stupid some of its gags are, but mediocre, nonetheless. It’s a generic anime from the 2000s, nothing more, nothing less.
The anime seems to do everything it can to be middling. The main character is given a sexy design to trick thirsty guys into watching, yet it still manages to be just the most middle-of-the-road BDSM latex corset and bottoms you can think of, with the most striking thing about it being the color and the fact she changes outfits so often in a four-episode OVA. For Chrissakes, Lum wears a goddamn bikini and I at least can trick myself into thinking it's an interesting design due to the horns and the leopard print.
And let’s talk about that BDSM element, Misaki’s job as a dominatrix, shall we? Does the show explore why she enjoys what she does, giving us a glimpse of a lifestyle oft-unexplored in pop culture? It doesn’t, in fact, she hates her job. Seems a bit weird to introduce BDSM just to shoo it away, but fine, there’s still merit in showing its problematic elements and how it can be draining for someone who’s not totally on board with the lifestyle. Does the show at least do that? No, of course not, the only reason Misaki does what she does and wears what she wears is so the show can go “haha, booba.” Honestly, the only satisfying thing I could get out of the ecchi elements was the fact that Misaki complains about not being able to grow hair Down There. And no, not because I was drooling as I imagined it, it was because it was an interesting example of the different beauty standards between America and Japan.
While I could prescribe a bunch of fixes like making the not-quite deuteragonist more prominent, adding more mystery elements to the ghosts, and axing Souichiro completely or toning his stupidity way down, it feels a bit pointless because there are just so many issues that the number of fixes I’d have to prescribe to make the OVA halfway decent would make it an entirely different anime.
Beyond that, I wonder if the format’s to blame. As I’ll get into in a future review (that hopefully comes out soon but I’m haunted by the spooky specters of procrastination and burnout), OVAs are the epitome of anime-as-advertisement. While we got a lot of great OVAs, we also got a lot of crap, whether due to laziness or incompetence. To an unscrupulous director or producer, it doesn’t matter if the OVA is rushed, all that matters is that it gets people to read the manga. But what they don’t seem to get is that a shoddy anime kills possible interest in the manga. Is there potential here? Sure, but this is a very mediocre story and in terms of its problems, I don’t know where the core concept of the manga ends and the OVA format begins, so I’d rather just walk away entirely.
But of course, I cannot live with this curse, I must pass it on. Fortunately, I have a captive audience.
But don’t take fright. If there’s one advantage to receiving such a ghoulish DVD, it’s the fact that its horrifying quality can be used as protection. If a ghastly snob materializes through your walls and tries to tell you anime was better back in their day, shove this DVD towards them, forcing them to gaze upon it. They’ll burst into flames and be sent back to their home —the tenth and final pocket of the Malebolge). And that, dear reader, is a Pockey guarantee.
