Watching Dead Leaves was an experience of incredulity, to say the least. I simply couldn't believe how much fun I was having. How can something be so thoroughly entertaining? Don't get me wrong, I had fun with tons of Imaishi things before, but this is so dense. It's fifty minutes of sheer creativity, carelessness, and self-indulgence of the best type. It literally gives no fuck about anything whatsoever, from minute one to the very end, and well, I FUCKING LOVE IT!Beautiful hand drawn animation, with lots of explosions, firing, bullets, bones crushing, flesh ripped, organs exposed, semen LOL, you got my point! All that surrounded by creative designs for locations, monsters, machines, people of all sort, in a setting brimming with variety. The design for the main female is my favorite ever, so simple yet effective, typical from Imaishi. He knows how to draw simple contrasting colors and forms while maintaining a whole idea of style that makes use of every single element. If you take away her red eye, blue eye, grey hair color, non separated lips in thick bright red, it's not Pandy anymore. And that is a single character. If you turn off the subtitles and just watch it for the visuals like I did once, boy, you'll find some creepy/hilarious shit lying somewhere in the background or in some lost frame. Remember that scene in episode 4 of FLCL where Naota grabs Mamimi's panties in three frames and no one noticed? Good luck with that.Essentially, this is what animation is all about. Giving form to things that only exist inside the animator's head. Fruits of imagination, a reality subservient to our desire to see it flourish through art in as many ways as there are stars in the sky. Bound to no morality, abiding by no law, Dead Leaves is freedom at its finest, pure expression of Imaishi's perverted and wacky mind aiming towards maximum joy. And boy, did I enjoy this! This is just a love letter to myself and all of you who happen to be reading it, either to check out what someone has to say on the film or to decide whether or not to watch it. It intends to reveal how pleasant it is to find something so uniquely based on style, so carefree, so expressive, and ultimately beautiful, with cool ass imagery to no observable end.Yuasa and Imaishi are the two most carefree and expressive directors I've found yet in anime and both have made their names out of doing things in their way. That is, pouring every ounce of personality and desire into their works. Imaishi is particularly perverted, always adding in some sexual irreverence, often transcending the normal and going batshit insane, causing discomfort that might lead people to despise his style or love it even more. I'm obviously the latter, fascinated by how naturally he finds ways of implementing all sorts of socially undesirable subjects in his works. And in Dead Leaves, you can expect everything. Exaggerated violence, exaggerated sex, exaggerated causes, effects, and outcomes. A storyline that equals to having no idea where to go but being so excited with the idea of going somewhere that you just skyrocket to any possible direction, exploring any possible alley of imagination.
I'm getting too poetic for my own good. What can I say? It's super duper fun, I rewatched it right after finishing it cause why the hell not? It's common to find people complaining about Imaishi's lack of purpose in lots of his works and how he doesn't give a flying fuck about anything whatsoever while animating, and that particularly surprises me. It surprises me that some people wish to limit art, pigeonholing it to degrees where something as genuine and imaginative as a fifty minutes film about going nuts raised to the tenth power isn't rewarded with a warm welcoming hug, but rather, a cold dismissive shrug that negates creativity. I hope you approach this work optimistically and leave with a smile on your face, go watch it son! 
