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I'm not entirely sure why I've never seen Pet Shop of Horrors before. Just about everyone else I know seems to have. So let's get ready for a 4 episode OAV of 90's horror anime! I think!
Well that's a fancy phone. Oh and wow that's an impressive dub. Guess I'll be having to stick with it. Anyway, dude buys tiger from pet shop. Gets wall scroll. Says WTF over fancy phone. Hears "Hey, you tried to show it to other people? We're totally not liable for when it jumps off the scroll and mauls you to death then." And then he's mauled to death. So... I guess if he hadn't breached his contract, they'd give a full refund to his next of kin? I mean, if there was a disclaimer that the wall scroll tiger will kill its owner if showed to other people, OK, but if it just kills you regardless, that's no good. I also have to wonder how that purchase went down.
Anyway, here's some blond angry cop coming to arrest the manager of the shop. This cross-dressing weirdo... who is ENTIRELY too quiet. I have my volume cranked up to 80. Anyway that doesn't really go anywhere, and now here's some couple buying a replacement for their dead daughter, which is apparently actually a rabbit that just happens to look exactly like their dead daughter. So OK. This is a weird show. Anyway, rabbit daughter comes with a list of Gremlins style restrictions. Oh yeah, and cop is staking out the joint in his groovy car, assuming there's drug dealing going on inside. Oh and I have two things I really need to point out about the art here. First off, we've got this bad Horror Character Design thing going on where everyone has these bulgy terrified eyes at all times, even during really relaxed happy scenes. At least Rabbit Girl and Mom do. It's annoying. Anyway, yeah, Rabbit Girl isn't allowed to eat anything but veggies and water. So... basically immediately Mom is all "Here have cookies!"
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The other thing I wanted to say about the art here though is, the proprietor of the pet shop here, who we're apparently just calling The Count, has the absolute worst case of hair eyes ever. His hair is completely covering both eyes at all times, but we're drawing the eyes completely over the top of the hair. Fairly standard problem. The thing is though, it's literally all the time. His face is never really animated at all, and... yeah. They clearly extent past the bounds of where his face should end. It's not even a case of being sloppy at that point, they had to go out of the way to draw this so poorly. But anyway yeah, feeding Rabbit Girl cookies causes her to become a cookie craving fiend, then her stomach explodes, and a bunch of Rabbit babies come crawling out... and then their stomaches also explode and so on. Also they apparently are just regular rabbits and only look human when you're breathing in special incense. Also cookies are a metaphor for drugs. And... poisonous to rabbits. OK, this show is a complete mess. We're clearly going for this whole Twilight Zone approach, where you get some kind of karmically appropriate pet, and you're undone by your own weak will, but... OK, apparently the tiger poster just kills you regardless, the rabbit girl was shipped pregnant and is supposed to die giving birth, and the whole population eventually dying from cookie poisoning is the only thing that kept them from flooding the city in creepy rabbits, and so far I've yet to see anything I'd really call a pet.
OK, here's some guy with a dead wife, so here, have a mermaid that looks exactly like her, except for the tail and various other fishy features. Count suggests that it might actually be his wife, which would explain the wedding ring, but she has amnesia. Today's wacky contract conditions are, don't show anyone else (that one seems to be a standard issue), salt water tank, keep it fresh, feed her regularly (whole mackerel apparently). That one seems like a no brainer really. Oh and cop is named Leon. The traditional name for anime cops. Also, have I mentioned Count's pet? It's like a super cartoony mouse, think Voltron, or heck, Pikachu, with bat wings and little horns. Oh and a devil tail and flipper feet. Also, we're apparently going for some kind of straight-up murder investigation this episode? Huh.
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Oh hey fish nipples. Didn't expect to see those, since so far she's had super convenient Godiva hair going on. And... yeah he probably tried to kill his wife it seems. Also- Here's something I really dig. Cop's reactions to Count. He's always all GAH YOU ARE A CREEPY CROSSDRESSING WEIRDO WHO SELLS PEOPLE MONSTERS DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME! Count also says that fresh mermaid entrails make you immortal and are so delicious as to be addictive. Just about as addictive as human flesh. Cop is not amused. So now we're flashing back. I'm marrying Wife, but I really love you Other Girl! Wife: How dare you! I'ma jump off this boat! At least that's Other Girl's version. Then apparently her human legs detached, washed up on shore, assumed dead. Anyway though, Guy is currently just hanging out in his pool, banging his fishwife, and all his friends are really concerned about him. Oh and eventually he forgets to feed her and she eats him. Because bad horror manga has to go that way. Incidentally, this is why Franken Fran is so great. A lot of the time, a chapter ends with the character of the week being horribly killed or going insane or whatever, but a lot of the time it DOESN'T. There are seriously plenty of happy lighthearted endings in that series, and I can only think of one unfair death too. Also FOOD=LOVE. They like blatantly stating their metaphors at the end of these episodes.
Here's some dude with a snake who apparently was the lead actor in Space Wars. Which totally has a TIE fighter in the background, just to really nail the point home. Also wow, that was an amazingly hand-lettered Mac menu bar. I wonder if that's the localizers' sloppy handiwork. Oh and have I mentioned how not at all like a pet shop the pet shop looks? There's a bunch of curtains scattered around, and a distinct lack of, you know, animals, or a cash register... really it's more like a bordello or something. Also, wow! They didn't draw his eye over his hair for a sec there. So anyway, yeah, dead actor was typecast as Prince of Space. Also, dude loves reptiles... POSSIBLY in the sense that Troy MacClure loves fish. And of course, he's selling him a rare albino gorgon. Which may be just a regular ol' lizard that looks like a gorgon when viewed under special make things look human incense. And now we're recounting the story of Medusa TOTALLY WRONG. Japan! You cannot do Sexy Medusa! Medusa's whole deal was that she was a hot girl, and a goddess got ticked off, and made her so ugly that it petrified anyone who looked at her. Seriously, it ticks me off when people get that wrong.
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Dude, did they actually put Paramount Pictures on that slate? Not like, Baranount? Anyway yeah, having a pet gorgon to take care of makes him all confident and energized, so he goes out for an audition, but loses out because of nepotism, and then comes home and commits suicide by gaze attack. Then the gorgon gets all grief stricken and commits suicide by mirror. So... yeah. This show is pretty freaking formulaic. I'm sad because I no longer have my wife/daughter! I will sell you this thing that looks just like her! Don't do X thought! I'll do X. Oh no now I'm dead and so is my pet which doesn't look human to the cops! Gets old fast, really.
Here's some dude buying a kirin. Oh hey! Not something that looks like someone's wife! And... he becomes president of the U.S. Um. OK? Someone later finds his diary, and goes to the shop because hey I wanna be president too! Count's all Yeah I don't actually have a kirin in stock right now. Sorry. Cop says Wot's All This Then? Also it JUST sunk in that this show is apparently set in like, New York. Hard picking up on that when it's all set in rich weirdos' houses and a shop in China town.
Anyway though, bla bla bla. Here's this polititian's wife. She has some weird quality that freaks out Count and he decides she must be the new destined leader of the free world or something. Anyway here's some characters I can't be brought to care about at all recounting their life stories. OK, that's actually kinda weird. My dad's dead and my wife's a drunk and I'm like 8, and who's that at the door? It's 8 year old super congress guy, and he's here to present me with the medal of scholarship to Stanford. Uh... what? So yeah, Congressman's Aide here is some crazy driven weirdo trying to get his hero the presidency, and... here's his kirin. Oh, gee, it looks like a girl. I AM SO SURPRISED. Presidential candidate is all "Dude what the hell! I wanted a magic pet, not some child slave! I knew this place didn't look like a legitimate pet shop! And apparently, people he's formerly sold this kirin to include Stalin, Hitler, and... hey wait, how did you sell this to three people who were all in office at the same time?
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So anyway, Kirin Magic causes a schoolbus to go out of control, so Congressman and Aide have to uh... ram it off the road to safety. Well, into a cliff face, it's one of those curving cliff road deals They end up flying off the cliff though and Congressman so totally dies. Now here's actually kirin looking kirin. I have to say, kirins are kind of dull on the mythological creature scale for me since they're pretty well documented to have come out of some weird misinterpretation of what a giraffe looks like. Anyway though, Aide gets a wish, and at first is going all my friend should be president! Then he's all oh right he's dead isn't he. Uh... make his wife happy I guess.
Cop is all oh come on! This is another evil pet story! I'm going over your head to the mayor to get a warrant to take this creepy weirdo down once and for all! Then here's Count in the mayor's office seeing if his cute pet penguin is working out. Which it is apparently. Presumably the mayor thinks it looks like his dead wife, but we aren't going down that side track. Also, the way magic kirin wish granting goes, Aide somehow body swaps with Congressman so he can go be president and make his wife happy. Because he's all selfless I guess. Um. I'm confused. Wasn't Congressman actually a stand-up guy, and Aide was a creepy little power hungry jerk? Karma seems to be on the fritz with that one. But anyway, yeah. That's Pet Shop of Horrors. Meh.
