Undead Girl Murder Farce
Entry updated 11 December 2023. Tagged: TV.
Japanese animated tv series (2023). Lapin Track. Based on the novel by Yugo Aosaki and the Manga by Yugo Aosaki and Haruka Tomoyama. Directed by Mamoru Hatakeyama. Written by Noboru Takagi. Voice cast includes Makoto Koichi, Reina Kondō, Tomoyo Kurosawa, Shin-ichiro Miki, Mamoru Miyano, Soma Saito, Hiro Shimono, Tomokazu Sugita, Itaru Yamamoto, Taku Yashiro and Wataru Yokojima. Thirteen 23-minute episodes. Colour.
Japan, Meiji Year 30 (1897), just after "The Great Purge" (see Alternate History) when, "under the flag of westernization, there was a large scale, organized extermination effort aimed at the supernatural, ayakashi, and trickster yokai" (see Supernatural Creatures). Some survive as part of a circus – one being "Oni Slayer" Tsugaru Shinuchi (Yashiro), half Oni and half human, who kills full-blooded Oni (see Monsters) for the crowd's entertainment. He meets Shizuku Hasei (Koichi), a young woman carrying a hooded bird-cage, and is impressed by how she appears to speak without moving her lips ... until she removes the hood to reveal the disembodied head of Aya Rindo (Kurosawa). Aya is The Immortal (see Immortality), having been fourteen years old for 947 years; six months ago a foreigner, M, decapitated her and left the country with the body. She points out the Tsugaru's use of his Oni powers will eventually drive him berserk, to be inevitably shot by the authorities (a point of which he is well aware): if he agrees to kill her she will cure him of this threat of madness. However, Tsugaru believes the foreigner who took Aya's body is also the one whose experiments turned him half-Oni, so suggests the three of them instead travel to Europe to hunt down M. She agrees, and also cures him.
France, 1898: since the killing of Dracula, many Vampires have sworn not to drink human blood, to become "human allies". The wife of one such noble is seemingly killed by a vampire hunter; considering the police investigation half-hearted at best, he hires the Cage User, a pair of detectives (see Crime and Punishment) from the East who specialize in Monster cases: they are Aya and Tsugaru, along with servant Shizuki, who is a more than capable fighter. We learn they had proven one of Norway's merfolk innocent of murder and solved a case involving a Golem in Belgium. Aya is particularly skilled at the art of deduction and duly explains the murder – by a son wanting to drive his father back to the old ways – was performed with a stake of frozen holy water. During the case the detectives happen to learn that M is a professor: the viewer's suspicions are aroused.
The next adventure features Arsene Lupin (Miyano) (see Maurice LeBlanc), who has persuaded the Phantom of the Opera (Shimono) (see Gaston Leroux) to help him steal a black diamond from Phileas Fogg (see Jules Verne); Lupin notifies Fogg of his intentions, who responds by employing Sherlock Holmes (Miki) and the Cage User. An attempt is also made for the diamond by M, now confirmed to be Moriarty (Yokojima), who is accompanied by his assistants Aleister Crowley (Sugita), Carmilla the vampire (Kondō) from the story of that name by J Sheridan Le Fanu [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], a Frankenstein Monster called Victor (Yamamoto) – and Jack the Ripper (Saito); collectively called the Banquet. Moriarty has transplanted cells into Jack from an Oni (Tsugaru having been a test subject), Aya, and a vampire (arguably a type of Genetic Engineering), to turn him into a Chimera; and now wants to add werewolf into the mix. Thus his interest in the diamond – originally created by German dwarves driven to extinction by Werewolves – which gives the location of a werewolf village in Germany. Both Lupin and Moriarty fail, and Aya, Tsugaru and Shizuki travel to Germany with the diamond – and, as expected, are followed by the Banquet. Werewolves are being blamed for the disappearance of young girls in a mountainous region of western Germany, but the Werewolves' own village is similarly predated. The first season ends with Aya having solved the case, and Victor – who seems less evil than the rest of the Banquet – having told them Moriarty has Aya's body stored in London.
Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2000; graph 2000) is doubtless a significant influence on this work. Though the surface tone is light, there are serious underlying themes such as the westernization of Japan, genocide, vampires trying to assimilate into human society (see Race in SF), ethnic cleansing and werewolves dabbling in Eugenics. The main trio are likeable and their interactions are amusing (see Humour); there is action and gore (see Horror), with an entertaining story and detection: Undead Girl Murder Farce is one of the stronger Anime series of 2023. [SP]
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