Many moons in the past, I discussed in passing that my favourite American TV program was The Twilight Zone. It was a part of a submit the place I used to be recommending issues to be was an anime, however I can’t fairly discover it. It was a blip on my radar that I didn’t put an excessive amount of inventory into and left it at that.
Think about my shock as earlier this 12 months, considered one of my favourite anime pages on Instagram posted the next:
People I used to be virtually frothing on the mouth in shock. The Twilight Zone anime of my desires, though not formally affiliated with trademarked live-action franchise, truly existed. It continues to exist even now, simply not by way of official means. Fortunately, we don’t should enter the precise twilight zone to discover a copy, simply sail the digital seven seas so to talk.
I completely needed to watch this for this 12 months’s OVA October. I simply didn’t notice how a lot of a… distinctive expertise. It will change into. The primary half, was I couldn’t discover a lick of data truly confirming that Twilight Q was suppose to be a pastiche of The Twilight Zone. It appears to have garnered that response primarily based on the identify, the viewers experiences, and having been copied and pasted so many instances that it’s thought of reality. I don’t contemplate it important to the present’s construction that it was formally stated it was impressed by, the precise content material exhibits as a lot. It’s a little bit of a curious how in all of the hyperlinks I may discover there was no point out or comparability.
Secondly, I used to be bombarded by quite a lot of background data that not quite a lot of different OVA’s get. The primary being that Twilight Q was supposed to be a program that showcased younger administrators in anime on the time. Nevertheless the sequence was cancelled after two episodes had been produced and launched. Each episodes had been produced individually from each other, due to this fact there isn’t any contingency. Lastly is that quite a lot of actually influential figures within the present anime scene like Kazunori Ito, Takada Akemi, and Oshii Mamoru had been concerned with it. So on a private be aware, this sequence was already trying up from the place it was earlier than.
And sure, I knew all of this earlier than even watching the 2 episode OVA. I figured replicating my expertise would possibly give different viewers a greater expertise with Twilight Q going ahead. So now I’m going to present a The Twilight Zone impressed synopsis of every episode:
“Episode One: “A Knot in Time” – Mayumi discovers a misplaced digital camera whereas diving, broken however containing a roll of movie in-tact sufficient to be developed. Upon additional analysis not solely does the digital camera mannequin not exist, however the single photograph taken is of Mayumi and an unknown man.
Episode Two: “File 538” – Airplanes are disappearing from the sky recurrently. A non-public detective investigates a run-down condominium the place solely a center aged man and a younger lady who adores fish stay. “
I believe that higher captures the spirit of The Twilight Zone in Twilight Q then every other synopsis your certain to learn is. That being stated nevertheless –
For every other The Twilight Zone fantatics like me, who’re hoping for the largest tragedy of unrealized potential by way of a present cancelled too early – put together to be upset. Twilight Q is a really earnest try at taking what made The Twilight Zone each eerie and alluring and placing it to anime, but it surely’s missing important parts in every episode. “A Knot in Time” understands establishing a very good premise, however fails to to ship a deeper message. “File 538” has the deeper message and twist, had a stable arrange, however did extra telling then displaying which actually bogged it down.
Which is why this kills me to say, but it surely’s a swing and a miss for me right here. I completely get what each episodes had been enjoying at. I’ll even give them credit score that each concepts are authentic to their artistic groups, and swimsuit of idea of The Twilight Zone effectively. It’s simply that in execution for a wide range of causes, it didn’t work out. Each tales didn’t have a much bigger message to say about individuals, or society as an entire, which in flip normally has the viewers self-reflect or talk about that message post-watch. For me that’s normally in self-reflection, however right here Twilight Q didn’t actually give me a lot to work with, due to this fact I can’t actually contemplate it satisfactory as a pastiche.
That doesn’t imply that Twilight Q is all doom and gloom although. “A Knot in Time” is a superb instance of some gorgeous late 80’s OVA goodness. I imagine I watched from a DVD rip, but it surely nonetheless appeared nice and held up extremely effectively in lots of regards. The character designs had been charming, the animation easy and integrated varied methods effectively.
“File 538” utilized much less animation methods, as a substitute opting to integrated actual world imagery into an animated setting. The shot composition lead for a really unsettling, however not outright disturbing expertise. A wonderful line between the true and the uncanny, and I completely dug it as an idea. Extra horror anime particularly the fashionable ones, ought to take a be aware or two from this specific method. Particularly since there was such care into what and the way from the true world bleed into this animated one, that it actually highlighted how fluid and easy the animation that adopted it was.
However that’s about all I may give Twilight Q. It falls very firmly right into a middling anime, regardless of the implied connections. I believe this one actually falls into the class of for the followers, however simply skippable. Would love to listen to from different The Twilight Zone + anime followers your ideas. Or simply the ideas from anybody whose ever made the selection to present this a watch. Let me know down under!
