GYO: TOKYO FISH ATTACK

(A.k.a. GYO)

Two fishermen working off the shore of Okinawa make a terrifying discovery one sunny afternoon.

Meanwhile, not so far away in a hired beach house, demure young Kaori obliviously enjoys a weekend break with friends Aki and Erika. It’s not long though before their partying is curbed by a foul odour leaking through the air.

Likening it to the stench of decaying human flesh, Kaori investigates further and realises the smell is emanating from a nearby sewage pipe. Attempting to ignore it, the girls continue with their fun – some candid girl-talk, the inevitable action with a visiting boy, etc.

But, what do you know, the whole holiday goes pear-shaped when a huge shark walking on mechanical crab-like legs leaps out of the sewers and attacks the house. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Watching your friend getting pinned to the ground and then effectively stripped of her nightie by said amphibious man-eater must be harrowing enough. But Kaori has another worry on her mind: her boyfriend Tadashi. He’s back in Tokyo, and up until this point in the film they’ve managed to keep in touch with one other via their mobile ‘phones.

But, as chaos reigns and Kaori flees the trashed beach house, she frets all the more when she loses contact with Tadashi. She must reach him!

Via unhelpful airport terminals and road trips unlike any that have passed before them, Kaori finally finds her way to Tokyo … only to discover it positively teeming with scores of the mutant sharks and their unmistakable "death stench".

Will Kaori be reunited with Tadashi? Together, will they be able to escape the deadly robo-shark attacks and find eternal happiness?

Based on Junji Ito’s popular manga book, GYO is an outlandish 70-minute slice of animation which looks stylistically like the old Marvel cartoons from TV (I believe the correct term in this instance is ‘josei’?). Of course, the content is much more graphic and perverse as the set-pieces build in goriness – and tentacles - along the way.

The pace is breathless, the dialogue is as chirpily corny as you’d expect from such fodder, and the ecological message is clear. In fact, the blending of message with the central search for a loved one recalled, superficially, the Korean film THE HOST. Naturally, the insanity quotient escalates at an alarming rate as events hurtle towards their impressively gonzo, bleak climax.

I understand from disgruntled manga fans that director Takayuki Hirao (DEATH NOTE) has taken certain liberties with the original storyline. Most glaringly, Kaori no longer has an acute sense of smell – something that was apparently instrumental to the source material’s plot. I’m not familiar with GYO’s original format myself, but I gather characters have been added to little effect here, while central figures have been simplified.

So, if you’re au fait with the source material, you may too be concerned by Hirao’s changes to it. However, if your knowledge of manga is as limited as mine (I’m a virtual novice beyond AKIRA, UROTSUKIDOJI and PERFECT BLUE), then this probably won’t trouble you.

On the contrary, I found the number of characters and linear storytelling of a girl desperate to reunite with her beau refreshingly easy to follow. The voices were a tad wishy-washy, granted, so I never truly felt any tension for the fates of these characters. But the action came thick and fast without ever veering off into totally incomprehensible territory. That’s not to say viewers shouldn’t expect a generous serving of lunacy towards the end though …

Terracotta’s UK DVD presents GYO in an uncut 16x9 transfer which appears to be correctly framed. Images are bright, sharp and blessed with deep stable colour schemes. It’s probably the strongest Terracotta transfer I’ve yet seen.

Japanese stereo audio is good too. Optional English subtitles are easy to read but do sometimes descend into passages of amusing broken English.

The disc opens with a colourful animated main menu page. From here, an animated scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

Extra features begin with an interview with Ito. Unfortunately this is in text format only. It’s also only four pages long. Still, it offers some background on the ecological message he was conveying, the inspiration he gets from his nightmares, and – bizarrely – his love for The Beatles.

A 2-minute video montage of footage from the 2012 Terracotta Far East Film Festival proffers a fast-edited succession of handheld footage.

The same festival is also the subject of a 3-minute mini-documentary hosted by festival director Joey Leung.

We also get a single page of text purporting to be "about Terracotta", which is essentially a couple of web addresses.

Finally, we get trailers for REVENGE: A LOVE STORY, DEATH BELL and FAIRY TALE KILLER. The disc also defaults to open with these.

GYO: TOKYO FISH ATTACK is an entertaining way of passing 70 minutes. It proves to be satisfyingly straight-forward story-wise for someone like me who struggles to grasp the more eccentric plot segues normally associated with manga madness.

Terracotta are a small company doing their best to release niche titles onto a tough market in difficult times. They’ve got some great titles in their roster already – DESIRE TO KILL, HANSEL AND GRETEL and REVENGE: A LOVE STORY all come highly recommended – and GYO proves to be another worthy addition to their canon.

Review by Stuart Willis