#226: Gregory Horror Expose (1999-2000)

Studio: Milky Caricature

Director: Kazumi Minagawa

Screenplay: Naomi Iwata

Essentially based on an usual premise by
Naomi Iwata

Divulge Solid:

Jap Solid:

Chafurin as Gregory; Ayana Inoue
as Nurse Catherine (1st Divulge); Minako Ichiki as Nurse Catherine (2nd Divulge); Nao
Nagasawa as Neko-Zombie; Rei Sakuma as Angel Dogs/Satan Dogs; Yoko Asada as
Roulette Boy; Erina Yamazaki as James; Hitoshi Takagi as Mummy Papa; Jin
Yamanoi as Clock Grasp; Maiko Itou as My Son; Masashi Hirose as Death; Mikako
Satō as Cactus Lady; Naochika Hayashida as Judgement Boy (1st Divulge); Naoko
Matsui as Lost Doll; Natsumi Sakuma as Mummy Dogs; Ryūzaburō Ōtomo as Hell’s
Chef; Susumu Chiba as Judgement Boy (third Divulge); Yoshiyuki Kouno as Cactus
Gunman/Judgement Boy (2nd Divulge)

English Solid:

Dave Pettitt as Gregory; Chris
Simms as Angel/Satan Dogs; Elinor Holt as Nurse Catherine; Kris Rundle as
Neko-Zombie; Mariette Sluyter as Roulette Boy; Steve Olson as Judgement Boy
Gold; Angie Beers as Lost Doll; Brendan Hunter as Judgement Boy; Brett Bauer as
James; Byron Close as Hell’s Chef; Carol-Anne Day as Cactus Lady / Lost Doll ;
Gerald Matthews as Black Duck 1 / Bonsai Kabuki; Jonathan Admire as Clock Grasp
/ Mummy Papa / The First Main Guest; Keith Hamill as Egypetit / Beefy Rooster

Considered in English Dub

Originate you already know who I am, they name me Judgement Boy!

Gregory Horror Expose, when I first of the franchise, changed into as soon as merely a
spell binding video sport which I by no manner obtained around to, handiest to plot finish a time
later it changed into as soon as a tie-in. Ironically it’s this sport, a Playstation 2 survival
awe sport, released handiest in Europe and Japan, which is the first on web
searches prominently, gaining a thoughtful following despite by no manner getting a
re-launch. The game, produced by Capcom,
a mighty esteemed company in video gaming historical previous, changed into as soon as an enticing production,
with an idiosyncratic visible vogue and as a awe sport the put you may additionally wish to stalk
the strange characters of the titular Gregory’s hotel, while fending off them
chasing you. The anime series, a micro-series of three seasons and one trudge-off,
is appropriate as idiosyncratic, the advent in premise of Naomi Iwata. A creator of many characters, also kid’s work, Iwata changed into as soon as even alive to with a trudge-off
within the Pingu franchise known as Pingu within the City (2017), a CGI showcase
in response to the claymation series that changed into as soon as viewed on British television, as it
clearly changed into as soon as around the sphere in numerous incarnations, about a adorable penguin.

The episodes for seasons one and
two are twenty five episodes, season three for twenty six and the bonus series The
Bloody Karte for twelve, each
episode two minutes each nonetheless. The first two instruct a season lengthy myth of a
particular person ending up at a purgatorial hotel ran by Gregory, an anthropomorphic older
mouse who barely hides his cross nature. The first series, the leads both
unseen in first particular person with their impart over, follows a husband with runt one, a
workaholic, who has most likely fled from his lifestyles to this perverse awe showcase, the
second series about a girl strolling again from the marriage ceremony of a man who broke up
along with her when she establish her occupation over an engagement supply. It is glaring these
mirror true lifestyles, even supposing Gregory
Horror Expose is an eccentric and ghoulish tale, all reflecting in these
characters’ average working lifestyles, be it the salaryman within the first season, the
second in mind to the placement of girls folks in work in Japan, that of marriage and
younger of us being doable barriers of ever attending to a happy location in
industry.

The awe showcase itself in
distinction, nonetheless, while with the metaphors being there, is delightfully
queer. Alongside being an early attempt at polygonal three dimensional
animation, the first noticeable particulars is that all people looks to be look after field of us
you built from cardboard craft designs. Subsequent work, look after the 2007 manga Gregory Horror Expose – One other World,
switched from this comely, but Gregory
Horror Expose stands out for this cutesy field of us vogue from, especially as
it helps ironically for a awe tale, in how strange the denizens are, and
how more morbid it becomes with this violent juxtaposition. No one is
realistically human or even human baring the leads, which is creepy in its hang
manner as mighty because the cast are the kind you would want as plush toys in a Hot Topic/Blue Banana Goth store, which in itself is an infinite advantage to the
world building and persona.

Right here is no longer a runt one’s showcase nonetheless,
and that has to be emphasised, with the characters at the same time as one episode website visitors
are creepy bunch on the opposite hand. Gregory himself is a mother’s boy brow-beaten by
a mother who’s stealing website visitors’ souls with the plan of slurping them as a
youth formula. Sequence two introduces James, Gregory’s nephew who will most likely be
completely described in how he’s within the sport as a mechanic, that he’ll come
to you shouting and skipping about enraged when he spots you, which is no longer good
in case you may additionally very successfully be sneaking around or attempting to manual clear of consideration. There are quite loads of
characters within the middle of, too many to characterize, but amongst essentially the most certain and
chanced on over the series embrace Catherine, a crimson nurse dinosaur who, with enormous
needles, is no longer handiest fixated on drawing all an particular particular person’s blood out of their
bodies, but explicitly has a sexual thrill from this; Neko-Zombie, a horribly
afflicted cat who’s chained up finish to the web site visitors’ rooms and is an ally; the candle
chef who hates “puff-puffs”, smoking in commonplace or anybody criticising
his cooking, welding an infinite knife; a younger girl who’s attempting to search out her doll,
which is the split persona with its hang face; an angel dog who has an
different devil aspect; and an assortment of zombies getting inebriated in their
graves, roulette wheel boys who play awful video games of fine fortune, a mirror who
reveals your true self, and even a bonsai tree man who enters your desires for
corrupt manner.

One personality desiring a separate
sentence, and section of the certain subject matters of the showcase’s awe, is Judgement Boy,
a sentient floating scale which weighs one’s coronary heart with materialism, clearly
no longer easy website visitors and patrons with complicated factual questions in response to their
previous transgressions as a guilt complex. There will most likely be many Judgement Boys, and
Season Two reveals their factory/coaching camp, and they also signify the subject matters of
guilt, be troubled of work and lifestyles in commonplace. Even the likes of Catherine
signify glaring fears of needles, be troubled and judgement. Inflamed by Death,
truly an ally within the whole episodes, has the Swedish flag on his hat, clearly
a nod to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), does showcase
that, while that example is a truly foolish tribute the Swedish auteur also can want
by no manner anticipated, Naomi Iwata  had serious intent within the lend a hand of this advent of his
even supposing mixed with the absurd.

The tone and cuteness helps more
too in how the showcase, episodic in tone but following a revolutionary fable of
twists and turns within the first two seasons, has venerable as early 3D animation. Baring
some very dated moments which fulfil my passion for former polygonal
animation, it has managed to flee tubby obsoletion since the art vogue is
intentionally unnatural and look after a field personality play plight. Season Two quiet
manages to select up mighty more macabre than the first, between the more ghoulish
stammer material (Gregory getting an axe in his head, an attempting inserting) and the
finale appealing the hotel being burned down. Although there also is known as a
cartoonish logic, that is a creepy showcase of death and the grotesque, more in direct
it comes certain within the first two seasons the hotel is in a world launch air of staunch
lifestyles. This showcase has an existential aspect to the awe even when you occur to don’t fetch
it “provoking”, with the rest episode of Season One exhibiting the true
world on camera via true photos, and the drudgery within them, [Spoilers] which leads the male lead of
that season to come lend a hand to the hotel. [Spoilers
End]

The third season of Gregory’s Horror Expose, with the
subtitle The Final Educate, takes the series in a explicit
direction. Existing in a context out of the first two, Gregory himself is the
lead, but he’s no longer within the hotel with his mother. As an alternative, he’s on a instruct,
one which is sentient as he within the finish has to consult with with it when issues stoop amiss.
Clearly, he’s running away from his lifestyles, which becomes more an increasing number of
glaring even though the series, look after sooner than, continuing beforehand with having a
gallery of unconventional figures enter via the vehicles of the instruct into his
course. Moments are overtly absurd, corresponding to that the instruct has to prevent because
the ghosts of samurai warriors, who will presume the first particular person they met is
their master and ask orders, have blocked the rails, or that on this instruct,
radioactive and genetically modified peanuts are accessible in to luxuriate in even supposing
it urged no longer stick with the modified ones. The candle chef is the caterer,
killing website visitors and serving them if they disagree with his cooking, and Gregory
appropriate finds himself bringing poison in his scientific rep when desiring a medicine for
illness. Cherish the opposite seasons, there may be barring one cringe great sequence,
the put Gregory is published to appear after hip hop (which is no longer a unpleasant thing) but
proceeds to rap (which is a unpleasant thing), a consistency here handiest matched by a
very abstract conclusion because the others continued with. This has an ending, in
one other context, which can be known as out as being a cop-out, but here makes
sense to the series’ logic.

The Bloody Karte changed into as soon as the rest of these, following as a replace
Catherine, the crimson dinosaur nurse whose lack of capability to no longer attempt to take hang of the whole
blood from of us is contrasted by her quest for love. For pure ghoulishness,
this proved the funniest of the quartet for me, merely because, following the
structure that every segment introduces a persona for that second, this
becomes a cavalcade of extremely morbid humour. Even as Gregory will get off scot
free with appropriate being hung the opposite plot up within the cemetery off a tree gradually,
about a of the male characters who damage Catherine’s coronary heart for no longer being her
ideal, or being gold plated in preference to truly fabricated from gold, are very ineffective
when she has her revenge on them. It does supply the sweetest of endings, a
ladies folks running the sanatorium within the finish and bonding in their very hang world, the
season more a series of farces about males within the stay, but for pure bent
jokes, this one won me over without being too lengthy to select up repetitious.  

The foremost three seasons had US
releases via Geneon USA, the sick
fated physical media arm of Geneon who
had been shut down 2007. Sadly, Gregory
Horror Expose the series is caught in a limbo and changed into as soon as by no manner re-released. Most
most likely is conscious of this franchise for that video sport which, ironically, has the
same impart forged within the English dub because the animation, but by no manner obtained a US
launch. Right here is a shame as, without looking to discuss of the video sport, great
of its hang time devoted to it, these altogether are a irregular fraction of eccentric
anime awe I changed into as soon as won over with.