#228: Darkness of the Sea, Shadow of the Moon (1989)

Studio: Visual 80

Director: Tetsu Dezaki

Screenplay: Koichi Mizuide and Sōji
Yoshikawa

Reveal Solid: Mayumi Shō as Lumi
Kobayakawa; Rei Sakuma as Luka Kobayakawa; Toshihiko Seki as Katsuyuki Tohma; Ryusei
Nakao as Mr. Kobayakawa; Seiko Nakano as Mrs. Kobayakawa; Tesshō Genda as
Doctor Kaibara

Considered in Japanese with English Subtitles

I had by no contrivance heard of Darkness of the Sea… except shopping
for scare anime, but this three section OVA is tantalising must you starting up it. It
is a shoujo yarn, a yarn of younger females which mixes romance towards scare
and over-the-high melodrama, all directed by Tetsu
Dezaki, Osamu Dezaki’s brother
who might per chance well per chance even per chance be credited for helming They
Were Eleven (1986), to take into accounta good sci-fi yarn from a legendary female manga
author Moto Hagio, but also Indignant Bull 34 (1990-2), the irascible and
on occasion refined to acknowledge Kazuo Koike
yarn about Current York City law enforcement officers with the total ridiculous clichés and distortions you
might per chance well per chance even imagine. Darkness of the Sea… starts
off over the finish in its have formulation when twin sisters Rumi and Ruki, already in a
romantic triangle over Touma, the popular boy in college, scoot on an all-lady’s
day out to the wing with their college. Tragically, for the duration of a storm, they web a secret
grave mass in the caves, and with each person baring the sisters being killed by a
uncommon air to the underground ambiance.

Ruki survives, but Rumi is
a long way-off, and now section of the top surviving women of the sports team attributable to the
disagreeable tragedy, the three final women contain to coach with the boys. The
third lady will die rapidly after, as Darkness
of the Sea… does extinguish time with its quandary, wherein Rumi is now a psychic
supernatural being, in a neighborhood in later episodes to contaminate of us and flip them into
her slaves, wishing to extinguish somebody who will get in the formulation to her and Touma. Even
her have sister Ruki, the most melodramatic of sisterly rivalries that you would imagine
transpiring as the core of the premise, whether or no longer it is attempting to throw her off a
flooring on the emergency stairway, or turning their fogeys into brainwashed
ghouls to total the job.

It is unhappy Ruki is an ineffectual
protagonist, despite the inklings that she has supernatural powers too, even in
mind that it befits that she is a fashioned individual caught up in the most
nightmarish of sibling competition, “Tutankhamen’s Curse” a key reference
to the quandary exposition, relating to when in 1922 the British archaeologist Howard Carter realized the tomb of
Pharaoh Tutankhamen, these alive to having mysterious deaths afterwards helping
a chronicle of a curse transpire. Extra in total than no longer, Touma is the one who has to
save her, which is a disgrace even though the point that, helpless, she is (baring the
unnatural potential now to drift) a bystander in effort, arguably the acceptable
protagonist for a viewer to be in the shoes of. Largely the repetition of
Rumi’s attempts to extinguish her over the three episodes is the ideal space off of
this field.

In point of truth, there are a quantity of foolish
components to the masks, and so grand of it, even in mind to what I contain talked about as
criticisms, does no longer detract from how difficult this turned. The explicit
negate becomes that, even at three episodes, this sadly ends by surprise when it
starts to reach a original melodramatic point. By the time the yarn ends, the set the
sisterly tragedy is elevated, of us contain died, and Ruki is starting up to battle
support, most productive to no longer contain a apply up, feels fancy a gut punch of the most abrupt
style as this turned a rewarding movie to acknowledge. Here is a disgrace as this, even
when logic starts to descend away, is delightfully over-the-high and macabre. It
also befits as a yarn with a romantic edge, as it is a couple of female protagonist,
who is caught in a nightmare, but in a negate intermingling her rising
self belief, as she and Touma starting up to near nearer as of us, her have sister the
threat adding to the symbolic drama. There’s one dubious 2nd, the set Touma
temporarily comes off as non consensual in the gymnasium closet by formulation of getting extra
intimate with Ruki, which is the one sour point, but most of here is the accurate
extra or less melodrama, even when somebody stays nearly comically stoic in spite of
their fogeys accurate being killed, the exaggerated tone racy.

Even the comely tone of the
masks befits this, the dignity between its personality designs, by Setsuko Shibuichi, prolific in the
commerce from key animator to director on titles from The Rose of Versailles (1979) to Residing Adventure Cobra (1982), befit a romantic masks in the
characters’ class but contrasted by the macabre (and openly gory) incidents
that transpire, to even the limitless demonic faces Rumi has attempting to off her
sister. The sense this used to be even one episode off a fleshy narrative does suck,
extra in account for, whilst pure pulp, it does stand out as a pleasing surprise, as
obscure as you would also acquire for an involving title. Love a grotesque fantasy yarn,
even its opening credit ranking are extra fantastical, with its echoing of the sisters
being nautical entities, and its title (counting on the formulation you translate it) used to be absolutely
surely one of many explanations I picked it out attributable to how evocative it is. There’s pure
cheese, fancy explaining openly supernatural powers to frail bacterial
mutation, but that befits the tone besides. As one thing without a context, this
hit with the accurate impact, most productive making its obscurity sadder. A Bandai
manufacturing, on the very least with their involvement, one can most productive hope that it is
preserved by some means as this, even with out the ending it will probably per chance per chance per chance must contain had, stands
out.