Speed Grapher

Speed grapher is an anime that my friend showed me. I thought I would write about it since I personally enjoy it for its unintentional hilarity, a review if you will.

Let's start with the premise. The main character is a freelance photographer named Saiga who gets a huge boner photographing death and human suffering.

Seriously. It's that kind of show.

Anyway, we soon realize its a crap sack world where corruption and decadence replace moral values. Our hero investigates mysterious murders and so on and then stumbles into something big. He stumbles into a secret underground fetish club complete with leather bondage slaves, pimps and whores where the richest celebrities and tycoons of Japan get their jollies, secretly of course. He stumbles some more into a ritual where an angelic "goddess" grants people superpowers only that these superpowers are based on fetishes. Fetishes give you superpowers. Saiga, in a moment of pure concentrated idiocy takes a fucking picture, exposing himself and ensuring his death until the goddess kisses him and unlocks his fetish powers. He can make things explode by taking their picture. Seriously. He escapes with the goddess and now the evil rich fetish club people are hunting him down.

The anime then follows the adventures of Saiga and Kagura, the goddess. Kagura as it turns out has a dual personality, one as Kagura and the other the goddess. Also, she was brainwashed, systematically psychologically tortured by her mother and has cancer. Shit. The big bad, Suitengu, a mysterious rich asshole, also has a super angsty back story (child soldier levels) and tries to be all magnificent bastard and stuff. The anime focuses on the charming relationship between Saiga and Kagura. The show also delves into philosophical questions such as "What is happiness? Does money equal happiness?" and so on. Saiga is also involved with a busty lusty female officer named Ginza who totally wants to bone him and eventually does so even if Saiga was out-fucking-cold. Can a man get a boner when he is unconscious? I must research this philosophical question.

That's all well and good except that this show is just too ridiculous to take seriously. All attempts to be all deep and stuff fall flat due to poor execution and the fact that the show is just demanding to much of my sympathy and belief. All the backstories and situations are too extreme that they are completely unbelievable and just cannot be related to anything. For example, one villain sent to track Saiga has a superpower where his nose is super sensitive to scents like a bloodhound. Its fine but the villain walks around with a freaking nose-patch on his face and nobody notices how ridiculous and stupid it looks. Nobody. You just have to see it.

That character alone is the perfect metaphor to describe this show, a face asking you to take it seriously despite having a leather cozy on its nose. Fetish superpowers? Gratuitous violence? Nudity and sex? it's all here folks and ramped up to eleven. It just feels like its trying too hard to be edgy. That sums it up perfectly, tries too hard. The animation quality also suffers later on. One villain who has a skin fetish with tattoos that come to life looks badly drawn. Also the music gets recycled a lot.

This show is bad. It is so bad that its good! I like it because its just so over the top that it just grows on you. Its hilarious and completely unintentional. The show keeps a straight face, plays everything straight even if its just so ridiculous and that just makes it even funnier. This anime can only be viewed in this manner or when high like the makers probably were.

Also, it has a kick ass opening song by Duran Duran! Girls on film...hmm...hmm..hmm

Possible Spoilers.