Anime Roulette #1: The Chocolate Panic Picture Show

Over the years, I've downloaded what must be terabytes of anime from the internet; most of which I've saved on several portable hard drives. Though my collection is pretty varied in content, one of its cornerstones is a massive archive of obscure OVAs and movies from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. The Golden Age of the OVA, as I call that era, is, for me as an anime fan, a source of perennial fascination - this was a time when it seemed as though studios would animate anything, regardless of mainstream appeal, comprehensibility, or quality. Sometimes, we would strike gold and be treated to things like Angel's Egg or Gunbuster, and other times, we got Roots Search.

Yes, this really exists. And someone in Japan probably spent $80 pre-ordering the Laserdisc.

Spread over two hard drives, I've managed to amass 495 different obscure OVAs and movies - the vast majority of these titles have never been released in the US, and the ones that have are so far out of print that finding a legitimate commercial copy is damn near impossible. Though I've watched quite a few, I've recently realized that hundreds upon hundreds of these things are sitting in cyberspace, unseen. From this realization came a mad idea: I'll pick one of these OVAs or movies at random, watch it, and write a dumb blog post about it. I've decided to call this series "Anime Roulette," and the first thing I chose was an OVA called The Chocolate Panic Picture Show.

Information on this anime is scarce. With the exception of its producers (whom I'll discuss in more detail later), all I was really able to find was that it was based on a manga by Kamui Fujiwara, and was released on video in 1985. I've never read the manga it's based on, because its never been translated into English. However, if the manga is anything like the anime, I need to get my hands on a copy immediately.

I won't mince words: The Chocolate Panic Picture Show is one of the most bizarre pieces of animation I've ever seen. The "plot" (airquotes are emphasized) is paper thin - it more or less follows the three African tribal kids on their adventures, literally, through time and space.

 

 Let me just get this out of the way right now. As you no doubt noticed from the theatrical poster, this show's portrayal of black people is, to our western sensibilities, mind-bogglingly racist. These are caricatures that would have been considered in bad taste during the Eisenhower administration. But I'm not going to accuse Japan of any bad intentions here - they're a very sheltered, racially homogeneous country that, quite honestly, doesn't really know about other races that much. So I'll leave it at that and move on.

I mentioned the plot earlier, but plot isn't really the right word to use for this show. If I were to compare Chocolate Panic to an American animation, it would be Fantasia - like Fantasia, it's more or less a series of silent pieces set to music. Unlike Fantasia, the music isn't all classical masterpieces - we go from an ambient piece replete with creepy breathing that sounds like it was lifted from the Akira soundtrack, to an upbeat rockabilly anthem, to an ending theme that sounds like a Was Not Was b-side.

                         Sure, why the hell not.

 The eclectic soundtrack certainly fits the mood, which I would describe as stream of consciousness, only that term seems a bit too tame. Just let me read to you some of what goes on in this show. A group of cardboard cut-out people are doing TV exercises in some drab, almost post apocalyptic setting, when all of a sudden the TV explodes, killing everyone. We're then sent to an underwater city that's chock full of obnoxious product placement.

I'm surprised - usually it's Coke that's doing the blatant anime product placement.

See that Pepsi sign? That's subtle foreshadowing - in the next scene, which is set on a desert island, the kid is drinking a bottle of Pepsi, when he gets sucked into the bottle. The bottle is left on the beach, where another kid that looks exactly like him drinks it. A few minutes later, I kid you not, the kid literally gives birth to himself.

This makes that scene from Alien look G-rated by comparison.

Are we to believe he "gave birth" to the other kid in the bottle? Is he really giving birth to himself? Am I an idiot for asking such questions of a show that seems to not only disregard logic entirely, but live as though logic doesn't exist?

That, I think, is the essence of Chocolate Panic. Watching this for any sort of coherent story, or character development, is a fool's errand. This show is an unapologetic 25 minute descent into audio-visual insanity, and it knows it. Turn it on, don't think, just allow yourself to be surprised by the completely unforeseen jumps in tone and setting, and be mesmerized by the some of the most psychedelic animation Japan has given us.

A note about the animation. Though the main production was handled by Kamui and Studio 2b (a fact the show won't let you forget; they literally credit them like 3 times in the first few minutes), it seems as though some animation assistance was provided by, of all people, Gainax, the studio that would go on to create Neon Genesis Evangelion. Among many other things, Gainax is known for their nice looking animation, and this show, to it's credit, looks consistently great, with the exception of one strangely out of place bad looking character right at the end.

It's like a 7th rate flash animation.

Other than that, Chocolate Panic never fails to impress in the looks department. It may not have a colossal budget, but what it has is style, a completely insane style, that always keeps you guessing and watching to see just what the next segment is going to look like. Kudos especially to a (sadly) very brief scene where the entire world is animated in pastel, which is a technique that unfortunately seems to have fallen out of favor sometime in the 1990s.

There's honestly not much more I can say about Chocolate Panic. For some of you, this is just going to be too weird, but at only 25 minutes, I feel its weirdness doesn't overstay its welcome. Even if you're on the fence, I say, watch this. At the very least, you'll see a man giving birth to himself on a beach, and that's something you'll never see again.