Takayuki Hirao - Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack (2012)

Ribama, morskim psima i drugim plodovima mora izrastaju noge što im omogućuje izlazak na kopno - u pohod konačnog obračuna s čovječanstvom. Jedna od žešćih japanskih "gadarija". Dosad su već sva moguća bića bila napadala Japance, sad je vrijeme i za sastojke brodeta. 

 cijeli film:

Director Takayuki Hirao brings Japanese horror manga artist Jumji Ito’s graphic novel screaming to life in this distinctive anime adaptation. Certain strands of the story have been changed and condensed but the themes of learning from past mistakes, the search for truth and the atrocities of war are packed into seventy surreal minutes.

Kaori, Erika and Aki are vacationing by the sea when they happen upon a stinky, scuttling sea creature that has been hiding out in their summer house. Kaori kills the creature and places it in the trash but it floats up out of the bin triggering an attack from the Pacific Ocean. The three girls are joined by two local men leading to some familiar anime flesh exposure and a horror movie style set up as fish suddenly grow legs and go on a rampage.
The invasion doesn’t really let up from here on in with swarms of fish making their way on to the mainland and violently attacking humans with their new spiky metal legs. When Kaori discovers her fiancé Tadashi is in trouble she heads back to Tokyo to see if she can save him. Gyo kicks off its weirdness from the start and doesn’t stop until the very end. The allegory with the Pacific War is made clear throughout the film but it also comments on loyalty, manipulative media and a greedy society fascinated with fame.
Visually Hirao has stuck with the twisted and delightfully bizarre imagery from Ito’s graphic novel to which your eyes will be glued to the screen as each new creature is revealed. Ito’s creations bring new levels of madness to the usual shark attack scene. As the human race turns into grotesque green gas bags emitting noxious fumes, sporting tentacles and shit-spurting body spouts, Kaori clings to the hope that the mutated beings still have possession of a soul and free will. The idea of divine retribution is handled with a circus top scene full of supernatural Edvard Munch inspired smog that brings the film to its startling conclusion. Alongside all that a mad professor waxes lyrical about government conspiracy and cover-up whilst experimenting on this new species of farting fish.
Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack is infectiously funny, fast paced anime that delivers an assortment of freaky sea beasts whilst also commenting on the impact of conflict. - www.starburstmagazine.com/

 

Despite the second-rate animation and clipped narrative there is something deeply repellent and intangible about Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack that sucks you into its crazy premise: fish grow mechanical legs and attack Japan.

Pretty much every weird and wonderful creature has assaulted Japan over the movie years so why not give the fish ago too? It stands to reason that an island nation so often charged with hunting sharks and whales to the point of extinction should be stalked by a ravenous horde of sea life on robot legs.

Similar to Hitchcock’s The Birds the teaming, scuttling schools of fish offer no clue as to why nature has decided to finish humanity. It could be revenge for the over-fishing or the reliance on nuclear power or feasting on sushi. It could be down to Imperial Army scientists in the Second World War desperate to find a way to repel the American invasion.

Whatever crazy reason fish have been grafted to steampunk walking contraptions what’s even crazier is that’s not the worst of it. When they strike a human the human becomes infected with a hideous gas that transforms them into bloated grotesques that become entwined into the walking machines.

Through this stench-filled nightmare we are introduced to 3 female students: trashy Erika, Thelma from Scooby Do look-alike Aki and our heroine Kaori. The early part of the film plays like a slasher movie, threesomes leered over by jealous fish (selfish?) but quickly transforms into a surrealist apocalypse narrative as Kaori tries to escape with journalist Shirakawa.

The images that infest Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack are truly repugnant and if a film could have a stench permeating from it this would be it, but if you want to delve into the subgenre of walking fish movies, then Gyo is the best example there is. - Mark Farnsworth

http://genkinahito.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/gyo-tokyo-fish-attack/

  

Junji Ito’s 2001 manga Gyo (literal translation: The Fish) sees all manner of aquatic life – fish, sharks, octopuses – inexplicably walking out of the ocean on spindly metal legs, powered by the gas of their own decomposing bodies. And that’s only the beginning of the madness…

Crammed with grotesque imagery every bit as macabre as Goya’s nastiest etchings, it’s one of the most memorably bizarre horror comics out there, featuring moments of WTF body horror that make The Thing’s head-on-legs look pretty small beer.

This abbreviated anime adap (which combines both 2D and 3D animation) telescopes the story, eliding certain events and losing much of its brooding atmosphere in the process. Other changes include a gender-swap on the central couple (the protagonist is now a girl seeking her fiance, not the other way round), and the introduction of a redundant secondary love interest.

There’s also some gratuitous “sexing up”, including a threesome sequence that’s mercifully short but still bafflingly inappropriate (if rotting fish on legs were surrounding your house, would it put you in a horny mood?); the same hot-to-trot female character (an invention of the anime) later has her clothes torn to shreds during a shark attack which is replete with phallic menace. It’s all bit cheap.

But the most significant addition is motion, and sadly images that, on the printed page, sear into your subconscious all too often look ludicrous when they’re brought to life. The fact that the quality of the animation is extremely variable doesn’t help matters (at times you suspect characters are covering their mouths in shock because it’s less work to animate) – and the grocers’ apostrophes in the English subtitles are an additional annoyance. - Ian Berriman