[Long] Pupa: a solid 6/10

Dec 30, 2023 7:58 PM

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Jul 2009

Do you feel like you've wasted 37 minutes of your life with Pupa?
Fear no more! I invite you to waste even more time reading this, perhaps also giving it a rewatch for good measure. And hopefully that wasted time can be converted into something positive.

I promise that at least some of my insight will be... insightful to all.

I generally frown upon people writing long-winded reviews on MAL, because I think they are always full of fluff with little substance to offer. That's why I always keep things brief when writing my own (very rare) reviews, reserving most of my opinions to my own profile's Anime List, with a short paragraph about each show.

It is amusing to me that a show like Pupa would compel me to break character and write a boatload of armchair cinematography.

But, before I continue any further, I must share the opinion of another member who posted on the last episode's discussion thread back in 2018 and who motivated me to analyze the show a bit more deeply.

[Spoilers ahead, be sure you've watched the show already]

Bles- said:
6/10, rated solely on enjoyment. It appeals to a very niche audience like myself that enjoy anime with excess gore and dementia. This was better than Corpse Party in my opinion because it actually made sense even if it wasn't realistic like I'd anticipated and was pretty farfetched, especially visually for added effect. The story reminded me of Elfen Lied in how they were infected which gave them superpowers and Yume the desire to kill (and eat) people. They wern't necessarily bad people but they accepted that they're monsters. They had to, since they can't die and yet life was harder for them than anyone. Where as Elfen Lied didn't have enough gore and too much filler, this had over the top gore and wasn't filled out enough. Both ended up falling short with wasted potential.

The moral I took from this is that no matter how screwed up life becomes or you yourself become, as long as you have someone to lean on that you love and are loved by, that makes life easier. Makes me wonder what would've happened if they didn't have eachother. The last episode was nice how it was a flashback to their happier days. Rewatched ep 11 afterwards to be clear on the ending and I assume that they just continue on their murder spree but what happened to Maria and her experimental child??? Who was that monster in her dungeon, was it their Father? What was the meaning behind "Which is a dream? Which is real?" Was the whole thing perhaps the fantasy of a psychopath? Was there going to be a sequel or is it like @Rei366 said and it's essentially a trailer for the manga? Will have to read it.

First of all, thank you @Bles- for being a voice of compromise and genuine benefit of the doubt in a sea of people merely kicking the dead horse that Pupa has become. A seemingly very easy show to hate, but which didn't feel that awful as I was watching it, which made me question whether my levels of tolerance for media had gone awry. With his opinions being this well-composed and put-together, I can put my foot down and stand my ground:

Pupa is a solid 6/10 anime.

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The moral Bles- took from it is beautifully put, the show is all about self-sacrifice and fraternal love. With a dose of eroticism for you, the naughty viewer who jumped onto this boat thinking he'd watch people suffer and get away scot-free. Guess what? You get your share too, which is only fair.
Bles-'s comparison to Elfen Lied is also funny to me, since it's one of my all-time most hated anime, for both what I felt was forced drama and the fact that so many people praised it for its "highly interesting setting" back in the day. Whereas that same praise doesn't reach Pupa for some reason. And I don't hate it at all. Funny how that works, huh?

One more observation before we move on, but rather than Elfen Lied, this show reminds me of Saikano. [Spoilers for it only in this paragraph.] Both have two characters who love each other and are willing to go to the ultimate consequences of that. Both will put the world behind in favor of the loved one, and the animes escalate things beyond any resemblance of an ordinary, human life. Saikano goes a bit in the direction of Elfen Lied's over-the-top drama, but not enough to put me off, it's the middle point between that and Pupa, if I really think about it.

Now, let us start building an argument in favor or Pupa:
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On the technical aspect, we should be aware it's a very low-budget, 4-minute long episode show. Any remarkable quality should be seen as a treat, not a given. Animation-wise, there isn't anything to write home about, but also nothing comically ugly.
That said, in my opinion the show has enough visual quality to tell the story. The watercolor-like art style combos well with the simplified bear segments. Everything feels a bit childish, as if seen from Yume's (and Utsusu's) naive perspectives. Monsters who aren't so on the inside. The girl is cute, the blood is red. Not much else is needed.
The uncensored version doesn't make much of a difference, but of course it's better, so make sure to watch the BD version of it.
The voice acting is great, to a point where it feels out of place in the cheap production. This is often the case in anime, since quality voice acting is somewhat cheap/easy to achieve, compared to animation, where many slaves are needed at the sweatshop to make the cute girl's hair flutter in the wind.
The OP/ED are also great. Very memorable, but you might not think so if you don't watch them every time. I'm the type of traditionalist who will always do so. If I watch 5 episodes of a show in a single day, I will watch the OP/ED five times. Which is something I might judge others for not doing, but isn't something I fight over that much.

In Pupa's case, however, I would recommend you do watch it every time. It sets the pace of the show. It tells you more clearly when a chapter ended, and you can fully appreciate the twists of the plot for what they are: curve balls. While your mind goes "what the fuck is going on?", the cute, soothing song plays and you have time to digest the information.
If you watch it in the "stitched" version, the nonstop pace of new information will just become too much. And, again, the songs are nice.
This is but an opinion, but if you consider this was a weekly release, putting yourself in the shoes of people who only had those 4 minutes of footage every 7 days to go with might be a more enjoyable experience. The songs help to bring a bit of that feeling.

__________________________________________________________________

It's at this point that I should reveal that I haven't read - nor do I intend to read - the manga.
Unlike Bles-, I'm not that interested in horror/gore shows (but if it's Kago Shintarou, sign me the fuck up!).
I only watched this for its long-standing fame of "WORST ANIME EVER" or something. I'd be interested to know his thoughts on the manga contrasted to the anime if, as stated in the post, he actually went and read it.

But I believe any piece of audiovisual should be enjoyable by itself, independently of what they're connected to. And Pupa was pretty enjoyable as a short horror concept, like reading a short novel. I keep mentioning other authors/media, so here's another recommendation: Ningen Isu/Human Chair. Cool short horror story.

Perhaps these combined factors are the reason I don't think so low of Pupa. No fillers like in Elfen Lied, so it doesn't have time to annoy me. I take the concept, I have my fill of it, and then I let it go. Or so I thought, before I started writing this.

(Un)fortunately, I watched a censored version of it, so I wanted to rewatch without half of my screen being blacked-out, so the show stayed in my mind for a few days, giving me time to further ruminate about it before finally sitting down and rewatching. When coming back to it, I could pay double the attention. Another goal was to properly answer Bles-'s following question, which was very obvious to me when watching, but probably not to 99% of non-Japanese viewers.

Bles- said:

What was the meaning behind "Which is a dream? Which is real?"
Was the whole thing perhaps the fantasy of a psychopath?

This is a cultural reference that I think many Japanese people would be familiar with, with roots in Taoism.
It's a story posed by the philosopher Zhuangzi, which is called "The Butterfly Dream" (胡蝶の夢/Kochou no Yume) or the Zhuangzi paradox.

From Wikipedia:

昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與。不知周也。
Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou.

俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與。周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

-Zhuangzi, chapter 2 (Watson translation)

The two siblings are called Yume (夢 dream) and Utsutsu (現 reality, consciousness).
So, in one of the final episodes, when the blackboard at the classroom says "Which is a dream? Which is real?", the Japanese text is:

どれが夢？ (Dore ga YUME?)
どれが現実？ (Dore ga GENJITSU?)

Genjitsu is the usual word for "reality", but the "gen" part uses the kanji Utsutsu. So, both of the sibling names are used here, in allusion to Zhuangzi's paradox.

On the first episode, the blackboard says "If only this were all just a dream."

夢だったらよかったのに (Yume dattara yokatta no ni.)

This ties into the "escapism" of showing gore through the teddy bears, not acknowledge the ugliness of it all (they still come alive and make evil faces sometimes), and the previously mentioned watercolor art style makes everything kinda dreamy too, so you can't tell for sure if everything you see is 100% real.

This dream x reality talk is also why the red butterflies are an important element. Every time shit is about to hit the fan, a butterfly goes off somewhere. Observe before transformations, or when siblings meet/hug, there's often a butterfly flying. It is either "starting" a dream by arriving or "finishing" it, by going away.
On the first episode, Maria (the woman with the hat) tells Yume to go away before she sees the butterfly. In other words, before a butterfly shows up and sets off one of these "dreams" from the Taoist fable.

I don't care about whether or not they are real or illusions or metaphorical, but the fact is that they are on the screen and you're supposed to know their significance because you're supposedly a Japanese watching a TV show to sell a manga (also in Japanese).

Generally, if a show fails to explain these sort of references, the message is lost and it's the show's fault, not the viewer's. That's why a good show should be enjoyable even if the viewer doesn't understand these references. As argued before, I do like Pupa by itself, but all these hidden subtexts make it even more enjoyable. And I can't blame the show for not explaining these things because a Japanese audience -probably- gets most of these. It's like a Westerner watching a movie where a shady guy is named Judas or Nero - everyone knows what's coming.

The messages on the blackboard, while a bit too abstract to me (who are leaving them there?), do harken back to the mother. She talks about getting hit by her husband as a way to feel awake, alive. So that she doesn't spiral into the madness of the butterflies.
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Lastly, I want to share a few more episode-by-episode thoughts on what might be sometimes a bit of a stretch on my part, but I feel like at least half of these were intentional by the author(s). No idea if these were thought by the studio or by the mangaka, but there is some thought put onto the TITLES of the episodes which often got lost in translation.

Episode 01 羽化 Uka (Sprouting Wings)
Nothing special to comment, the start of it all.
Episode 02 噬螫 Zeiseki (Deep Sting)
Also nothing special, probably about Yume attacking onii-chan.
Episode 03 斑猫 Hanmyou (Tiger Beetle)
This is our first interesting title. The kanji for Tiger Beetle, if read separately, mean "Spotted" and "Cat". If instead of the On'yomi of the kanji (Chinese etymology) you read them as Kun'yomi (Japanese etymology), it is Madara Neko.
That's Maria's servant cat, which is clearly some type of robot with stitches keeping the orange spots sewn to the main body and the eye-camera that films the siblings in the bathroom, relaying the information to Maria.

(Stretch time)
Not only that, but the Tiger Beetle goes by another name in Japanese, Michioshie (道教え)/Michishirube (道導), which basically means "guide, guideline", because these beetles tend to crowd the path where people are walking and when you get close they go flying en masse, "showing the way" to people. This might be related to the scene where Yume is on a crosswalk, lost, while the father tells Utsutsu to abandon Yume, but Utsutsu instead becomes Yume's guide, saying he'll protect her along the way.
Episode 04 蠢動 Shundou (Squirming)
Another definition for "squirming" is mischief. As in something petty done by a lowly being (a worm). Which might represent Utsusu's resistance to his situation, and the killing of all the scientists involved.

And NOW the interesting, if a bit too stretchy, stuff begins. ALL titles starting from here have homonyms. You know how the word "bat" can mean both a flying animal and a club? Or how "knight" and "night" are pronounced the same, meaning that in spoken language it's impossible to tell which one someone is talking about without context?

Japanese has a shitton of such words. Episode 04's "shundou", using a different set of kanji, can be written as 俊童, "precocious child". To me, it ties very well into the theme going on, with the younglings becoming monsters and killing adults/opposing Maria.
Episode 05 蝌蚪 Kato (Tadpole)
An obvious allusion to baby Yume.
But with other kanji (過渡) kato means crossing, transient.
It might be a reference to the mother's limbo, going between "dreams" (nightmares) and "reality", as well as her going back to her husband.
It might instead be about Yume going from unborn menace, a mere bad dream ("Yume") to real, manifested flesh, crossing to this world (which in Japanese can be called, as you might remember, "Utsutsu"). She came to haunt the mother's Utsutsu, meaning both her son and her reality.

In a wild stretch of the imagination, it might also be related to katto, from English "cut", since she shanks the baby in an attempt to get rid of it.
Episode 06 蚕食 Sanshoku (Encroaching)
The meaning encroaching is metaphorical. The kanji are "Silkworm" and "Eat", meaning a silkworm slowly carving its way into a leaf by eating it. That's why it means encroaching, as a metaphor to that motion.
Of course there is no military territory or something being gained here, it's just 3 minutes of onii-chan and munching sounds. A butterfly rests on the wall, blurring the limits of this surreal scene.

HOWEVER, don't let the silkworm kanji distract you. If we replace it with the kanji for 3, we have 三食, also pronounced sanshoku, which means "(the) three daily meals"; breakfast, lunch and dinner.
This is a clever pun, alluding to how Utsutsu is now Yume's sole source of food. She will be eating him every morning, every day, every night. And this is why this scene is 3 minutes long. So you get to appreciate how much Utsutsu is willing to give himself for the sake of his little sister.
And also a good example of why you should watch it with the OP/ED on every episode, so you will actually notice that the ENTIRE episode was dedicated to that. In a stitched version that might slip and the impact is not the same.
Episode 07 抱卵　Houran (Incubation)
Very straight-forward, it's about our pregnant Maria. Who, by the way, is probably named Maria because she is about to give birth to a baby that isn't hers, in a parallel with the Holy Mary.

This might be a stretch, but there's another "houran" in Japanese, 放濫, which is quite obscure. It means selfishness, doing things that are unreasonable. Which reflects very well Maria's character, as she likes to experiment and figure out the world regardless of consequences, doing a bunch of wacky shit.

Speaking of Episode 07, I do wonder if that monster on the wall is the father, it makes some sense. Maybe Maria was his girlfriend once he stopped being with mom. But, more importantly, people seem to be lost at the end: "Where did hat woman go?". I don't think we need her back. She has accomplished her goal of securing a cute little baby demon for herself and has no reason to go after the kids anymore - although she mentions the baby wants to.

The ones who are actually interested in experimenting with the kids further - and painfully - are called "Imari Ishin". Now, this is something I only know because of MAL's character list, but Imari is also Maria's surname (She's actually named Imari Ai, Maria being a nickname derived from that). Probably her dad or something. Ishin includes the kanji for doctor and god 医神, perhaps reinforcing the suggestion of Maria being the Holy Mary.
Episode 08 裸虫 Rachuu (Caterpillar)
I don't know about you, but Caterpillar didn't seem to mean much to me. Until I started looking for hidden puns, then something caught my attention:
Rachuu is written らちゅう, or らち (rachi) +　ゅう (yuu). Do you know what rachi means? It means kidnapping. 拉致
Which perfectly fits the episode's theme.

If we consider that after this episode Yume gets inside of a "pupa" (tied in a room while her brother is tortured) and then finally "molts" into accepting her condition as a monster (dialogue in Episode 11), then her being a caterpillar in this episode might also make sense with some stretching of the imagination. The kanji for rachuu are also "Naked" and "Insect", meaning an insect that has no fur or shell yet, perhaps representing her innocence, still appalled by violence when onii-chan commits it.
Episode 09 展翅 Tenshi (Specimen)
Poorly translated title. More specifically, tenshi means pinning down an insect on a display board, spreading its wings/legs properly for fixation. Which alludes to the experiments being performed on Utsutsu.

Additionally, this one has a very on-the-nose homonym. Anyone who's watched more than one anime has heard the word tenshi before, it means angel (天使).
What exactly it would refer to I can only guess through more stretching, but maybe it's her breaking free to save (like a guardian angel) her brother, or perhaps the fact that she has "wings" (made of monster) when she does so.
Episode 10 蠱毒 Kodoku (Poisoning)
An uncommon term for poisoning, maybe referring to her addiction to human meat.

But, more likely, a pun on the 孤独 kodoku, which means solitude. They're separated from each other and suffering.

Bonus: when Utsutsu collapses, the red butterfly shows up and we see him dreaming of his mother.
Episode 11 蛹化 Youka (Pupation)
To become a pupa. Which is the name of the show, so this is the real "title drop" of the anime. Goal has been reached. And them becoming two to support each other (bear segment) is as stable as it gets, just like a pupa protects the caterpillar (Rachuu). An evolution from the solitude in the previous episode.

As for homonyms, there are two youkas, one is 妖花 (bewitching, enchanting beauty, deceiving charm), and the other is 溶化 (melting).
The former would match Utsutsu's impressions about his sister when she eats, adorable despite her brutal cannibalism; the latter could perhaps be about the same thing, her mellowing out after she's done feeding.
Episode 12 幼生 Yousei (Larva)
This goes back to their larva state (childhood). The kanji are "infancy" and "life", pretty straight-forward.

At this point I'm just looking for homonyms for the sake of completion, and there are MANY words that can be read as yousei in Japanese. One of them, particularly, is 陽性, which means a positive, optimistic attitude towards things.
Which might be expressed by Utsutsu finally getting the prize once he is shown taking matters into his own hands and spinning the wheel. It is not the bear he wanted to give Yume, it is not taking away her curse of being a monster or even running away from the evil dad. But it is something, a simple hairpin, the offering of his own body so Yume doesn't have to hurt others, him serving as a human shield against daddy. He stopped sulking and feeling sorry about what he can NOT do and started doing what is within his reach. And that's enough for Yume; her teddy bear might be torn, but he is still there. (Maybe the big teddy bear represents a decent dad as well.)

Also worthy of mention is the fact that this is the only episode with a clean art style. No watercolor. Everything is solid. Perhaps because the threshold between dream and reality had not been blurred yet. Or perhaps simply to make it stand out. Why not both?

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That covers all episodes. I doubt all of these are correct interpretations, but I'm sure some of them are definitely intentional.

I am not saying anyone should like Pupa "after reading the manual", because a piece should stand by itself without the audience needing external help. Still, I wanted to at least dispel this idea that Pupa is just a completely lazy and braindead show created by throwing blood and incest in a blender.
Even if it's just hinted at here and there, everything points to the central message of the show.
It might even be the case that this is mainly a shock-value kind of story, pulp horror where all they want from you is a reaction, but even then they went the extra mile to add a lot of flavor and lore to it, it was by no means a salad of random ingredients tossed together carelessly. Cheapily, yes, but the attention to these little details indicate to me that this was not a production fiasco like, say, Hametsu no Mars or other similarly VERY POOR shows that people like to equate Pupa to, very unfairly so.

Again, I gave this a 6/10, it's not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. But it was pretty decent. Much ado about nothing, if you ask me.
And I hope that now, knowing all these things I just shared - even the ones that might be mistaken -, you can find new, deeper appreciation for the show.

If anything it deserves cult status, a really interesting piece of media.

In case you've read this far, I'd like to thank you for your patience and I hope it was insightful and meaningful - as meaningful as the analysis of an obscure low-rated one-shot can be. I am sick and tired of the new "essay culture" prevalent on places like Youtube, where you often have hour-long videos that babble on about nothing and you come out of it none the wiser. I would hate to know I had the same effect on other people.
Let me know your opinions on my opinions, if you (dis)agree with my thoughts, if you have any extra details/connections to point out that escaped me. Maybe people who read the manga can comment on how much these things reflect the full work, I don't know.

That's all I had to say. Whew.

CAMPAIGN: If you write an anime review, please make it short.
You're not a writer, Jim, I want meta-information, not a teenager's impression of a clickbait journalist.

Dec 31, 2023 12:33 AM

Homura24

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May 2020

1428

bro fr wrote a whole ass para for pupa😭

Dec 31, 2023 12:55 AM

Zolompie

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Mar 2023

No offense but you need to touch some grass like bro why do you need to tell us this 😭

Dec 31, 2023 2:02 AM

HarusakiYorokobi

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Jan 2021

If I start reading this I'll miss New Year's Eve. 😭

» [kaika - cadode] «
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Dec 31, 2023 3:35 AM

-DxP-

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[Long] Pupa: a solid 6/10

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