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Junk Head is an indie stop-motion animated film created by Yamiken studio, a team comprised of only the director Takahide Hori and animation director Atsuko Miyake. The film follows a rather simple story of a man who's consciousness is transferred into the body of a robot and is sent underground on a mission to locate a mutated creature from that was detected as an anomaly with a reproductive organ.

The film is set in an intricately detailed subterranean industrial complex with an abundance of interesting sci-fi and horror imagery. The art design across the board is inventive and extremely memorable, fans of stuff like Silent ... Hill will likely find stuff right up their alley with these creature designs. There are a number of sequences showcasing the animalistic environment with characters encountering all kinds of dangerous monsters, each with distinct behavior and abilities that were clearly given a great amount of thought. Everything in the world feels slightly grotesque, decrepit and alien, from the character designs to the original language that the characters speak in. Admittedly, this language can feel quite jarring, but I got used to it as the film went on.

This odd language and much of what the film went for was greatly aided by its flexible tone. The film is often pretty tongue in cheek. Phil Teppet's 2021 film Mad God was similarly a stop motion film taking place in a gruesome apocalyptic setting, but felt a bit too relentlessly grotesque with no plot elements or characters I felt I could get invested in. This film, for me, has a much more appealing sense of personality. We have plenty of the eerie, atmospheric and spine chilling scenes, but the film also contains lots of high energy action sequences, fun characters, and actually had a really great sense of humor. Admittedly, the first half of the film feels much less gripping, plot wise, but it eventually picks up and gets to be very entertaining.

This is definitely a film that will appeal first and foremost to those who are into its aesthetic. The story and characters, especially as it goes on, definitely add a lot to the experience, but the film's greatest strengths, for me, do still lie in the textured setting and memorable designs. I definitely recommend more people check this one out, I believe the duo is currently working on a sequel film as well, which I am excited to see.

7/10

Naoko Yamada's ability to purely express emotions through her marriage of audio and visuals is undeniably strong at this point. She seems to understand exactly what type of scene, what movements, and which colors totally encapsulate what she's trying to convey. Garden of Remembrance is a short that completely leans into this style of storytelling. It depicts a girl through her day to day life as we learn that she is grieving the loss of her lover, but there is essentially no dialogue and the whole short is set to music (by Lovely Summer Chan). Despite having some reservations, I definitely enjoyed this and found ... that especially by the end, I appreciated what it was going for quite a bit.

Right from the gate, this short sets itself up to be largely presented through it's imagery, much of which the viewer has to read into themselves. We're immediately met with the image of anemone flowers, which are often symbolic of the loss of a loved one. Yamada often includes the language of flowers in her works but here it's basically a core part of the story. Shots of water are intercut with what seems like a cup of coffee and then a gust of wind (and what I assumed to be the lover's ghost) sweeps from above and into the girl's room through her window. We get a shot from a bird's eye view watching over her.

We watch as the girl goes through the motions of her day to day routine. All of Yamada's characteristic attention to small details are present here. The animation feels alive and believable. We watch her struggle to wake up, brush her teeth and eat breakfast each day. She drinks and plays the guitar and occasionally a few emojis appear on screen. I admittedly found this part to overstay it's welcome a bit. The music is building up and it had me expecting something to happen that would warrant this implied tone, but that doesn't come until much later in the film. With the full context, I can better appreciate what it was going for, but I do feel this first bit could have had a bit more going on.

After noticing a girl with glasses buy anemone flowers the girl goes and buys some as well. As she's painting, she hears a noise in her closet. When she opens it, a flood of memories erupts from inside and sweeps her off her feet. I really liked the visual of these emotions being trapped in her closet as though she had been trying to bottle them up and is now overwhelmed by her memories and feelings. We see shots of her and her lover recontextualizing all of her seemingly mundane acts as things she used to share together with him. They wake up, brush their teeth and eat together. She had been playing his guitar, and so on. She walks across anemone pedals to embrace him. The visuals and music are really evocative and all of the messaging is finally on full display in this sequence. After reconciling with her emotions, the girl mouths along to lyrics of acceptance and saying goodbye to her lover. Finally, we're shown a shot of her entering her apartment accompanied by someone else, likely implying that she has been able to start properly moving on. This whole climactic bit did a great job selling what the short had been going for and left me with a positive impression overall.

There are aspects that weren't so easy for me to get behind. Rather than focusing entirely on her routine, I would've liked to see some indication of the lover character in the first bit, even if not in a way that gives away that he's passed on. I honestly was a bit confused when shots of him started appearing only after halfway through the short and only gathered it was her lover during the flashback sequence. The use of emojis was apparently meant to be the boyfriend's attempts to communicate with the girl but I never felt it was clearly conveyed and was mistaking it for being just an on-the-nose visual of what the girl was thinking and feeling. It wasn't till I read the MAL synopsis, that literally spells out "The emoticon is ME watching over YOU". Similarly, the girl with the glasses is meant to be a childhood friend, which again I only understood after reading the MAL synopsis. There were shots that were, I guess, meant to convey the characters' relationship to each other, but I didn't find that they clearly communicated it, personally. I think that if the film had a few more elements that were tangible and less purely depicted with interpretable imagery, it would've helped to smooth over these bumps that had me a bit confused.

Overall this was a really strong showing of what I believe Naoko Yamada is one of the industry's bests at: pure emotional expression through evocative audio visual presentation. It may not quite hold up to the level of polish that her longer works have, but shares many of the same strengths you would find in those. Definitely worth checking out.

6/10

A manga with a really gripping conceit that unfortunately gets bogged down by a lot of the smaller details that just don't quite add up for me. I ended up feeling less enthusiastic about it as a whole, and more just appreciate certain aspects of it.

I'll start with what I really loved about it. The character art is very Yoshitoshi Abe-esque, which I was really fond of. Honestly from a pure technical level, it might even be better than lots of the stuff he's done and I really hope this artist makes more works in this style. I would happily check out anything they do ... from this point.

The other aspect that really sold me, especially as the story was first revealing it, was the concept of the parasitic, controlled love of the two main characters. The start of this manga feels compelling in some ways, but is not something terribly unique or interesting unless you are super invested in the characters already. The reveal of the parasites re-contextualizes everything that's happened so far and adds much more to it. The existentialist ideas that now lurk in the background of every interaction they've had are pervasive and eerie in a really effective way. Suddenly, the story is taking a very unique approach to the emotional turmoil of these characters.

I was equally impressed with how the reveal played out. I felt that the flashbacks with the professor and his patient slowly uncovering how the parasite behaves was well-handled. Their actions and motivations made sense, and of course, the omnipresence of the parasites in their own minds carried over that level of intrigue I was talking about. The question of what is their true free will and what is being controlled by the parasite is seriously fascinating and it was immersing me into this manga so much by this point.

From here, however, I started to notice more aspects that were really taking away from how I felt the story should have been playing out and was feeling more and more plagued by what seemed like unclear plot decisions. For example, I had expected that this reveal was implying that Izumi knew Kosaka was infected with the parasite, or at least strongly suspected it after seeing his interaction with the cashier. Turns out, Izumi was totally not expecting him to be infected and literally only chose him cause he somehow had dirt on him, since he knew about Kosaka making a virus (which he never explains how he knew by the way). If it had been the way I was assuming at first, I felt that it would make sense. Izumi and Sanagi's grandfather would be trying to further their research on the parasites in a controlled environment by studying exactly how they form connections with other hosts, but instead their motivations turned out to be way more pure, but in turn, way more bizarre. They were actually just trying to have someone become Sanagi's friend so that she'd be more willing to have treatment and try and save herself from the parasite.

Why would anyone think that paying a random, germophobic, 27 year old man to be a 17 year old girl's friend would work out in any way? I mean the question of whether they did connect because of the parasites (and if so to what extent it was and wasn't their own emotions) is meant to be left somewhat open-ended, but regardless it was a miracle that they got paired up. And to pursue this as your plan to get her some friends, let alone WITHOUT the knowledge or even suspicion that Kosaka is a host just seems fucking alien. I'm aware that they tried to pay other people before Kosaka, including some girls her age, but why they would ever turn to this random, grown-ass man who makes viruses and hates germs is just lost on me. I mean, sure, you have dirt on him, but you're paying the people anyways so that doesn't make him any better of a candidate than anyone else. If Sanagi and Kosaka had met at least once on their own, we could say that it was due to the signaling properties of the parasite, and Izumi could have just followed on what seemed like an oddly promising connection they could form (with or without knowledge of Kosaka as a host, he would be valid for trying this). If Izumi knew or suspected Kosaka of being a host, it would make sense for the reasons I named earlier. As it currently stands, there is no comprehensible reason why they would chose Kosaka.

Honestly, even the idea of "pay someone to be her friend" just seems like such a loose, roundabout plan that can go wrong in so many ways, ESPECIALLY considering they believe the real risk of the parasites is them copulating with the ones of another host they've spread to and reaching a number where a human can't stand to live with anymore. If Sanagi was isolated, instead of actively being made to meet new people, her parasites would never have a way to multiply to the point of causing her to un-alive herself (this being based on the knowledge they are working with at this point). So why was this their plan at all?? Couldn't you just start giving her the medication without her realization, instead of trying to "instill in her a will to be cured" since you were so convinced at this point that medication was in fact the cure? They wholistically believed that the suicidal thoughts were cause by the parasites, so I understand the point of saying "someone dealing with these thoughts needs to want the help themselves or it's meaningless" but in their scenario, that wouldn't really play a part in it. They're under the impression that the parasite is causing all those issues in her head. Again, I'm not implying that this would be the actions that would solve the problem, as is revealed in the end, but based on their understanding, their actions would be more along these lines. The plan they did come up with just kinda comes from no logical thread.

Once they do discover that Kosaka is a host, I don't really see why no one was bothering to ask him questions about his experience with the parasite, like when he first started having his germophobic condition. Because Kosaka, as it turns out, has had his parasite since he was 9 YEARS OLD. He's been dealing with it for 18 years and never un-alived himself. I think what the manga is implying with this is that since it's revealed that the parasites eat away at negative emotions, Kosaka's level of anguish was enough for the his amount of parasites to deal with, whereas Sanagi's levels of anguish were enough that she was still feeling depressed and would need more parasites to relieve those feelings. So I don't think it's a flaw that Kosaka has been fine for 18 years (although if there was a flaw there, it would be that this feels like an insane amount of time for him to never have experienced any "signaling"), the flaw is in the fact that neither Izumi nor the grandfather bothered to ask anything about another host subject who could offer them valuable information.

The other aspect that just feels like a huge hole is the research and conclusions done on the parasites themselves. As I said, I was really enjoying the way the first experiments were unfolding. I thought it was realistic for there to be a lot of unknown factors and felt that the studying was well considered. Something that played a large factor in this was that the professor mentions to Izumi's daughter that he has verified that the parasites can be treated with existing medication. This is why he felt comfortable with using his own body to study the parasites and never seemed to treat the test cases with any kind of grave urgency. Taking this at face value, fair enough, it validates the professor's action pretty well. But thinking on this after what happens, the medication had never, in any of the professor's cases so far, completely removed the parasite, it just SEEMED to be working to remove them. The two patients he referred to were never completely treated because they fucked off before he could actually remove the parasite (which he assumed the parasites were making them do to protect themselves).

All of a sudden, the professor doesn't actually have viable proof and kinda seems like total fucking idiot. There are various sicknesses, viruses or diseases that can be treated and improved but are subject to return or worsen given any other factors. Also, the effects or severity of the parasite could very well be more treatable in some people than in others (for instance, the parasites that grew in Kosaka's body ended up creating a variant that was immune to these medical treatments, which really only happens cause there are external factors at play in the parasites formulation which will be different for different people), so why would he take this risk without at the very least seeing anyone make a full recovery? Well the real answer to this is that if anyone had made a full medical recovery from the parasite at this stage in the story, the final reveal would be spoiled, but as far as the logic dictating the actions of the characters this just seems like a major, inexplicable fuck-up.

And speaking of the Kosaka variant parasites, this is probably the outright most egregious plot point for me. I mean, it is definitely contrived that Kosaka HAPPENED to have a variant that is immune to the medication, but as I said earlier the parasite is meant to create new breeds when entering new hosts, so fine, at least there's an explanation for the mini deus ex machina. Way more importantly: why was he losing his symptoms after taking medication? Izumi just describes it as "a lull" and the story leaves it at that. Huh? Can we not unpack that a bit? Is that not just an extremely convenient cop-out? The parasites in Kosaka are immune to medication and yet taking medication relieves him of his symptoms. Why not just keep taking the medication then? Don't you have the best of both worlds, where your parasites will not die off but you can also suppress your germaphobia with the meds? Why is the story implying that his misanthropic symptoms are going to return? Why did they diminish in the first place? Am I seriously meant to just be satisfied with "it was a lul, lol"?

I'm aware that many parts of this story are meant to be allegoric, and while I understand what the conceit is symbolically representing, I also don't think that it's a story where the parasites are not meant to exist in the context of it's world as well. I think the writing is making a clear effort to have the parasites be a realistically explored science fiction concept and for it to follow a set of established rules in the narrative. So although I didn't comment much on the mental illness parallels, it's not because they were lost on me, but because they didn't relate much to my complaints about the characters' actions and established information.

To go back to a big positive and end on a higher note here, I did really enjoy the ending. It made sense to me that the parasites were not the same when transferred to Sanagi because it follows the logic that the parasites are meant to create different variants when entering different hosts. The ambiguous final scene of whether or not she took her own life mirrors the ambiguity that the parasite conceit was adding to all of the character's action in the story. It's a strong final note, even if by this point I was really in my head thinking of all the bits that were pissing me off. Credit where it's deserved, I think this is a great ending.

I honestly wouldn't have felt passionate enough to write about Parasite in Love if not for great decisions that it makes throughout. Honestly at a certain point, I was convinced I was reading something I'd consider a favorite, so when the detractors reared their heads, I was a lot more passionate about them than I otherwise would have been. If anyone feels that I've missed something or interpreted the story differently, I'm totally open to hearing some possible explanations that for these points. I certainly don't think my critiques are definitive, although I made a good effort to dispel my own complaints, because once again, I really wanted to like this more.

Surprised to find that no one has already written a review for this manga. Before I go into some more depth of why I enjoy and recommend this series, here's the short version. It is an episodic style, bombastic and cartoony action series that I find has it's greatest strength in the sheer inventiveness it constantly shows. For anyone looking for a relatively short series with an art style similar to something out of a square enix ps1 game, give this a go, I think it deserves more attention.

I'll go into a little bit of spoiler here but again, it's pretty episodic and not really ... "spoileable", but if you want to go in blind, stop here

Story: 7

The manga follows Jing: The King of Bandits and his partner/weapon bird, Kir. He can supposedly steal anything, and the author takes this to some pretty creative places when coming up with amazing treasures to steal. There's one arc with a giant cloud sculpture, another with a painting that uses every imaginable color, the secret to immortality and many more like this. There is no tight or overarching narrative to speak of in this series, it is pretty strictly "treasure of the week", but I feel that this plays to a great strength of this mangaka's which is again, his creativity. Right from the get go, this world is introduced as incredibly unique and kind of crazy. The character designs range from kingdom hearts characters to crash bandicoot. It immediately makes want to explore the world as much as possible, and that's what we get to do. If anything took me out of this, it's that it sometimes has a strange sense of pacing, to the point of me wondering if I just skipped a page. Sometimes, plot points go by so fast that you can miss them. Ultimately the trade off is a fast paced adventure that feels all the more thrilling. There's even a tournament arc, and it's great, so I'm sure people will love that. The story here just aims to be a fun time, adventuring with a pirate and I think that tone is pretty solid.

Art: 8
I've been kind of talking about the art before getting to this part but to sum it up, it shows great amounts of creativity. There's one scene early on, for example, where the cast finds this ghost pirate ship and they realize that the anchor of the ship is alive and is the guard, so they have to fight it, and it looks really cool. Like some kind of new gen ghost pokemon. Later they find a hidden casino, and they fight a monster who is made out of money and once again it looks like some great monster design out of an old video game. It's really the best comparison I can make for this guy's art, so if that's up your alley, don't sleep on this, you'll have a great time.

Character: 8
The series has a lot of characters who only appear for one arc and then disappear, but Jing and Kir are always around and are pretty entertaining. If anything, I would describe them as "what they need to be and a tiny bit more". Jing himself is a thrill seeking, adventure loving kid with a surprising element of maturity to him as well as some clear moral code despite being a world renowned bandit. It the first chapter some pick pocketer tries to steal all his shit and get dumped on by him, but then he lets him take everything but one of his precious treasures (that connects to his dead mother somehow). He's a pretty "shonen" protagonist and is good for the series for that reason. I think he could have been made to be a lot more of a jerk and I'm glad that isn't the case. He also cannot stop doing one liners and puns, he is that kind of mc. Sometimes they're great though. Kir is his bird/arm canon weapon (again this guy and his video game shit) who is a huge perverted womanizer, and obviously cares deeply for Jing despite almost always sharing witty banter with him. He may be a womanizer but the series is little on actual fanservice. Kir just likes women, they don't make a meal out of it necessarily, and it's in good fun. They make a good pair, though as far as this author's creativity goes, they aren't character types you haven't seen before. But if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Enjoyment/Overall: 7

So once again, the main appeal of this series is all the cool shit you get to see. The fight scenes can occasionally be cluttered (though I blame these tokyopop volumes, give this a collectors edition or something) and the pacing is sometimes too break neck for it's own good. I'm never particularly invested in any one side character's arc but this guy is an author with lots of really cool ideas and he just wanted to show them off, which he did very well. There is a sequel series, which I have not yet read. Form what I can tell it's more of the same, which is welcome. I believe it's on indefinite hiatus, meaning this series probably never gets a real "ending" but again, it's nature makes it pretty unnecessary. Overall, it's a one of a kind, fun pirate story that is relatively short. If any of this intrigues you, I recommend you give it a read.