Review by Dennis D. McDonald

Heaven help me but I’m amused by this profane and grisly comedy/mystery. The story itself is not particularly original: two worlds exist, one squalid urban environment called “The Hole” inhabited by hapless humans who must scratch out meager livings, the other a sprawling metropolis lorded over by sorcerers whose social pecking order is based on magical powers linked to Hell. The two worlds are linked by magical portals.

The story concerns the efforts of one inhabitant of the Hole to solve the mystery of why magic was used to turn his head into a lizard’s while wiping his human memories.

What sets this anime series apart is the splendid rendering of the characters and their bizarre urban environments. You can almost imagine the design committee for the series sitting around a conference table littered with cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and pizza boxes when one MAPPA rep shouts, “Why not flying carpets?” and everyone nods eagerly. So we have flying carpets.

To be sure, these are nasty worlds. Death, beheading, and evisceration are common. But it’s all part of the fun. And if you’re interested in seeing an especially gritty representation of a cartoon series that looks like something by Moebius from his Métal hurlant days, this series is for you.

Review copyright (c) 2020 by Dennis D. McDonald

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