楳図かずおの呪い

UMEZU KAZUO NO NOROI

OVA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
1
RELEASE
March 1, 1990
LENGTH
43 min

DESCRIPTION

"Do not toy with the supernatural."

Two stories of the consequences that descend upon humans who venture beyond the safe confines of their ordinary worlds.

When a gorgeous girl named Rima transfers into Masami's class, she's not only jealous, but also deathly frightened of her. While the boys in class are tripping all over themselves to get to Rima, Masami's having nightmares of a ghastly visitor and finding scars on her body come morning. She asks a friend to help her get evidence to confirm her suspicions about the new girl. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth far more. The truth can set you free, but it can also be more terrifying than anything you can imagine.

Shy Miko and her more outgoing friend Nanako are enjoying their summer vacation, trying to make the most of their youth. But when horror-movie marathons just aren't thrilling enough, Nanako sets her eyes on a new target: an abandoned mansion at the edge of town, said to be haunted. With two other friends in tow, a reluctant Miko and a gung-ho Nanako enter the mansion. Soon, everything that can go wrong starts going wrong. Only luck or a miracle will allow them manage to escape the mansion with their lives, their sanity, and even their sense of reality.

(Source: Hanako)

CAST

Masami
Naoko Watanabe
Rima Ogawa

EPISODES

Dubbed

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Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO UMEZU KAZUO NO NOROI

MANGA HorrorUmezu Kazuo no Noroi

REVIEWS

TheGruesomeGoblin
80/100
Deliciously pure horror.

The Umezu narrator is not actually voiced by Kazuo Umezu, unfortunately.

The Curse of Kazuo Umezu is a 1990 OVA brought to us by Takahashi Studio. I'm assuming it's an adaptation of two of Kazuo Umezu's stories but I have absolutely no idea which collection they are from.

~~EDIT: There definitely isn't a collection literally titled the same exact thing.~~

EDIT 2: AND IT DEFINITELY DOESN'T SHOW UP IN THE OVA ITSELF IN OVA FORM. HOLY SHOOT I'M A BUFFOON.

Even as one of the more famed horror mangakas and one of the primary inspirations for Junji Ito, I think barely any of Kazuo Umezu's stuff has officially been translated. The Cat-Eyed Boy is available on the Kindle I believe, and The Drifting Classroom got like a complete hardcover treatment just this year.

But beyond that, you're probably going to be looking at out of print stuff from eighteen years ago at exorbitant prices.

Kind of hope after Viz reaches the bottom of the Junji Well, they start further tapping into the Umezu one.

I first started my journey into Umezu with a little short manga called Fourteen. And it ended up being one of the simultaneously strangest yet entertaining reads I've had in quite a long while. It was about a chicken scientist who... actually you know what, let's not get into it again.

Point is, after my incredibly strange introduction to Kazuo Umezu's works, I really wanted more. And then ran into the problem I described before. But I did notice that hey, there's this thirty year old horror OVA with the man's name in it...

~~And also one of the characters is just straight up named Umezu.~~

...and depending on where you're approaching it from, it's pretty good! If you're approaching it from the position of wanting a good, interesting, and well-written plot... well, you're probably going to be disappointed.

But! If you're approaching it from the position of wanting to see a ghost that basically just causes nonsensical and immediate decapitations and the severing of limbs the moment you look at it too long?

Hell yeah, man.

Speaking seriously though... this is actual horror.

Why is the teddy bear bleeding? Because it's fun!

You've got that old horror OST going, you've got a girl whose head like bends back as she turns into a horrible nightmare monster, you've got pointlessly creepy stuff like cuckoo clocks for some reason flooding with blood and I just love all of it.

Though, I guess I should actually talk about the stories themselves...

The first one is about a girl freaking out because she thinks the new girl that joined her class is a vampire and there is literally a scene where she has ~~Umezu-kun~~ one of the boy students set up a videocamera to record what happens when she's asleep and it's just like oh man I remember this it's horror!

"Haha, I sure hope we caught footage of the vampi--OH FUCK"

Definitely liked the first story overall more than the second story. Not that I dislike the second story, but again, why does a ghost staring at you equal random decapitations or limb severings?

While it was a somewhat cool visual at first, the question "but why though?" immediately follows.

Still though, the second story is just a couple girls exploring a haunted house. A haunted house. A horror anime... with a haunted house.

Do you even have any idea how original this concept is???

~~I’m not even being sarcastic. I was absolutely ecstatic pretty much through this whole OVA.~~

Conclusion

It's not for everybody, certainly.

~~Obviously, if you're an Umezu fan I would assume most would consider this an inevitable required watch.~~ Additionally, it’s of course not guaranteed that just because you like horror means you’re gonna like this. I went probably a bit too heavy on that because horror anime is a fucking wasteland. It's just so rare to find completely pure horror.

"Oh, it's a psychological series but with horror elements! Oh, it's a supernatural series but with horror elements! Oh, it's an action series but with horror elements! Oh, it's a mystery series but with horror elements!"

All I want is just the sight of characters just being absolutely horrified/terrified at the sights they're witnessing.

~~And then possibly they end up getting brutally killed.~~ And from this, I got that. And for that, I am deeply thankful.

I give it an 8 out of 10. Thank you, Kazuo Umezu.

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