An adult anime for teenage edgelords.
It seems that nearly every time I see a psychological genre anime marketed explicitly towards the seinen crowd, it feels exactly like it was made by 15-year old guys, for 15-year old guys. In other words, they’re basically shows featuring terrible people (predominantly male) doing terrible things, often while being casually misogynistic to boot. Cue graphic violence and the usual ‘deep’ psychological musings in order to come across as cool and mature. For the record, I’m definitely not saying this kind of stuff should be marketed to kids, but I can also never quite get past the fact that titles like Pet – much like those such as Gantz, Inuyashiki, Elfen Lied and Dorei-ku – are about as mature as a teenager standing up and screaming, “Look at me, I’m so edgy and alternative, now check out my dark and gritty storyline about characters being such dicks that you won’t want to root for any of them!”
And that, honestly, encapsulates my feelings about Pet pretty well – so much so, in fact, that I really don’t have much else to say about it. The premise is fine, I guess – lots of mind control going on, so you can bet people will be taken advantage of in a multitude of violent and/or sexually degrading ways over the course of the series. One episode was more than enough to prove that it’s not my cup of tea, especially since it looks rather cheaply-produced as well. I’m not saying it’s the worst thing you’ll watch this season, but I’m honestly surprised that this is something director Oomori Takahiro would want to attach his name to.
Rating: 4/10
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I should maybe have seen the “twist” coming, but I didn’t. It must be because my reaction to it was a… fatigued sigh. I liked the scene where the long haired guy met the overwhelmed boy, and I was sort of clinging to that feeling, I think. Even then, I couldn’t decide whether the show was trying to be gay or homophobe – maybe it’s both? The show gets one more episode from me, but it’s on shaky ground. I basically agree with everything you say, but hope dies last (you know, the fool in me who didn’t see the twist coming).
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I don’t think the show was trying to be anything but cool – and unfortunately failed miserably. Let me know how that second episode goes though. Good luck!
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The second episode was a little better, going back and reframing things a little, but not making that much of a difference. Episode 3 was when I quit, after one of our main characters messed with a woman’s mind just because we was mopey, and a brutal hitman had a delusional-mother backstory (she raised him as a girl). The shows just always low-key annoying, so when these sort of things happen they’re just a turn-off. It was a good idea to get out at episode one.
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Fair enough. Thanks for letting me know.
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