Corpse Party: Tortured Souls

I was incredibly late to the party for this one. I managed to get my hands on this and then watched two episodes and then before I knew it we were in a new year and months had flown by. So after going through my folder of what I still need to watch I braced myself and figured it would not take to long to get through this since it has such few episodes. So with out further delay, here is my review.

• Genre: Horror, Mystery, Tragedy
• Number of Episodes: 4 +1 OVA
• Duration to watch all episodes: +/- 1 hour 20 min
• Season: 1
• Age restriction: R – 17+ (violence & profanity)
• Release date: July 2013
• Animation Studio: Asread
• Kanji: コープスパーティー：拷問された魂

About:

A small group of high school students and a teacher preform a ritual to remain friends forever after a school festival. The charm used a small paper doll which at the end they tore apart. Each needs to keep their piece and as long as they do they will remain friends forever. However something went horribly wrong. Unknown to them, they have just taken part in a ritual that has sent them to Heavenly Host Academy—an elementary school that was destroyed years ago after a series of gruesome murders took place, a school that rests under the foundation of their very own Kisaragi Academy. Now the group are separated and trapped in an alternate dimension with vengeful ghosts of the past, the students must work together to escape—or join the spirits of the damned forever.

My Thoughts:

As mentioned above I finally got around to watching this, yippee! What I did not mention however was that as I watched this I was surrounded by my mother, father, brother and boyfriend as we were all in the same room. To which all four of them were not impressed with me watching this. The sounds were graphic which kept distracting them. So to me that means that the sound work for this was actually done really well, as most anime I watch does not really phase them. My mother is also squeamish and was not impressed as whenever my brother of boyfriend peaked at my screen they started describing the corpses and ghosts that they saw. Yeah, the art work is really graphic and it is dark. It even got the attention of my father. This is one of those anime that perfectly defend the ‘anime is not for kids’ argument.

The characters were done really well and were nicely diverse with each one handling the situation differently. With each display of their coping mechanism I was left wondering how I myself would have coped in that situation. Some of the death scenes were incredibly graphic where others were left to your imagination.

Some of the deaths I found really pointless and could have been avoided. Then there was one or two issues with the actual plot itself. Other than that the story was paced well with no ‘dead/slow’ scenes which kept up the tension. The explanations were done well with some things and with others (a.k.a the plot issues) there were unresolved or unanswered issues.

“I’ve seen some messed up shit but that takes the cake” – Brandon (My brother)

I will now explain why the deaths were pointless and the really massive plot confusion, so there will be spoilers. You have been warned.

This left an impression and was good for only being 4 episodes.  However the plot issue ruins the entire anime and story. The main issue starts with the fact that the only survivor of the incident (the teacher killing the children) is part of the ghost children in the ‘Heavenly Host Academy’. How is she a ghost there? Think about it, she survived the incident so she should by all rights not be able to be there. Which the group themselves do question. Small mercies. Plus technically she should have at least aged, so the fact that she is a child still is confusing.

Then as if to slightly answer that puzzling point it is revealed that Sachiko is actually the murderer and not the teacher. Okay so this did not really surprise me as I had already had my doubts and suspicions. Yet it still does not clearly explain why or how she is there since she was the ‘survivor’ and thus had not died in the incident. Plus I do not see her having committed suicide.

Then another curve ball is thrown in as it is revealed that she was killed by the school principle after he had tried to rape her  mother and accidentally killed. Witnessing her mother’s death the principle decided to kill her to cover his tracks. He became deranged and cut out her tongues which led to the obsession with removing the tongues. So by looking at that, Sachiko was in fact the first child killed. Then dead, she killed another 3 students but was the only survivor. Survivor itself implies that she had been found alive after the incident. Which was shown to be impossible as the principle had buried her and later cut out her tongue and repeatedly stabbed her with the scissors.

Am I the only one confused by this? If it makes sense to you please explain it to me. The only way I can try wrap my head around it is if the newspaper article that everyone had referred to and relied on was fabricated to throw off the trail of what really happened.

Overall it was good if you are looking for something short and full of gore. I often wondered who would make it out alive and I was surprised by who did.  Also all of the characters I really liked, died…typical.