(1970)
Overall: GOOD
While he never indulged faithfully in the horror genre, surrealist independent animator pioneer Yoji Kuri's work would occasionally feature macabre visuals to compliment his darkly comedic style. His first film of the 1970s The Bathroom is a quintessential, counter-culture flavored bit of pretentiousness, but also one that is in on its own joke. It is a series of random, stop-motion set pieces that mixes animation with live actors and props. Most of it takes place in a single living room, (not a bathroom, oddly enough), except for a short detour to an art museum full of ass and leg statues flipped upside down, which eventually find themselves back to the living room with a brass instrument simulating flatulence. Do not think about it too much.
(1972)
Overall: GOOD
Back to his traditional though primitive animation template, Yoji Kuri's The Midnight Parasites, (Kiseichuu no Ichiya), is a loose, surreal nod to Dutch/Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. For roughly ten minutes, a bunch of abnormal drawings devour and then defecate gold or something and if they are not doing that, things are coming out of or entering their bodies in some other way or another. The synthesizer score by Kaoru Tomita is more eerie than the visuals which are just positively weird, though they both assuredly enhance each other. Though it grows a bit tiresome by the time a few minutes are left, overall it is pretty agreeable, avant-cinema.
(1977)
Overall: GOOD
The final work from Yoji Kuri before retiring from commercial filmmaking to become a teacher at Laputa Art Animation School is unmistakably a rather silly one. Manga emphasizes the artist's juvenile style front and center and is nothing more than a handful of playful sight gags, each vignette given its own title. Some are more amusing than others with the book-ending chapters "The Strange Sound" and "The Door" providing the most chuckles. The latter of those also serves as the most satisfyingly morbid. Kuri's drawing style here is so crude that it is unassumingly charming and once again, his wit is pretty grim. This is a good thing as each of these traits on their own would not be quite as enjoyable without the other.
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